THE HEADLINES

ANIMAL HARM? I think we can finally put the Banksy vandalizing London story with animal portraits story to bed. It looks like he’s given up on the series, capping it off with a gorilla helping to facilitate the great escape from London Zoo. His identity may remain a mystery, but ITV recently dipped into its archives and found an old report from 2003 on the graffiti artist that 1) almost reveals his identity and 2) confirms his love (or hate) of animals. In it, Banksy – who is wearing a makeshift disguise of a baseball cap and T-shirt pulled over his face – says in a thick Bristolian drawl, “I’m disguised because you can’t really be a graffiti writer and go public, the two things don’t quite go together.” The story follows Banksy painting a load of live farm animals for an exhibition and the anticipation builds agonizingly as the RSPCA (the British equivalent of the ASPCA) inspector arrives to check if the artist has used animal-friendly paint. Has he or hasn’t he…. Watch to find out

GET A GRIPPA. London’s National Gallery has splashed out more than $2.5 million on a painting by Dutch, Victorian-era artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1833-1912). The artwork, called After the Audience (1879) centers on Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who was the son-in law of Emperor Augustus Caesar and the patron of significant Roman buildings including the Pantheon and the Basilica of Neptune. It was painted to catch the eye of industrialist William Armstrong, who was a fan of another work by Alma-Tadema titled An Audience with Agrippa (1875), which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1876. However, Armstrong’s interest wasn’t piqued, which is his loss given After the Audience is now widely considered to be one of the artist’s masterpieces, “noted for its scale and complexity of composition,” according to The Art Newspaper. It is the first work by Alma-Tadema to be acquired by the National Gallery, and its inclusion in the museum’s collection is part of its ongoing 200th anniversary celebrations.

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Swiss artist Christoph Büchel has turned a Venetian Palace into a pawnshop with his “compelling, obsessive, and sometimes hilarious” installation. Check it out. [The New York Times]

Toddler’s nightmares are made of this; someone auctioning off your teddy bear collection. The owner of Teddy Bears of Whitney, a shop in the UK city of Oxford, has one very special bear – Aloysius from the 1980s TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. It’s expected to fetch around $40,000 at auction. [BBC]

To celebrate its 60th birthday – and the fact it’s now Europe’s longest-standing, independent foundation – the Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght in southern France has put on a show of works by Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard. [The Art Newspaper]

More than 150 prominent cultural figures across Europe have signed an open letter slamming Slovakia’s nationalistic government for sacking the directors of the country’s National Theater and National Gallery (SNG). [e-flux]

THE KICKER

TICKET TO PARADISE. Another auction story for you. This time it’s not about a teddy bear but a silver fox, George Clooney. The actor is selling a few candlelit hours of his time in New York to the highest bidder for charity. The auction, managed by Charitybuzz and titled “A Good Evening with George Clooney” closes on August 20 and is witnessing a flurry of bidding. The starting bid was $10,000 and the price has risen to $31,000 at the time of writing. The charity hopes someone will be willing to fork out at least $60,000 for a dinner date with George… well, a dinner date with George and two dozen other guests. Make sure you read the small print before placing a bid. The proceeds will go towards causes including Waging Justice for Women. [The News]

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JUMPING SHIP? Smack bang in the middle of the Bronx Museum’s very expensive renovation project, its executive director has decided to leave. Klaudio Rodriguez, who has led the museum since 2020, is moving to Florida to take charge of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in St. Petersburg. He was instrumental in getting the $33 million expansion and facelift off the ground so his departure may come as a surprise to some. “It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with the staff and board of the Bronx Museum over the past seven years,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “I am leaving the museum in great hands and with a great team.” Shirley Solomon, the museum’s deputy director, and its chief advancement officer, Yvonne Garcia, will serve as interim co-leaders until the next director is signed up. Rodriguez will take the MFA reigns from Anne-Marie Russell, who quit on March 1. Her departure was announced in November 2023, just over 12 months after she first joined the museum as interim director. He short tenure came right after controversy linked to an exhibition of Greek antiquities at the MFA, many of which were revealed to have suspect provenance documentation. 

