Category: visual

There’s a very strict pecking order for art asks, of course. It’s kind of a big job, especially with a new government. “This week, the climate and humidity-controlled store room in the bowels of the building has been a frenzy of activity as the department gears up to adorn the walls of the 46th parliament.” – The Guardian (UK)

There are two ways to do become a stonecarver in France – travel around to different work sites, apprenticing, or get a degree (the latter is less “mythic” and somewhat more friendly to women). No matter what President Macron says about restoring Notre Dame in five years, they know they’ll be needed for decades to come. – NPR

The government of Germany is now – yes, many years after the 1945 looting of art in Munich – making some attempts to recover the stolen and re-stolen art. “It is belatedly reporting the 1945 thefts, painting by painting, to Interpol and to the German Federal Criminal Police Office, and is also listing them on the Art Loss Register and lostart.de, two databases of missing art.” – The New York Times

One of the artists wrote to Hyperallergic, “As a mother to a 2-year-old daughter, it terrifies me that my work is currently part of a platform that is now strongly associated with Kanders’ teargas-producing company Safariland. … I have recently taken her to several demonstrations and that further heightened my awareness of the situation. I do not want her to grow up in a world where free and peaceful expression is countered with means that have left people injured and dead.” – Hyperallergic

It’s not the tower’s unpopularity that’s a surprise. The flashy but essentially functionless concept has largely been greeted with publicridicule since being unveiled last year. It’s that the mayor has used his discretionary powers to cancel it. – CityLab

It survived the Soviet Union, changes in taste, the rise of cheap knockoffs and fakes. But the modern world might prove too much. – The New York Times

“In a lawsuit filed this week in New York State Supreme Court, Manhattan collector Stuart Pivar, a one-time friend of Andy Warhol, says he was swindled out of a 1920 cast of the sculpture [Mademoiselle Pogany II] by John H. McFadden, a Philadelphia lawyer, arts patron, and scion of a prominent Main Line family.” As Pivar puts it, “Philadelphia lawyer hornswoggles savvy New York collector out of $100 million. That’s my story.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

Cost savings may have been a motivating factor for the purchase. As cathedrals go, the diocese picked it up for a song, just $57.5 million. Some see the deal as an act of architectural preservation, if not devotion. – Washington Post

“Starting in April, it took 18 workers 25 days to install more than 250 priceless pieces in ‘The Life of Animals in Japanese Art,’ the National Gallery of Art’s summer exhibition that has delighted visitors and drawn critical raves. But two weeks ago, about halfway through its 11-week run, the museum gave much of it a makeover. On purpose.” – The Washington Post

The move follows a widely publicized protest PAIN Sackler held together with the French group Aides Paris outside the Louvre. On July 1, the activists gathered outside the museum’s central pyramid to demand the removal of the Sackler name from 12 rooms in the Sackler Wing of Oriental Antiquities, previously named the Cour Carrée Wing of Antiquities. – Hyperallergic