The artist/architect, whose parents survived the Holocaust (though more than a dozen aunts, uncles and cousins did not), talks to Tim Teeman about Through the Lens of Faith: Auschwitz, an installation he opens this summer at the death camp-turned-museum and his work at the Ground Zero site in New York. – The Daily Beast
Category: visual
San Francisco Museums Offer Free Admission This Summer To All City Residents Receiving Public Assistance
“The program,” called San Francisco Museums for All and involving 15 institutions, “will run June 1 to September 2, with no limit to the number of institutions or times eligible participants can visit.” – Hyperallergic
Is Koons’ “Rabbit” Worth $91 Million? Value Isn’t Measured In Cash
Andrea Scott: “It became an icon of eighties excess (and, thus, of white, male privilege): fuck like bunnies, make more money, the one with the most toys wins. It was an instant classic worthy of the oxymoron, as weightless as Andy Warhol’s shiny silver clouds of inflated Mylar and as radical as Constantin Brancusi’s polished-bronze ‘Bird in Space’.” – The New Yorker
No One Can See Or Touch These Objects But Ordained Ethiopian Priests. The British Museum *Might* Take Them Out Of Storage And Loan Them To Ethiopia
The objects are called tabots, they’re plaques meant to respresent the Ark of the Covenant, and their presence is what makes an Ethiopian church a sacred space. The British Museum has 11 of them, most of them looted by soldiers after the 1868 Battle of Maqdala; since no layperson may see them (including museum curators), they’re kept in a locked basement. The government of Ethiopia has requested their return; a spokesperson says “the suggestion of a long-term loan of the tabots may be discussed.” – The Art Newspaper
For The First Time, The Met Museum Will Put Sculpture In The Sculpture Niches In Its Façade
Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu is casting works to be displayed in the empty niches this fall, while Cree Canadian artist Kent Monkman is creating large-scale site-specific paintings for the museum’s Great Hall. (Meanwhile, the museum’s board presented the first balanced budget in three years.) – The Art Newspaper
Nôtre-Dame’s Walls Are So Unstable That A Strong Gale Could Knock Them Over: Study
“A mechanical engineer at the University of Versailles has modelled the engineering of the structure and shown that the walls of Nôtre-Dame could collapse under the pressure of wind speeds higher than 90km per hour, while before the fire they could withstand winds of up to 220km per hour.” – The Art Newspaper
One Of The World’s Great Collections Of Soviet Avant-Garde Art, All Saved From Stalin, Is In Deepest Uzbekistan
And “deepest” doesn’t mean Tashkent, Samarkand, or the other Silk Road cities visited by tourists; this is in far-off Nukus, near the now-dead Aral Sea. Yet this distance from Soviet power centers is the reason an ex-electrician could amass the trove of once-forbidden art at the Savitsky Museum. – The Guardian
Upon Further Consideration: Maybe New Plans For LACMA Aren’t So Bad
Justin Davidson: “I, too, joined the scoffer’s chorus when the latest designs emerged in March, but the longer I’ve spent studying these paltry materials and pacing the site, the more promise I feel the project has.” – New York Magazine
How Art Became Prestige Currency For The Rich
Michael Shnayerson’s new book, Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art argues that contemporary art, once a thing artists made and dealers tried (unsuccessfully) to sell, has become a form of fiat currency for the very rich. – Bloomberg
Feds Will Retry Guy Who Broke Thumb Off Ancient Chinese Terra Cotta Warrior
“Prosecutors told a judge Thursday that they intend to retry Michael Rohana, 25, on charges of theft and concealment of an object of cultural heritage. Their decision comes a month after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict after a weeklong trial, stymied by questions of whether he had been appropriately charged.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer