Category: visual

“One of Africa’s pre-colonial treasures, the Mapungubwe gold collection, discovered in the 1930s near what is now the South Africa-Zimbabwe border, will take pride of place in … the new 280m rand ($19.7m) Javett Art Centre.” — The Art Newspaper

The rise of Taipei, a realignment in New York, Saudi money… the art world has never been so internationally dispersed… – Artsy

Last month, an 18-year-old allegedly ran through the museum’s “Stampede: Animals in Art” exhibit, knocking over a display case and smashing centuries-old sculptures and objects from China and the Mayan Empire. Fortunately, the museum has announced that almost everything he broke can be repaired and the financial hit taken by the museum will be much lower than feared. — Denver Post

“The scale of artifacts in question is staggering. Up to 95 percent of Africa’s cultural heritage is held outside Africa by major museums. France alone holds 90,000 sub-Saharan African objects in its museums.” — The New York Times

The organization — called Aliph, based in Geneva, chaired by billionaire Thomas Kaplan, and funded with $60 million so far — will work on restoring the museum in Mosul and the fourth-century Mar Behnam monastery in Iraq, both wrecked by ISIS, and the 15th-century Askia tomb, a victim of Boko Haram, in the Malian city of Gao. — The Art Newspaper

“After confiding in just 20 trusted people of his suspicion that a painting in his church was a lost masterpiece, a priest in the small Flemish town of Zele, 45 miles north of Brussels, has had to call in the local police over its sudden disappearance. …The work, depicting Mary, Joseph and a sleeping baby Jesus, was due to be assessed within days by a respected Michelangelo expert.” — The Guardian

The rapper decided to donate the money after making what he called an “art pilgrimage” last month to see Turrell’s Roden Crater in Arizona’s Painted Desert. Turrell has been working on the project since 1977. — The Art Newspaper

Jorge M. Pérez, the real estate developer whose lead gift for a new building inspired the renaming of what is now the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), has endowed the $50,000 Jorge and Darlene Pérez Prize, an unrestricted award to a living artist selected by PAMM. An additional grant of $25,000 will go to a young alumnus of the National YoungArts Foundation in Miami. — Artnet

“Hundreds of Christians protested outside the Haifa Museum of Art in Israel on Friday against Jani Leinonen’s McJesus sculpture of a crucified Ronald McDonald, conflating the American fast-food chain with the crucifixion. Yet the Finnish artist insists that he requested the work be removed … last September and that it is on display against his wishes.” — The Art Newspaper

The stolen silkscreen was old enough that concerns about it being used once again to make new prints are nonexistent. But as a relic of a those heady, prolific Factory days when Warhol and his assistants were creating the modern Pop Art movement along with a whole bouquet of Flowers is enormous. – The Daily Beast