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University of Edinburgh researchers believe that animals such as these may have been symbols for star constellations.
ALISTAIR COOMBS
France
The Art Newspaper has surveyed three museum officials for their thoughts on a report by Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr that urged France to return African artifacts. Though he is not entirely convinced by their approach, Victoria & Albert Museum director Tristam Hunt commends Savoy and Sarr’s “honesty” and “clarity.” [The Art Newspaper]
Meanwhile, French museum leaders aren’t too happy with the report. Stephane Martin, the head of Paris’s Musée du Quai Branly, said that the report “puts historical reparations over the contribution museums make.” [Agence France-Presse/France 24]
Market
“In today’s market, could the stolen Gardner art be worth $1 billion?” [The Boston Globe]
Censorship?
Don’t take to Facebook to post pictures of John De Andrea’s Self-Portrait with Sculpture (1980), a work featuring a naturalistic depiction of a nude model previously on view at the Met Breuer this year, otherwise you may have your account permanently disabled. [Hyperallergic]
Museums
Activists are calling on museums to create wall text that better reflects the problematic nature of works on view and the artists who created them. In some cases, museums are responding. [The Guardian]
The Ford Foundation has given $300,000 to the Pérez Art Museum Miami’s Latin American Latinx Art Fund. The money will specifically be put toward a forthcoming Teresita Fernandez show at the institution. [Artforum]
Hidden History
By studying cave art around Europe, researchers have discovered that early humans studied the night sky—and had a sophisticated knowledge of it. [Atlas Obscura]
Here’s the story of how a frieze produced during the 1930s by sculptor Richmond Barthé, originally meant to be situated in a housing project for African-Americans in New York’s Harlem neighborhood, wound up in Brooklyn. [AM New York]
Lives
Victoria Donohoe, a Philadelphia-based art critic who contributed to the Inquirer for more than 50 years, has died at 89. [The Inquirer]
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