- More twists in the case of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist: Arthur Brand, an art advisor who works to recover lost artwork, claims that the paintings may be in the hands of former IRA members. This really is turning out to be a better drama than The Crying Game. [Daily Mail]
- Kenny Schachter reports on Art Basel. These are great for an insidery look at the fairs. Still, I find them hard to get through. They’re as gossipy as a juicy Linda Yablonsky column, but often assume you know or care more than a reader does. I’m also not sure I care whether Schachter managed to secure a commission for a sale, what fairs he normally goes to and which ones he skips and who’s in a bad mood because they had to stay at the Radisson. I once stayed in a mobile home parked outside a prison and managed get through the Basel fair without complaining or a shower. [artnet News]
- Wow. Nearly half the staff at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art have resigned. They alleged an abusive working environment with long hours and little pay. The museum remains open, despite the HR losses. [The New York Times]
- The entirety of the United Kingdom’s public sculptures will be made available online by 2020. That’s 170,000 sculptures! [The Art Newspaper]
- Following a $60 million renovation, Mass MoCA is now the largest contemporary art museum in the United States. Here’s a peek at what they’re doing with the space. It’s mostly really, really monumental artworks from A-listers. [Wired]
- A timeline of the MTA’s complete meltdown in 2017 annotated with passenger tweets and instagrams. There are some nice moments here, though. I especially liked graduate student who missed his graduation ceremony due to extensive delays and the New Yorkers who threw him a mock ceremony while they waited for the train to proceed. It included an exchange of cell phones as a standin for the diploma and a cell phone picture of the student having graduated. [Curbed]
- Meanwhile, Governor Andrew Cuomo who controls the subways is pretending he doesn’t. I was going to say that even the famously conservative daily, The New York Post is having none of this, but I forgot Cuomo is a democrat. The MTA board meeting starts at 10 am today and is being live streamed. Watch it if you dare (expect a lot of really boring speeches). [Gothamist]
- The country is blighted by massive dead shopping malls, and more are emptying out every year. LA Times asked readers to weigh in on what to do with them. One suggestion was affordable live/work space for artists. That’s such a cool idea. [Los Angeles Times]
- Anish Kapoor’s latest installation, “Destierro”, at Parque de la Memoria in Buenos Aires is intended to speak to the refugee crisis and the idea of borders. I’m not sold on how clear that concept translates—it’s a room full of brightly colored earth and a blue bulldozer. [Dezeen]
- Allison Meier reports on the Library of Congress’s exhibition “Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom Illustration”. It includes an extensive online component which can be seen here. [Hyperallergic]
- “Republicans are the new punk,” says Sabo, a right-wing street artist who has been trolling LA with posters of Trump, among other gimmicks. Unsurprisingly, he seems like a tool. [The Guardian]
Posts tagged as: