Ahdaf Soueif: “Public cultural institutions have a responsibility: not only a professional one towards their work, but a moral one in the way they position themselves in relation to ethical and political questions. The world is caught up in battles over climate change, vicious and widening inequality, the residual heritage of colonialism, questions of democracy, citizenship and human rights. On all these issues the museum needs to take a clear ethical position.” London Review of Books
Category: visual
The World’s Latest New Opera House – In Hangzhou
“There is a competition amongst Chinese cities to create new destinations, each with their iconic cultural landmarks,” said Claude Godefroy, design director at Henning Larsen’s Hong Kong office. – dezeen
Just Moving Mona Lisa From One Room At The Louvre To Another Is A Tricky Matter
It’s really no more difficult than moving any other painting its size, but even so, the process involves careful scheduling and a dry run with a dummy painting. – BBC
Report: Notre Dame Was Much Closer To Collapsing Than Has Been Reported
Some of what went wrong that night has been reported in the French news media, including Le Monde and Le Canard Enchaîné. Now, The New York Times has conducted scores of interviews and reviewed hundreds of documents to reconstruct the missteps and how Notre-Dame was saved in the first four critical hours. – The New York Times
Richmond’s Institute For Contemporary Art, Only A Year Old, Lays Off More Than A Fifth Of Its Staff
“Six full-time employees out of 27 are having their positions eliminated as a result of a reorganization, said Dominic Willsdon, executive director of the ICA. … The non-collecting contemporary art museum at Virginia Commonwealth University opened in April 2018 after four years of construction and roughly 15 years of planning.” And ICA has had staffing issues ever since. – Richmond Times-Dispatch
A Look Inside The Ruins Of Notre Dame
The man responsible for overseeing the reconstruction of Notre-Dame says the risks of a catastrophic collapse are small but that the true extent of the damage will not be known until at least the end of the year. Until then, it will remain a triage site. – Time
A Huge Illicit Antiquities Market Hiding In Plain Sight On Facebook
“Last month, the ATHAR Project published an important report on West Asian antiquities trafficking taking place more or less out in the open — on Facebook. … The report, ‘Facebook’s Black Market in Antiquities: Trafficking, Terrorism, and War Crimes,’ published in June, is the result of nearly two years of research.” – Hyperallergic
Egypt Reopens 4,600-Year-Old ‘Bent’ Pyramid To Public After 54 Years
“The 101m-high structure, in the Dahshur royal necropolis, just south of Cairo, is one of two built for Sneferu, the pharaoh who founded the Fourth Dynasty. Tourists will be allowed inside the ancient structure after archaeologists found ‘hidden tombs’ containing mummies, masks and tools.” – The Independent (UK)
Should The Roosevelt Statue In Front Of The American Museum Of Natural History Come Down? The Museum Asks Visitors
“Addressing the Statue,” with an accompanying video and website, examines various aspects of the monument and the president it memorializes. It explores the history of the statue’s design and installation, who the men at the bottom of the statue may represent and Roosevelt’s own racism. The museum examines its own complicity at points, too, with references in the video to its exhibitions on eugenics in the early 20th century. – The New York Times
25 Works Of Art That Define The Current Age? (A Discussion)
Naturally, when re-evaluating the canon of the last five decades, there were notable omissions. The group failed to name many artists who most certainly had an impact on how we view art today: Bigger names of recent Museum of Modern Art retrospectives, internationally acclaimed artists and high earners on the secondary market were largely excluded. Few paintings were singled out; land art was almost entirely absent, as were, to name just a few more categories, works on paper, sculpture, photography, fiber arts and outsider art. – The New York Times