DAVID AND GOLIATH. A lawsuit filed by a cohort of artists against Midjourney, Stability AI, and other companies dabbling in AI has been green-lighted by a judge, despite some claims being dismissed. The artists claim that the popular AI services broke copyright law by training on a dataset that included their work and, in some cases, their users can directly reproduce copies of their work. Last year, a judge allowed a direct copyright infringement complaint against Stability, which operates the Stable Diffusion AI image generator. However, he binned a load of other claims and asked the artists’ lawyers to add more detail to them. In the most recent, though, the revised cases have convinced the judge to approve another claim of induced copyright infringement against Stability. Who will win, artist or AI corps?

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How do you choose which museums to visit in Paris? A safe bet is to ask the director of Art Basel Paris, Clément Deléphine. He’s in the know. [FT]

A museum in Tel Aviv is hiding its most valuable works in the basement as Israel fears the wrath of Iran. Paintings by Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimt are among the works being secured underground by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in case Tehran fires missiles at the Israeli city as regional tensions flare. [The Times of Israel]

Find out how one of Japan’s most revered contemporary artists, Yoshitomo Nara, and others are subverting the country’s cute “kawaii” aesthetic to question the world we live in. [BBC]

A solitary gold coin may fetch more than $1 million at auction as an ancient coin hoard goes under the hammer after a century of secrecy. [Business Insider].

THE KICKER

ONE FELL SCOOP. The Museum of Ice Cream in Manhattan is being sued by a man who injured himself in the sprinkle pool. Described by The Art Newspaper as “the millennial-pink, dessert-themed ‘experium’ that promises to help visitors ‘reimagine the way [they] experience ice cream,’” the museum looks like it’s made for Instagram. Jeremy Schorr was visiting the joint with his daughter in 2023 when he suffered “severe and permanent personal injuries,” according to the lawsuit. He claims the museum “failed to warn… visitors that it is unsafe to jump or plunge into the sprinkle pool, while encouraging them to do so through its advertising, marketing and promotional materials.” Schorr, who is represented by the Staten Island-based personal injury firm Perrone, also argues that there weren’t enough sprinkles in the pool. We’ve all been there, when the ice cream man is a little tight with the hundreds and thousands. [Artnet News]

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PAIN IN THE ASSET. Italy’s public debt is mounting. How to tackle it? Auctioning off a 16th-century castle that once belonged to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, one of 33 historic Italian sites up for sale. The palatial complex near Naples is managed by the defense ministry and will be sold in November. The move, however, has enraged Italy’s FAI, the equivalent of the National Trust (if you’re British) or the Royal Oak Foundation (if you’re American). “We should protect our cultural assets, they are vital,” Dante Specchia, from the FAI, told The Telegraph. “Depriving the public of a jewel like the Charles V castle should not be debatable.” Called Capua Castle, it was built between 1522 and 1543 and was considered strategically significant for Charles V, who lorded over an empire stretching across Italy, Spain, Austria, and Germany. However, the castle is now a shadow of its former glory. It was turned into a prison in the 19th century and more recently used for making and storing explosives. Italy’s defense ministry manages several other grand properties including palaces and villas in Florence, Padua, and Taranto, as well as barracks, warehouses, and lighthouses. They are all going under the hammer, and boast a combined market value of around $250 million.

#GENZTHRILLS. London will soon have a new private museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art and  it’s specifically aimed at 18- to 35-year-olds looking for Instagram opportunities. Moco Museum London is located at Marble Arch in central London and boasts 25,000 sq. ft of floor space, three floors, and works by Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and Keith Haring. Moco’s cofounders, Dutch former gallerists Kim Logchies-Prins and Lionel Logchies, want to “share their knowledge.” They’ve already opened Moco branches in Amsterdam and Barcelona, which have seen a combined five million people walk through the doors over the last few years. They’re hoping the London museum will welcome at least 300,000 visitors in its first year after it officially opens September 10.

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Plans to rescue the Devizes Assize Court Building and turn it into the Wiltshire Museum will be submitted to the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2025. If successful, the space will open in 2030 and include two large event spaces, galleries, and a café. [BBC]

Another story about a decrepit building in England potentially morphing into something for the art world, this time a 1,000-year-old church in Norwich might be turned into an auction house for art, antiques, and collectibles. [Norwich Evening News]

Should artists be worried about AI replacing them, or is it just an exciting new tool? An artist tries to answer this question in the Guardian. It’s a new take on an old(ish) question. [Guardian]

A ninth Banksy animal mural has been seen in London, this time showing gorilla facilitating the escape of animals at the entrance to the London Zoo. The eighth artwork in the series, a rhino in southeast London, was confirmed on Banksy’s Instagram on Monday before being defaced by a hooded man. [Sky News].

THE KICKER

TURNING HEADS. A collection of bank notes minted by the Bank of England and emblazoned with King Charles’ head to celebrate his accession to the throne have raised more than $1 million at four separate auctions. The notes went into circulation only this past June, but they are among the first notes released and subsequently have serial numbers that are like catnip to collectors. The proceeds from the auctions, organized by Spink & Son, are going to 10 different charities, with each in line to receive around $100,000. Some £50 notes sold for £26,000 and broke the record for the highest lot sold in a Bank of England auction, while a single £10 note sold for £17,000, with the serial number HBO1 00002. Collectors of such things look for serial numbers as close to five zeros as they can find, with 0001 regarded as the jewel in the crown. [Sky News]

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POINTLESS PAINTINGS. A seventh animal painting by Banksy emerged in London over the weekend. This time the elusive street artist made a police box in the City of London look like a fish tank. Given the police’s reaction, though, it looks like the authorities are running out of patience. “We are aware of criminal damage to a City of London Police box in Ludgate Hill,” detective chief inspector Andy Spooner reportedly said. “We are liaising with the City of London Corporation who own the police box.” The fish follow a mountain goat, a pair of elephants, three monkeys, two pelicans, and a wolf, all sprayed in various London locations. What do the simple, black, stenciled silhouettes that could have been painted by a toddler mean? People have been speculating on social media but Banksy’s support organization, Pest Control Office, appeared to pour cold water on any philosophical intent. It told the Guardian that “recent theorizing about the deeper significance of each new image has been way too involved.”

MISHANDLING MUSEUM. An internal review at the British Museum has found that the institution broke the law after thousands of ancient artifacts went walkabouts from its collection. Last December, the museum confirmed that 2,000 objects went missing and admitted that many might be “unrecoverable” after being “sold for scrap” or defaced. The internal audit revealed that the museum did not house the treasures in line with UK law. The Times reports that the Public Records Act dictates that museums and libraries are required to “meet basic standards of preservation, access, and professional care,” while objects need to be in “the care of suitably qualified staff.” Any organizations guilty of neglecting these standards might see their treasures taken elsewhere by authorities or handed over to the National Archives. A British Museum source, however, said that there “was no suggestion” as of yet that the museum would suffer such a fate. It was revealed that 1,500 or so items from the British Museum were feared to have been stolen last year, while around 350 had parts removed including gold and gems.

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A former bank in Sheffield is set to be transformed into an arts and culture venue called S1 Artspace. The Grade II listed Yorkshire Bank Chambers building in the city center was purchased as part of the former UK government’s Levelling Up Fund, created to improve infrastructure across the country. S1 Artspace’s team described the move as a “monumental step.” [BBC]

Anyone interested in stepping foot in the art world should read “recovering” art dealer Orlando Whitfield’s memoir, All That Glitters. It details Whitfield’s close relationship with disgraced art peddler Inigo Philbrick – and the former’s exhilarating downfall. [The New Statesman]

Hong Kong is known for a few things, among them it’s adversarial relationship with China. Street art is perhaps not one of the country’s internationally known traits, but the FT thinks it should be. [FT]

A museum in the English county of Norfolk housing a collection of Nazi artifacts was broken into last Friday, and a volunteer who works there has pointed the finger at “far right” activists. A baton belonging to German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, two SS knives, helmets, and a baby gas mask were pilfered from the Desert Rats Museum. The police are investigating. [ITV]

THE KICKER

PAW-CASSO. Another major art story for you. A trainee therapy dog called Pickles who helps adults and children has surprised everyone with his artistic skills. He creates artworks by licking paté off clear plastic bags which contain paint, a canvas, and stencils. Fifteen of his paintings have been sold to date, with the funds reinvested into the community projects Pickles works for, Plant Pots and Wellies, in Essex. He’s getting his big break on September 3, when some of his work will go on display at the Harlow Civic Center. His owner, Rowen Saunders, said, “I was trying to work out a way for him to do painting with the children but every time I gave him a paintbrush, he’d crunch it into three bits and say ‘thank you very much.’ Our local MP Chris Vince has bought one of the paintings and he’s going to put in up in the Houses of Parliament, which we’re really, really proud of.” As it stands, Pickles’ work sells for about $10 a piece. [BBC]

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BANKSY HOWLER. British street artist Banksy’s efforts to turn London into a zoo have been hampered by a trio of crooks who stole a black wolf he graffitied onto a satellite dish. The hooded men were filmed removing the dish in Peckham, south London, in broad day light before nonchalantly walking off down the street with it. A passerby called Tom Kellow filmed the robbery during his lunchbreak. “They had a ladder,” he told the BBC. “There was one guy in the roof and the other two were watching the ladder. They saw me filming and it got a bit tetchy. One gave me a kick in the side and another tried to throw my phone on the roof. Luckily it hit a tree and came back down again.” Banksy has painted several new murals across London over the last few days, sparking a giddy selfie frenzy as people rush to see the black stenciled artworks. They include a mountain goat, a pair of elephants, some monkeys… and a lost, lone wolf. Where will Banksy’s next act of vandalism be? Oh, hold on, a news story has just popped into my feed. A pair of pelicans has been spotted above a fish and chip shop in Walthamstow, northeast London

ACTO-JOURNALISM. A journalist and an activist have been arrested and charged with hate crimes for spraying red paint on the homes of the Brooklyn Museum’s director and board members. Police reportedly arrested Taylor Pelton, who lives in Queens, last week and charged her with several counts of criminal mischief in the third degree. Samuel Seligson, a resident of Brooklyn, was apprehended on August 6 and faces a double count of criminal mischief. Both cases are being charged as hate crimes. The Brooklyn Museum’s director, Anne Pasternak, is Jewish. A banner was hung outside her house on June 11 emblazoned with the words “Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum White Supremacist Zionist” and “Funds Genocide.” An inverted red triangle was also daubed on her house, a symbol allegedly used by Hamas to identify buildings targeted by Israeli strikes. “Mr Seligson is being charged for alleged behavior that is protected by the First Amendment and consistent with his job as a credentialed member of the press,” Seligson’s lawyer, Leena Widdi said. “Nothing in the complaint against Mr Seligson alleges anything more than behavior consistent with his role as a journalist.” 

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As scores of far-right sympathizers loiter outside hotels housing asylum seekers throughout the UK and kick policemen off motorbikes, sand artist Fred Brown has drawn some lines in the sand. However, people aren’t too sure which side of the isle Brown stands… is he a covert skinhead or a pacifist? The work featuring a Union Jack and the words “Love Laugh Live” is polarizing the public. [BBC]

Want to support journalism in Ukraine? Now you can, by buying merch from the Kyiv Independent’s new online store featuring works by Ukrainian artists. The paper says its mission is “delivering locally sourced, independent journalism from Ukraine to the world.” [Kyiv Independent]

The tiny Scottish fishing village of Pittenween has been transformed into a living art gallery this week for the annual Pittenween Arts Festival after its residents opened up their homes to exhibit the work of 140 artists from across Scotland, the highest number since the pandemic. [STV News]

Ukraine has called for the UN to intervene after Tauric Chersonese, an ancient Crimean heritage site, was transformed into a “historical and archaeological park” by Russia. The Kremlin annexed Crimea in 2015. [The Art Newspaper].

THE KICKER

PRISON BAIT. A former prison in Scotland which has been turned into a museum is filming visitors to see how people react to troubling aspects of human history. In a bid to prove it’s not just a sick joke, the data is being gathered and analyzed by researchers at Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University (RGU). Punters entering Peterhead Prison Museum get the chance to experience what life was like behind bars of the notorious prison, and get insight into brutal inmate-on-inmate attacks, a punishment station where officers used a whip, and dirty protests. The project, called “Talking about Prisons,” is headed up by Rachel Ironside from the RGU. “What we’re looking at is how visitors interact with some of the museum spaces, in particular those spaces that deal with a more difficult type of heritage,” she told BBC Scotland. “This project is looking at those in-the-moment interactions, that’s what we’re really interested in. Where do they look, what do they say.” [BBC]

