Category: visual

The artistic duo, who were admitted to the Royal Academy in 2017 as an entity with a single vote, believed they’d be getting a show at the RA soon. When that was denied, they resigned. “An anonymous academician said the situation was unfortunate, and Gilbert and George ‘should not have just assumed they would be given a show.’ But an admirer of their work, aware of the brewing dispute, felt blame lay with the RA, and the question of giving them a show had been badly mishandled.” – The Observer (UK)

Mere minutes after “a Turkish court announced that it had revoked Hagia Sophia’s status as a museum, which for the last 80 years had made it a monument of relative harmony and a symbol of the secularism that was part of the foundation of the modern Turkish state,” Turkey’s President Erdogan declared it a mosque again. – The New York Times

Kate Bae was on her way to her temporary job at the Census Bureau, near Bryant Park in Manhattan, when a man walked up to her and punched her in the face. The artist says she’s almost used to harassment (though of course not physical attacks) at this point: “Bae, a Korean American, says that she has been routinely harassed in the streets of New York in the past few months.” – Hyperallergic

Rowan Moore: “It has been deemed acceptable – by the building regulations, by architects, by the professional media – to rip untold tonnes of matter from the earth and to pump similar tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, in order to produce magical architectural devices that might, if all their wizardry were to function as promised, pay back some of their carbon debt some time in the next century. By when it might be too late.” – The Observer (UK)

“What they have is the bare minimum, the scaffold of an education department,” says Shellyne Rodriguez, an educator whose contract was cancelled in March. “If you don’t have educators, you don’t have a department. It’s like closing a school but the principal still shows up every day.” – The Art Newspaper

That five of the six new hires are people of color, and that all are women, is in line with Sandra Jackson-Dumont’s vision as the museum’s self-described “chief diversity officer.” – Los Angeles Times

Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh, a touring show conceived by “swashbuckling” Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass and U.S. management and events company IMG, was pulling in big crowds at London’s Saatchi Gallery before the COVID lockdown. But new reporting suggests that the contract between IMG and Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities to provide artifacts for the show may be illegal. – ARTnews

“The raid Tuesday and Wednesday targeted … Donald ‘D.B’ Henkel, 60, a self-described artist who is accused in a sealed FBI search warrant affidavit of orchestrating a years-long conspiracy involving previously unknown paintings by well-known artists and counterfeit sports memorabilia. … Federal law enforcement officials are calling [the scheme] a national crime ring with conspirators operating in Metro Detroit and at least three other states.” – The Detroit News

“Armed with axes and hand saws, the team of 25 craftsmen and women, who belong to a collective called Carpenters Without Borders, managed to build one of the 25 trusses that made up the wooden roof of Notre-Dame that they say is identical to the original.” – France 24

Following recommendations from the architect and the retired general running the reconstruction as well as the new culture minister (and based on a rapidly solidifying consensus to stop arguing about design possibilities and get to work), President Macron has officially backed away from the idea he floated months ago of a contemporary replacement for the original roof and 19th-century neo-Gothic spire that were destroyed in last year’s fire. – Yahoo! (AP)