Category: visual

The find is in the Roman Forum, where authorities revealed on Friday that they believe this may date to the 6th century B.C.E., 200 years after Romulus was said to have lived. That means it’s a memorial site, if indeed it is a site to Romulus. Also, oops: “It’s the second time the sarcophagus and cylindrical stone stub have been unearthed, but it’s only now that archaeologists are attributing an exciting significance to them.” – The Washington Post (AP)

According to the museum’s most recent 990 tax forms, filed in 2018, LACMA is carrying $331 million in county bond debt that was used to pay for construction of the Resnick Pavilion, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, the Pritzker Parking Garage and other projects. In addition to that debt, the museum has $112 million in other liabilities, such as accounts payable and accrued expenses. This brings LACMA’s total debt to almost $443 million. – Los Angeles Times

“A radar survey around the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings has revealed possible evidence of further hidden chambers behind its walls. The findings … resurrect a controversial theory that the young king’s burial place hides the existence of a larger tomb, which could contain the mysterious Egyptian queen Nefertiti.” – Nature

“A little more than two decades after a Calder museum was first proposed for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the long-dormant idea has blossomed again, funding has materialized, and backers say that, by spring 2021, construction should get underway between 21st and 22nd Streets across from the Barnes Foundation and the Rodin Museum.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

This effective ban on modern architecture commissioned by the US government is horrifyingly reminiscent of Hitler’s insistence that public buildings in the Third Reich hew to the Classical tradition (though usually a stripped-down version of it) and that modern design, except for some industrial uses, was strengst verboten (strictly forbidden). – New York Review of Books

Zumthor’s single, integrated composition (now tan instead of black!), raised high above the grime of the city, is just a building. The strength of LACMA as it stands now is its complexity; it’s more like a city, and a vibrantly messy one at that. It’s connected to the street, the neighborhood and its varied parts, encouraging movement between structures, levels and plazas, whether you’re in the museum or not. It’s one of the few major destinations in L.A. that feels like a true urban environment, not a newly manufactured one. – Los Angeles Times

The European Union will demand that Britain gives a collection of ancient marble sculptures back to Greece as part of a post-Brexit trade deal. Greece has long argued that the Parthenon Marbles — also called the Elgin Marbles — were unlawfully removed from the Parthenon temple in Athens in the early 19th century by the British diplomat Lord Elgin. – Business Insider

“It’s a little known fact that in 1972, minimalist artist Frank Stella donated the painting Isfahan III (1968) to the Museo de la Solidaridad in Chile, a new institution that invited artists from around the world to donate art in honor of Chilean president Salvador Allende’s new socialist government.” And then came Augusto Pinochet’s coup … – Hyperallergic

Curators intended the June exhibition, titled “Art and Cultures in Bulgaria between the 16th and 18th Centuries,” to examine the influence that Islamic art had on Bulgarian Orthodox religious art during that period, when Bulgaria was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. This approach did not go over well in present-day Bulgaria. – ARTnews