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TIME TO WOKE UP? Are repatriation efforts turning British museums into a global laughingstock? David Abulafia, a professor emeritus of Mediterranean history at the University of Cambridge, certainly seems to think so. He praises the refusal of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to return a small 11th-century statue of the god Shiva to India upon the request of the Indian High Commission. “When demands for the restitution of objects arrive from foreign governments, they inevitably aim at the grandest pieces – the Elgin Marbles or the Benin Bronzes, the Koh-i-noor Diamond – but first it is important they establish the principle, so demands for the restitution of smaller and less well-known pieces are partly designed to prepare the ground, even if no institution especially wants them,” Abulafia says. He adds that anyone insisting that “stolen” artifacts should be returned to their countries of origin is “another example of Western virtue signaling, an arrogant expression of supposed moral superiority.” Evidently, some museums in the United States and Europe disagree, given the slew of recent returns, including a group of Benin Bronzes from the Stanley Museum of Art in Iowa. 

JUST FOR THE HALIBUT. Christie’s has partnered up with Blue Marine, a charity dedicated to protecting the ocean and tackling overfishing for a philanthropic initiative titled “Blue: Art for the Ocean.” It will take place during the house’s 20th and 21st Century Art Marquee Week sales in October, which coincides with Frieze Week. Over 20 prominent artists will donate works to be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to Blue Marine’s various projects around the world. “Our oceans are in danger, and a triple threat of biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, and climate change threaten the health of the ocean, on which all life on Earth depends,” the auction house and Blue Marine said in a statement. “With 8 percent of the world’s oceans secured across the world, Blue Marine is committed to supporting the UN’s Global Framework goal of “30×30” — protecting 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030. One of the highlights of the “Blue: Art for the Ocean” project is a photo taken during a performance by Marina Abramović.

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Michelle Obama’s nonpartisan organization When We All Vote has partnered with Art for Change, a new collection of artwork aimed at enhancing voter turnout, ahead of the US presidential election. Will it give Kamala Harris’s shot at the big time a boost? [The Guardian]

What does it take to rub Vladimir Putin the wrong way and get thrown in jail for seven years? Five tiny pieces of paper, apparently. Sasha Skochilenko, the Russian artist who was included in the recent historic prisoner swap between Russia and the West, replaced five price tags with anti-war messages in a St. Petersburg grocery store. [The Atlantic]

Several athletes at the Paris Olympics are rocking a diverse range of nail art—and some experts (with too much time on their hands) suggest these manicures might give them an edge in competition. [euronews]

Three new Banksy murals have been sighed in London over the last couple of days. The most recent, a string of monkeys spray-painted onto the side of a bridge, has sparked a surge of public excitement. The first mural shows a black mountain goat perched precariously on the edge of a wall support, while the second shows a pair of black elephants looking lovingly at each other from two windows. [The Art Newspaper]

THE KICKER

A barber in East Yorkshire, UK, plans to open a museum to display his huge collection of 1940s memorabilia. Anthony Bates, the owner of Clip Barber Shop in the coastal town of Bridlington, started collecting World War II–era objects years ago, and now his joint is like a time machine. “It’s kind of like my private little man cave in a way,” he said. His collection includes cigarette packs, gas masks, a period fireplace, and even a 1940s bathtub. The back room of his barber shop is the centerpiece of Bates’ obsession – it’s stacked floor to ceiling with bits and bobs. “Customers can have a look in the back,” he says. “I even get people walking past the shop and asking to have a look.” His customers have also added to his collection. Bates is talking to a town councilor about the prospect of opening a museum, and a couple of derelict banks have been earmarked. “Burlington doesn’t really have a museum and I’d like to give something back to the community,” Bates added. [BBC]

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MUSEUM PEACOCKING. Yesterday, we pointed you in the direction of Egypt building the world’s biggest museum (to store mummies). Today, we bring you China’s own cultural mid-life crisis – the soon-to-be-completed Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s huge and has “topped out” [reached its highest point], marking a major milestone in its construction. It spans more than 600,000 square feet – Egypt’s Giza Museum boasts almost 1 million square feet, by the way – and was designed by Danish architectural studio BIG, in collaboration with Arts Group and Front. Located next to Jinji Lake near the Suzhou Ferris Wheel, the museum is set to be opened to the public in 2025. BIG’s founder Bjarke Ingels said, “Against the open space of the lake, the gentle catenary curvature of the roofs forms a graceful silhouette on the waterfront. Its nodular logic only becomes distinctly discernible when viewed from the [ferris wheel] gondolas above,” he continued. “The stainless roof tiles form a true fifth facade.” The Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art will comprise main galleries in four of the pavilion-like spaces. A multifunctional hall, theatre, restaurant and main entrance space will be spread across the other structures.

