Category: visual

The maintenance man stopped worrying about paint touchups and HVAC repair and started assisting the development department by drafting thank you notes for donors, making use of his beautiful handwriting. Security guards were redeployed to add “alt text,” or descriptions for the visually impaired, to images on the museum website. Art handlers and event planners have been doing collection research about the museum’s lesser-known artists. – Artnet

The prospect of reopening under the current circumstances also raises vexing strategic dilemmas. In recent years, museums have developed a sophisticated understanding of the many barriers to entry they inadvertently create, and how to overcome them, in order to pursue agendas informed by equity and social justice. No one wishes to raise additional barriers now. But visiting museums will inevitably become more difficult, not less, for the foreseeable future, and this will affect some visitors more than others. – Artnet

“Archaeologists were astonished by the find as it came almost a century after the remains of a villa, believed to date to the 3rd century AD, were unearthed in a hilly area above the town of Negrar di Valpolicella.” – The Guardian

At least two-thirds of eligible employees have signed authorization cards to request that the National Labor Relations Board oversee a union election, according to organizers. The union at the museum would be affiliated with AFSCME District Council 47, which “currently represents most white-collar employees of the city, including workers at the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Zoo, [as well as] workers at several museums around the country.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

The piece, titled Game Changer and showing a boy leaving his other superhero action figures behind for one of a nurse, had been in Southampton General Hospital in England for all of two days when a man wearing a protective coverall and carrying a cordless drill was caught walking past the painting five or more times, “clearly having a good look.” – Artnet

As museums begin to reopen, many are requiring visitors to book tickets in advance, wear masks, use hand sanitizer upon entering or undergo temperature checks, according to Fortune. In Munich, the Bavarian State Painting Collections’ museums are limiting the number of visitors to one person per roughly 215 square feet, reports CNN’s Karina Tsui. At the Giacometti Institute in Paris, meanwhile, just ten people are allowed in every ten minutes, and public bathrooms remain closed. – Smithsonian

The broad cupolas in Italian churches of the era were constructed by laying bricks in a “complex cross-herringbone spiraling pattern” called a double loxodrome, according to a team of engineering researchers at Princeton and the University of Bergamo. – Artnet

“Gallery closures and social distancing measures are vitally important, but they are also causing huge disruption to the lives and livelihoods of artists. The practicalities of organising a Turner Prize exhibition are impossible in the current circumstances, so we have decided to help support even more artists during this exceptionally difficult time.” The move was broadly welcomed on social media with one contributor calling the initiative a “philanthropic and democratic move”. – The Art Newspaper

“Hyperallergic reached out to several art schools in California to see how they are planning to address the need for social distancing while maintaining the integrity of their arts curriculums.” The consensus: there’s no telling yet what the rules will be in September, so administrators and faculty are working out multiple scenarios. – Hyperallergic

Not everyone’s first reaction, is it? But: “After two of her most prized paintings were stolen, Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova came face-to-face with thief Karl-Bertil Nordland in a courtroom. Rather than reprimand Nordland though, she asked him if she could paint his portrait.” – Vanity Fair