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What Does It Mean To Put Your Community At The Heart Of Arts Institution Decisions?

New Art Exchange is one of just two cultural institutions in Britain – the other being Birmingham Museums Trust – that have put randomly selected members of the public at the heart of their decision making. The movement seems to be growing. - Apollo

Newly-Discovered John Singer Sargent Portrait On View At Paris’s Musée d’Orsay

The striking 1882 portrait Madame O’Connor reveals how Sargent was already experimenting with some of the same styling ideas that would go on to define his most notorious work, Madame X. - Artnet

Making The Case For Fra Angelico

“Fra Angelico,” which opens Friday and runs through Jan. 25, is one of the most anticipated exhibitions of the year. Bringing together more than 140 works in two venues, it hopes to cement Fra Angelico’s reputation as an A-list Renaissance master. - The New York Times

How Architects Are Using AI To Transform The Creative Process

“Instead of having to go build a prototype physically or a model room, you can take people on this journey and then make the decisions on what to tap left or tack right on before investing heavily in physical architecture. It also changes the role of the architect and the designer in the process. - Fortune

A Donald Trump-And-Jeffrey Epstein Statue Appears On, And Disappears From, DC’s National Mall

“The bronze-painted installation, titled Best Friends Forever, depicts the two men smiling at each other, each with an arm and leg raised as if in mid-frolic. 'In Honor of Friendship Month, we celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his 'closest friend,' Jeffrey Epstein,' reads the plaque.” - NPR

What Happens When You Spend Three Hours Staring At A Painting

This exercise in what she calls immersive attention has remained a core element of Jennifer Roberts’s art history teaching for more than a decade, despite the ever-increasing amount of distractive pressures that smartphones, social media and now A.I. heap on students’ minds. - The New York Times

Are We At A Turning Point For Museums?

 “The general tone is concern and uncertainty. I’m not sure anyone feels like they have a clear road map to sustainability.” - Artnet

What’s Maurizio Cattelan Up To Now? A Scavenger Hunt!

The prankster artist known for the solid-gold toilet (titled America) and the banana-taped-to-the-wall (Comedian) will have participants search for copies of his new piece We Are the Revolution (an effigy of himself nailed up by the collar) in market stalls, bodegas and other spots in New York, London, and Amsterdam. - ARTnews

How Art Has Historically Depicted Aging

Physical signs of aging — baldness, wrinkles, stooped postures — first figured prominently in Roman portraiture in the 4th century BCE, but old age and its representations have often been pushed to the margins. - Hyperallergic

Citizen Historians Are Documenting The Smithsonian Before It Changes

"We came up with this idea to call for volunteers to go out and, in a systematic way, go exhibit by exhibit, room by room, hall by hall, museum by museum, and take pictures simply of what's up there now and what's being said now." - NPR

Bad Architecture Has Made Downtown Brooklyn “The Olive Garden of New York Real Estate”

Justin Davidson: “Two decades ago, Downtown Brooklyn was well connected but underpopulated. ... It’s hard to believe how thoroughly and quickly the skyline has been remade in that time — and how shoddily. … Almost all the developers who built it out opted for a style you might call Consensus Clunkism.” - Curbed (MSN)

Preserving Digital Artworks From Deterioration And Obsolescence

“What if … you knew this object was doomed to stutter, glitch, or rot, turning from new to old in a matter of years? ... This problem has haunted new media art ... for decades. New media art dealer Kelani Nichole thinks she may have found a fix.” - ARTnews

What Happens To Artists’ Studios After They Die?

If their heirs or estate is lucky, there’s enough money to simply keep the studio as is. “In Europe these spaces are often accessible landmarks,” but in the U.S., they’re more likely private - and accessible to family, staff, and a very few scholars. - The New York Times

The Personal Piñata Makers Of Minneapolis

It’s a big business - and it changes with the trends of the moment. "Some local vendors are selling Labubu-shaped piñatas, cashing in on the demand for the popular collectable toy.” - Sahan Journal

Are Horses Or Kisses Harder To Animate?

“Objectively speaking, horses, especially animating horses, 'is a nightmare’ for artists. ‘Famously horrible,’ even.” On the other hand, people really object to a badly drawn and animated kiss. - Aftermath

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