NO GOURD VIBES. Prominent Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has unveiled a new public sculpture outside the UK’s busiest railway station, Liverpool Street in London. You might be forgiven for assuming it’s a giant pumpkin, but it is in fact an embodiment of another of Kusama’s obsessions – polka dots. Titled Infinite Accumulation, it is her largest ever public sculpture at 330 ft long, 33 ft high, and 40 ft wide. For the monumental site-specific work – which was commissioned by Transport for London (TfL), British Land, and City of London Corporation – Kusama expanded the polka dot into linked forms outside the new Elizabeth line entrance to Liverpool Street. “These dynamic serpentine arches were created intuitively by Kusama, hand-twisting the wires on the original models for the artwork,” TfL said in a statement. “London is a massive metropolis with people of all cultures moving constantly. The spheres symbolize unique personalities while the supporting curvilinear lines allow us to imagine an underpinning social structure,” Kusama said.

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August 6 would have been Andy Warhol’s 96th birthday. To celebrate it, The Andy Warhol Foundation is launching a unique grants program and selling hundreds of the artist’s works from its collection. The proceeds will benefit dozens of US visual arts organizations. Dubbed the Philanthropy Factory, each grantee will receive money from the sale of at least four works, each valued between $250 and $20,000 each. [The Andy Warhol Foundation]

Venice’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, is in deep water after being accused of corruption, while one of his councillors, Renato Boraso, is under arrest. Italy’s financial police, known as the Guardia di Finanza, have called the investigation into the officials Operation Swamp. Whether or not they get bogged down in their efforts to find anything illegal in Brugnaro buying 100 acres of land near Venice for a knockdown price of 5 million euros remains to be seen. [The Art Newspaper]

A group of Austrian climate protestors who made the headlines for vandalizing a Gustav Klimt painting with black paint has disbanded, saying it has “no prospect of success.” Last Generation Austria threw in the towel after becoming tired of being fined thousands of euros for its activism, which included blocking roads. [The Telegraph]

Two new Banksy murals have been sighted in London over the last couple of days. The first is a black mountain goat perched precariously on the ledge of a wall support, and the other is a pair of black elephants looking lovingly at each other from two windows. What do they mean? Your guess is as good as ours. [The Art Newspaper]

THE KICKER

HEART IN THE RIGHT PLACE. Up-and-coming artists in the seaside town of Worthing in the UK have raised hundreds of pounds for a community defibrillator by painting pizza boxes. A micropub called The Brooksteed organized an auction titled “A Slice of Art” to raise cash for a new potentially life-saving machine, which will be located outside the watering hole. Local artists including Natalie Reilly and Gary Goodman were among those donated artworks. Maurizo Eusibi from “+39 Pizza on the Road,” which serves food at the micropub on Thursdays, donated 30 pizza boxes and artists were invited to decorate them in any way they chose. The auction raised £600 ($760). “A lot of the artists are already successful, so it was nice of them to give us their time. There were also some up and coming artists,” Eusibi said. “There was a lot of competition to buy them and a lot of offers at the auction. We were really quite touched.” [Sussex World]

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COMMUNISM LIVES! A Florida lawyer called Christopher Rodriguez has pleaded guilty to bombing and shooting a statue of late communist leaders Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin in Texas. Not only this, but Rodriguez also admitted to taking a pot shot at the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. a year later. In 2022, he rented a car and drove 850 miles from his home in Panama City to San Antonio, where the statue – titled Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head (2009) – is located. He scaled a fence to gain access to the 21-foot-tall, 4,400-pound artwork by dissident Chinese artist duo the Gao Brothers (Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang) before blowing up two gas canisters laden with explosives at its base, while also shooting at it with a rifle. A few months later, Rodriguez journeyed to the US capital, placed a bag of explosives next to the rear wall of the Chinese Embassy, but failed to detonate them. In an email sent to the San Antonio Reporter when the work was erected, the Goa Brothers said “they hope freedom-loving Texan people will enjoy the sculpture.”

