Revolutionary Architecture: How Cuba’s National Arts Schools Were Disgraced And Reclaimed

Just after the Revolution, Fidel hit on the idea of repurposing a posh suburban golf course as the new national training ground for artists. “[The architects’] design, a spiral of Catalan-vaulted rooms and covered passageways, was, like many acts of revolutionary architecture, a search for new and organic forms.” Alas, before it was fully built, the design was found to be ideologically impure and abandoned – but only for a couple of decades …

Why Stealing Great Art Is A Bad Business Plan

Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI’s art crime team: “[Thieves] read in the newspaper about about the growing value of paintings and the new records that are set every year by Cézannes and Picassos, and then they think that they can get a payday by going out and doing a heist. What they don’t understand is that the value of art is dependent on three things: authenticity, provenance – the history of the art – and legal title.”