The Asphalt Art Initiative will award 10 small or mid-sized cities with grants of up to $25,000 to create colorful murals on streets, intersections, and crosswalks, or vertical surfaces of transportation infrastructure like utility boxes, traffic barriers, and highway underpasses. “Most of the time these projects are used as a relatively inexpensive and quick way to either make streets safer or to reallocate space away from cars and for people.” – Curbed
Category: visual
A Clickbait List Of America’s Most Interesting Museum Building Designs State-By-State
We admit, this is just museum building porn, but we love looking at beautiful buildings, and Architectural Digest has compiled a list of coolest-looking museums in each state in America. – Architectural Digest
They’ve Discovered Another Problem At The Rothko Chapel, So Its Reopening Will Be Delayed
“When construction crews dismantled the chapel’s acoustical ceiling tiles this summer to prepare the building for a new skylight, they found the concrete support walls were built without steel reinforcement.” That was permissible back in 1970, when the chapel was built, but it won’t do in today’s Houston, a city ever more vulnerable to ever more powerful hurricanes. Steel rebar reinforcements are being added to all the walls. – Houston Chronicle
Did They Just Discover A Portrait Of Machiavelli Painted By Leonardo Da Vinci?
“An unsigned painting of an unidentified bald man with a beard has aroused excitement among historians and art buffs after lying largely unnoticed in the collection of a historic chateau in central France for decades.” That chateau belonged to the renowned diplomat Talleyrand, and a document signed by his chamberlain is what set off all the fuss. – Yahoo! (AFP)
Mid-Century Classic House Lost In Getty Fire
Southern California architectural historian Alan Hess called it a “real loss to the architectural heritage of Los Angeles.” “It was an early Ellwood design, but demonstrated all his distinctive and influential ways of interpreting modernism,” he said. “Though it remains in photographs, the loss of the actual building to experience makes us poorer.” – LA Curbed
The Met Museum Attracts A Million People To Its Events Each Year. That’s Changing The Museum
Sandra Jackson-Dumont: “I’m trying to move the idea away from people being visitors to the museum to being users. You to go to a library to use it, right? You’re not a visitor to the library. I’ve been talking about how can we make this place the extension of what people do in their daily lives.” – ShondaLand
Getty Museum Safe From Fire, But Will Stay Closed Through Friday
The Getty is still safe and secure, representatives said. But the fire, which has burned more than 650 acres and prompted mass evacuations, was only 15% contained Tuesday afternoon, and the National Weather Service said winds topping 80 mph could sweep over the region through Thursday evening. – Los Angeles Times
13-Year, $90M Legal Battle Over Art And Cardboard Is Now Over
“The case was brought by the paintings’ owners, Stanley and Gail Hollander, in 2007. They sought more than $90m in damages in connection with a claim for alleged loss in value on the [Martin Kippenberger triptych] Copa III, Copa IV and Copa IX (1986) after damage caused by a handling hiccup. After a three-week trial by jury and millions spent in legal fees, Gail Hollander (Stanley died in 2016) received just $19,500, their claim undone by a curious restoration of the paintings’ frames.” – The Art Newspaper
Desert X Was A Promising Idea, But It Has Compromised Itself By Working With/In Saudi Arabia
In Saudi Arabia apostasy is punishable by death. Unless artists are willing to make their host’s state control of expression an explicit subject of their work, those who participate cannot escape compromise from the polluted context.” – Los Angeles Times
PS1: How An Abandoned School In A Gritty Queens Neighborhood Became MoMA’s Mecca For New Art
“Around 1975, the art curator Alanna Heiss came across a hulking dilapidated schoolhouse in Long Island City during one of her scoping expeditions for exhibit spaces. … Heiss, who came to New York City in the late 1960s, had a reputation for transforming old and funky spaces into dramatic staging grounds for contemporary and experimental art.” And with this one, she outdid herself. – Gothamist