MUSEUM FOR MUMMIES. New photos have emerged detailing Egypt’s colossal Giza Museum, a new, 100,000-square-foot structure currently being built to house more than 100,000 antiquities, including treasures from King Tutankhamun’s tomb. The museum is near the country’s iconic pyramids and is being funded by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. Around 5,000 pharaonic artifacts are being relocated from a museum in Cairo, while many of the objects to be displayed haven’t been seen by the public since being discovered in 1922. Giza Museum’s showstoppers will include King Tut’s golden sarcophagus and a 3,200-year-old sculpture of pharaoh Rameses II, which will hold court near the museum’s main staircase. A ritual boat, aka “solar barge,” called the Khufu ship, which was buried next to the Great Pyramid in 2,5000 BCE, will also be on show. Several political and economic setbacks have delayed its opening, but when the museum does open its doors (hopefully at the end of this year), it will steal the title of world’s biggest museum from the Louvre in Paris.

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Team Great Britain’s official artist at the Olympics in Paris is hoping to immortalize the nation’s medal-winners by painting “historical documents.” Ben Mosley is portraying the athletes in real time, which he described as a “marathon and an honor.” He said he hoped the artworks would become “collector’s items for enthusiasts in the future.” [BBC]

Should the British public demand free admission to the permanent collections of all government-funded museums in the UK? One reader from the Guardian seems to think so. But what about non-UK citizens? Well, they should obviously pay, writes (Brit) Carol Varlaam.  [Guardian]

The sport of cycling… just a load of guys and gals having fun and wearing spandex? Apparently not. It’s chafing hell if Belgian sports photographer Kristof Ramon’s snaps are anything to go by. Just reading his new book, “The Art of Suffering: Capturing the Brutal Beauty of Road Cycling,” is enough to give one a sweaty, abraded nether region. [Creative Boom]

Want to know how London’s National Gallery is planning to rehang 1,100 works by 400 artists as part of the museum’s massive refurb to mark its 200th birthday? You’ll have to wait until May 2025 for its grand reopening. “We are decanting everything and rehanging everywhere,” Christine Riding, the museum’s director of collections and research, said. “So that’s 65 galleries on the main floor, it’s a huge undertaking.” [The Art Newspaper]

THE KICKER

CLASS WAR. A museum in the UK has asked the eternal question: is today’s civilization classier than the Romans? The Roman Verulamium Museum in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, is putting the question to its visitors – asking them to consider their own behavior and assumptions compared with the ancient culture. “Romans usually showed their class and status through their occupation, their possessions, and their property, which is just the same as modern British society,” curator Andrew Deathe said. He has created seven pairs of imagined Roman citizens to interrogate how they elevated or lowered their status, including “a couple of teenage tear-aways stealing statues from a temple.” One of the girls is a Roman citizen, while the other a “free-born British girl,” meaning they would have been treated differently by the law at the time. Deathe said he hopes the exhibition will encourage visitors “to think about how we view class today.” [BBC]

THE HEADLINES

TITIAN NOT BURYING HIS HEAD IN THE SAND. Buckingham Palace’s King’s Gallery has announced that it will host a blockbuster exhibition of Italian Renaissance works on paper next year, including a dozen artworks never seen before in the UK. One of them depicts an ostrich created around 1550 and attributed to Old Master heavyweight Titian. The show, titled “Drawing the Italian Renaissance,” will run from November 1 to March 9, 2025 and will comprise more than 150 works by 81 artists made between 1450 and 1600. Titian’s An Ostrich has rarely been shown to the public – it was previously exhibited at Florence’s Istituto Olandese in 1976. A Royal Collection spokesperson said that while the provenance of the chalk sketch has “occasionally been questioned over the past 50 years, [the] skewed up- close perspective is typical of Titian’s mature works and no one else.”

IN FROM THE COLD. A reclusive artist whose talent gave the likes of Salvador Dalí and René Magritte a run for their money has agreed to a solo show more than 50 years after he bowed out of the art world (in disgruntled fashion). Now 77 and living in the UK, Henrik Orlik was born in 1947 to a Polish father and Belarusian mother in Germany. In his twenties, he showed at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and had a sold-out solo show at London’s Acoris surrealist center. One critic described his surrealist works as “technically brilliant” and predicted a long and distinguished career for him. However, Orlik grew cynical of greedy art dealers and he withdrew from the commercial art scene. But it appears he’s softened in old age after he was persuaded to exhibit once again. “Cosmos of Dreams” opens at London’s Maas Gallery on August 9. The show’s curator, Grant Ford, said, “I have been involved in the art world for 38 years and I have never come across such an extraordinary group of paintings by an artist [who] should be considered one of our greats. Orlik accepts the fact that his work is of exceptionally high quality and unique and that it needs to be seen … Because he was so introverted, all he’s done for the last 50 years has just been painting and painting.”

