Or so says the director of an arts production company in the UK. “It’s a brave new world out there, and we’re all going to have to adapt. There are no limits to what our artists, technicians, actors, creators, musicians, dancers and designers can imagine to bring back live outdoor experiences for audiences stupefied by the isolation of the omnipresent screen.” – The Guardian (UK)
Category: visual
University Of Oregon Library Says It Will Cover ‘Oppressive’ Murals
The murals were, as one versed in the history of white supremacist rhetoric in the U.S. might guess, created in the 1930s. In one, “Development of the Sciences by artist Albert C. Runquist, white researchers are on the top level, while Indigenous people are on the bottom, using basic stone tools.” Another refers to white people “preserving our racial heritage.” – KLCC (Oregon)
The Robert E. Lee Statue At The U.S. Capitol May Move To A Virginia Museum
Sure, one might wonder why one of the United States’s greatest traitors has a statue in the United States Capitol Building, but that’s a long (racist) story. In any case, it’s time for the statue to leave. “The recommendation to move the Confederate general’s monument to the [Virginia Museum of History and Culture] was made unanimously by the Commission for Historical Statues in the United States Capitol during a meeting on August 7.” – Hyperallergic
Buckingham Palace’s Private Art Collection Is Going On Display For The First (And Perhaps Only) Time Ever
Talk about your unprecedented times. Buckingham Palace needs a plumbing update, so the paintings, including Vermeer’s The Music Lesson and two Rembrandts, have to find a temporary home, and the Queen’s surveyor sounds thrilled about it: “In a way, we’re obliged to do it. … We’ve got to get them out of the picture gallery for the building work.” – The Guardian (UK)
As Boston’s Art Museums Reopen, There’s A Sense Of Hope
During the height of the first wave of the coronavirus, it seemed this day would never come. Now, “it’s odd how the surreal can become de rigueur. At the Gardner I barely noticed the masks, the arrows on the floor, the laminated signs tacked virtually everywhere.” – The Boston Globe
New VR Experience Takes You Inside Notre Dame Before And After The Fire
Rebuilding Notre-Dame begins by recounting the history of the gothic cathedral with close-ups of its gargoyles, bells and sacristy alongside the rector Patrick Chauvet talking about his sense of vocation. This footage was made three months prior to the fire for a Targo documentary on Chauvet. The ensuing scenes include drone images of the cathedral’s blazing fire, of crowds of shocked onlookers and of firemen struggling to extinguish the flames, followed by interviews with Chauvet, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, who is charge of the cathedral’s reconstruction, and Paris’s mayor Anne Hidalgo. – The Art Newspaper
New Book Traces Europe’s Great Buildings Back To Far East
Given their prevalence in the great cathedrals of Europe, it is easy to imagine that pointed stone arches and soaring ribbed vaults are Christian in origin. But the former dates back to a seventh-century Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, while the latter began in a 10th-century mosque in Andalucia, Spain. In fact, that first known example of ribbed vaulting is still standing. – The Guardian
‘Literally Melting’: Medieval Buildings Of Yemen’s Capital Are Collapsing In Rain And Floods
The multistory, ochre-and-white mud-brick houses in the UNESCO-listed old city of Sanaa had already been weakened by bombs and artillery during Yemen’s six-years-and-counting civil war. But this year’s monsoon season, the rainiest in recent memory, is seeing some of those buildings simply fall to pieces. – France24 (AFP)
Museum Of The Bible In Talks With Iraq Over Collection Items That May Have Been Looted
“While a final agreement is still pending, the Iraqi government has reportedly consented to a $15 million settlement over 4,000 disputed antiquities in the Museum of the Bible’s collection, which have been handed over to Iraqi control based on the suspicion that they were looted. In exchange, the museum may retain the right to display some of the objects on loan.” – Artnet
NY’s High Line Asks For Public Help In Choosing Next Sculpture
The non-profit organisation High Line Art, which commissions public art projects on and around the elevated park in Chelsea, launched a platform of artist proposals this week, and says that comments from the public will be reviewed by its curatorial staff. The deciding vote, however, will ultimately be made by Cecilia Alemani, the director and chief curator of High Line Art, and her staff. – The Art Newspaper