Among the changes: “Revamping the museum’s basic storytelling tools: almost 40,000 banners, wall text, signs and symbols that now explain its treasures in French. The plan is to make them more readable and concise, in English and Spanish for the vast majority of visitors searching for cloakrooms or the Mona Lisa in the sprawl of a museum that dates to 1190, when it was a fortress for King Philippe II.”
Category: visual
The Pressure Mounts For Museums To Return ‘Stolen’ Objects
“Dubious purchases had been made for years by Western museums, but the practice is now widely considered to be immoral. The prevailing wisdom today is that illegal excavations and trade in archeological objects is destroying our world cultural heritage.”
Uzbek Museum Sold Off All Its Major Art And Replaced It With Copies
“The chief curator of the Uzbek State Arts Museum, Mirfayz Usmonov, received a nine-year sentence and two other museum staff received eight years each, the Huquq newspaper reported.”
Museums Are Set To Become Downright Creepers (In An Attempt To Collect Data)
“A team of experts at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum searched for hidden spots in the rotunda to conceal tiny electronic transmitters. The devices will enable the museum to send messages about artworks to visitors via their smartphones while at the same time collect details about the comings and goings of those guests.”
How Los Angeles Became A Gallery Force In The Art World
“‘Regen Projects was the point of rendezvous,’ [MoCA director Philip Vergne] says. ‘You would go, you would have a drink, you would talk. It’s a gallery made by the artists. There is a whole network of relationships around it, a real communality.'”
Maps Show Damage To Cultural Heritage In Syria
“The exact numbers still need to be validated on the ground, but the maps confirm the impression of devastation. Its analyses have “revealed a total of 13,778 affected structures in Homs, 8,510 in Aleppo, 5,233 in Hama, 3,112 in Deir Ez Zor, 467 in Ar Raqqa, and 351 in Daraa.”
American Museum Of Natural History To Add New Science Center
“[The] sprawling hodgepodge of a complex occupying nearly four city blocks [in Manhattan] is planning another major transformation … a $325 million, six-story addition designed to foster the institution’s expanding role as a center for scientific research and education.”
Germany Plans New, Tighter Regulations On Art And Antiquities Trade
“In the future, anyone who imports antiquities into Germany will need for each piece a valid export permit from the land of origin, which is to be presented when the object enters the country.”
The Reinvented Cooper Hewitt Museum
“After a three-year, $81 million renovation, during which the museum was closed to the public, a reinvigorated Cooper Hewitt is set to reopen. The 1902 mansion that was once Andrew Carnegie ’s home now has 60% more gallery space, interactive elements to highlight its collection, and free access to its cafe and garden starting at 7:30 a.m. daily.”
Ten Important Things Happened At Art Basel Miami Beach This Year
From the debut of one museum and reinvention of another, to the new prominence of certain artists and dealers, to the triumph of dance, to the night when supposedly superficial Miamians found their outrage …