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Getty teams with city of Los Angeles to identify places that are important to African American heritage

Judging the historical record to be incomplete, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and the city of Los Angeles today announced a three-year joint effort to identify, protect and celebrate local sites that are central to African American heritage. Of the 1,200 places in Los Angeles designated as cultural or historic landmarks, the Getty and the…

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Picasso portrait of Marie-Thérèse to sell for $55m at Christie’s New York this May

Pablo Picasso’s 1932 Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) (Woman Sitting Near a Window), a portrait of his teenage lover and “golden muse” from a critical point in his career, will be featured in Christie’s newly rebranded 20th Century Art Evening Sale in New York on 11 May, with an estimate of $55m. “1932 was…

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‘Way too close to homeless already’: New York’s live models teeter on the brink

He is sometimes mistaken for “that homeless guy” but prefers to be known as “Moses” or “God”. Or he will settle for “Roman Catholic cardinal”, a costume that always gets him a seat on the subway. Henry William Oelkers has portrayed characters humble and exalted over 25 years as an artist model. Most New Yorkers…

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While US museum attendance nosedived in 2020 amid pandemic, disparities in reopenings yielded a few surprises

Amid months-long shutdowns across the country beginning in mid-March in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in a 70%-80% drop in attendance for most US institutions, two museums fared relatively better. The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, ranked fourth among US museums, attracting 547,500 visitors as a result…

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After long complaints about pollution and blocked views, Italy bans cruise ships in Venice’s historic centre

The Italian government says it has approved a ban on large cruise ships entering the historic centre of Venice. The decision seems likely to put a stop to mega-collectors hosting vast, lavish parties on cruise ships passing by the Piazza San Marco during the Venice Biennale and means that mass tourism will be re-routed. The culture minister Dario Franceschini, quoted in the Italian daily La Repubblica, says: “It’s a fair decision…

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Armory Show will launch digital exhibition space, starting with a pandemic-related show

The Armory Show, one of New York’s largest art fairs, has announced that it is launching Armory Access: Curated, a digital exhibition space where independent curators can organise virtual shows. The first exhibition, titled The Pandemic is a Portal, opens on 15 April and will include works by around 20 artists, including Hank Willis Thomas, Gordon Matta Clark,…

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Solace through conservation: WMF makes strides in restoring war-damaged sites in Yemeni city

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) reports that it has made strides in rehabilitating historic sites in the Yemeni city of Taiz, devastated by a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people across the country in a mammoth humanitarian crisis. In March, local restorers overseen by the organisation completed work on an emergency stabilisation…

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Curate-it-yourself: French museums take to social media to ask the public what they want to see in their galleries

The traditional recipe for an exhibition includes some art and one or two curators to select and organise the display of it. But for the past ten years the rise of social media has made it easier for museums to involve the public in various projects, which has been particularly popular in France. One of…

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Reuben Family Revealed as Buyer of $15.3 M. Van Gogh Landscape

The London-based Reuben family has been revealed as the buyer of a $15.4 million Vincent van Gogh landscape purchased during Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art sale in Paris on Thursday. Scène de rue à Montmartre (Impasse des deux frères et le Moulin à Poivre), from 1887, made its auction debut there after more than a century in private…

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After objections, Cambodian government rejects proposal for theme park on the outskirts of the Angkor Wat temple complex

Cambodia’s Culture and Fine Arts Ministry has rejected a proposal by the Hong Kong casino operator NagaCorp to build a resort and theme park near the sprawling Angkor Wat temple complex after concerns raised by Unesco. The government’s rejection of NagaCorp’s plan to develop 75 hectares of land located around 500m south of the protected…

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