Dazzled by Art

When Cara Romero (b. 1977) found herself unable to adequately communicate in words her indigenous experience in America, she turned to another language: photography. Cara Romero, '3 Sisters,' 2022, archival pigment print. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Acquisition and Preservation of Native American Art Fund; 2022.47.2. © Cara Romero When Cara Romero (b. 1977) found herself unable to adequately communicate in words her indigenous experience in America, she turned to another language: photography. Romero split her childhood between the sprawling metropolis of Houston and the remote Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, CA. As an undergraduate anthropology student at the University of Houston, she couldn’t fully express what she saw, felt, and experienced on the reservation. During her junior year, she stumbled into a black and white film class. “While I struggled writing about contemporary Native issues, I fell in love with (photography) for its power ...

If you shed tears when a museum closes, expect to do a lot of crying. After a 20-year run, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City closed its doors in 2024. Its building on West 17th Street in Manhattan, which represented a large financial drain on the museum’s overall resources, is in the process of being sold, and a spokeswoman for the museum of Himalayan art framed the shuttering thusly: “We closed the building so that we could reallocate these resources to pursue an ambitious global program to achieve broader impact but also set the museum on a more sustainable path for decades to come.” The objects from the collection will not be sold—and indeed, the Rubin just announced the acquisition of works by ​​Tenzin Gyurmey Dorjee, Shraddha Shrestha and Shushank Shrestha—but if you want to see those works and others, you’ll find them in exhibitions at other institutions in the U.S. and abroad. Loans will likely be the foundation of the institution’s decentralized “museum without walls” ...

Enjoy these artsy products from the comfort of home the week recommends The 8 best items to buy from beloved museum gift shops Enjoy these artsy products from the comfort of home Newsletter sign up A teacup from Taipei; a teapot inspired by Van Gogh: Art can be yours at home. (Image credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images) By Catherine Garcia, The Week US published 16 January 2025 That Van Gogh has to stay on the gallery wall. But there is a way to bring your favorite art home from a museum. Head to the gift shop and take your time perusing the carefully curated offerings — you will always find products featuring the masterpieces on exhibition, alongside one-of-a-kind works by local artisans. The following items, available in person at the shops or online, provide a tangible reminder of your museum experience. The Promenade eau du toilette from The Getty Museum in Los Angeles 'The Promenade' fragrance has floral notes, just like the painting (Image credit: The ...

Dame Tracey Emin and Sir Grayson Perry are celebrated with solo exhibitions at the suitably palatial Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and Wallace Collection in London, while Performance artist Leigh Bowery has a posthumous retrospective at Tate Modern. Brazilian Modernism has a moment at the Royal Academy of Arts and Guggenheim Bilbao, a new foundation dedicated to ceramics opens in Sintra and Paula Rego is exhibited with Adriana Varejão at Centro de Arte Moderna in Lisbon. Grayson Perry (c) Richard Ansett, shot exclusively for the Wallace Collection, London (c) Richard Ansett, shot exclusively for the Wallace Collection, London From London’s esteemed arts institutions Tate Modern, Royal Academy of Arts and the Wallace Collection, to acclaimed European museums including the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Centro de Arte Moderna in Lisbon and Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, there are a wealth of new exhibitions to see in Spring 2024. Leigh Bowery, Legendary Australian performance artist and fash...

Piazza del Cinquecento revamped for Jubilee Year. Rome mayor Robert Gualtieri on Tuesday inaugurated the new-look Piazza del Cinquecento outside the central Termini train station as part of works for the Vatican's Jubilee Year. The €45 million project, carried out by Italian infrastructure agency Anas, was financed with €27 million from Jubilee funds and €18 million from Italy's transport ministry. The completed works include a large pedestrianised area with a new taxi rank and bus terminal which will be active from Wednesday. "It is the largest Jubilee project in terms of surface area: it is nine hectares or 90,000 square metres, equivalent to nine soccer fields", Gualtieri said, telling reporters that "the bulk of the work is done". #Anas Gruppo @fsitaliane per il Giubileo: intervento di riqualificazione straordinario a Piazza dei Cinquecento, Roma Cosa è stato realizzato?Dettagli nel primo commento pic.twitter.com/3qaAT3bEeF— Anas SpA (@StradeAnas) Janu...

Don't fall for the not-so-fine art of faking Art forgery remains a significant issue, with nearly half of the global art market affected. Proving an artwork's provenance is crucial, particularly for works by living artists and those by deceased artists. Due diligence and proper documentation are necessary to prevent art fraud and ensure market transparency. Art forgery is as old as time. Well, almost. An article by the Sotheby’s Institute of Art has noted that nearly half of the global art market is estimated to be plagued with forgeries. The problem, however, hit me with a reinforced urgency a few years ago when we were approached by a government agency to verify some questionable works of art at the house of a now established con man. He had fake works by a range of Indian and international artists, including artists like Subodh Gupta and the American KAWS. The point of concern was that they were all living artists, which only emphasised the need for a rigorous p...

Beset by colonial controversy, difficult finances and the discovery of a thief on the inside, Britain’s No 1 museum is in deep trouble. Can it restore its reputation? The British Museum is everybody’s idea of a museum, but at the same time, it is hardly like a museum at all. It is more like a little state. The rooms you visit on a day out are the least of it: the museum is not the contents of its display cases. It is an embassy, a university, a police station, a science lab, a customs house, a base for archaeological excavations, a place of asylum, a retail business, a publisher, a morgue, a detective agency. “We’re not a warehouse, [or] a mausoleum,” its chair, the UK’s former chancellor George Osborne, told guests at the museum’s annual trustees’ dinner in November. On the contrary, it is both these things, and others beside. It is a sprawling, chaotic reflection of Britain’s psyche over 300 years: its voracious curiosity and cultural relativism; its pugnacious superiority complex;...