THE DIGEST

Australia’s National Gallery (NGA) has acquired the country’s first ever Paul Gauguin painting after forking out $6.5 million for The blue roof, aka Farm a Le Pouldu (1890). The museum is hosting a major retrospective of the late post-Impressionist painter’s work. The NGA bought the painting from a private collector, who is believed to be the same person who successfully bid $5.3 million for the work at Christie’s in 2000. [The Art Newspaper]

People have been donating t-shirts that hold a special meaning to them for a large-scale public art installation called “Dancing Together” on the Channel Island of Jersey. Created by Kaarina Kaikkonen in partnership with ArtHouse Jersey and Butterfield, more than 600 t-shirts have been received to date. [BBC]

The world’s greatest collector of rare Zsolnay porcelain, László Gyugyi, has died at the ripe old age of 91. He amassed more than 700 pieces of the rare Hungarian porcelain. The local council of Pécs, where the Zsolnay factory was built, purchased Gyugyi’s collection of 588 rare Zsolnay pieces in 2010 for €1.3 million and pledged to keep it on public display. [Daily News Hungary]

A huge medieval altar, that was thought to be lost, has been found – hiding in plain sight. It turns out that an inconspicuous stone slab that occupied one segment of floor in a rear corridor of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher was actually a valuable artifact. [Artnet News]

THE KICKER

RENAISSANCE 101. Want to know three surprising facts about Michelangelo’s David masterpiece? First fact: It turns out the Italian High Renaissance man used an imperfect, hand-me-down block of marble that two artists had already tried using but given up on. It had apparently been standing around a courtyard for 20 years. Second fact: Michelangelo added gilding to the iconic sculpture that has been lost over time. The trunk supporting the right leg, sling, and a victory garland on his head were all once gilded by the artist. Third fact: People have been making knock-offs of David for centuries. Caveat emptor.

THE HEADLINES

THE IRE OF RESTORERS. The Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Mirón, an 18th-century Spanish church in the northeastern city of Soria, was given a bold makeover that has left the building’s cherubim looking startled and local architecture lovers outraged. Professional restorers in Spain have even demanded explanations. The online newspaper El Confidencial, which describes the makeover as “a crime against heritage,” picked up on the concerns of a group, Soria Patrimonio (Soria Heritage) that had posted before-and-after pictures of the paint job on X, showing how the once white nave had been striped a dusky pink and its cherubim crudely freshened up. “What have they done to the Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Mirón?” the group asked. “It’s a listed building, but even if it weren’t, any work on a monument such as this had to be subject to minimum guarantees.” Soria Patrimonio told El Confidencia that the work was unsatisfactory, as it had been carried out without the necessary preliminary studies, and had altered the appearance that the church had had for the past century. “We’ve ended up with the decorative elements being outlined and the cherubs – which were white before – becoming caricature-like.”

NO MORE PIGEONHOLING. Urban birds are often pigeonholed as “flying rats,” but Iván Argote’s giant pigeon is called “Dinosaur,” in reference to its size. The sculpture is 21 feet tall, including the 5-foot-tall plinth where it will perch on New York’s Highline. In October, the gigantic aluminum installation will replace Pamela Rosenkranz’s Old Tree, at the intersection of 10th Avenue and 30th Street, and remain there for 18 months. This artwork isn’t just a hyper-realistic rendering of the pigeon; instead it will challenge traditions of who and what we monumentalize, as well as explore ideas around migration and the long view of history. “Iván Argote’s ‘Dinosaur’ will add great wit to the skyline of New York,” said Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art. “Iván has a charming ability as an artist to take something familiar and make us consider it anew in profound ways.” The pigeon statue was one of the most polarizing proposals when High Line Art shared artwork suggestions a few years ago, so it’s sure to ruffle some feathers.

THE DIGEST

Marine paintings by Yorkshire artist Jack Rigg, who died last year aged 96, have sold at auction for more than double their estimated worth. Most of the works had “never been seen in public before”, having been kept in his home and studio in Hull. The collection of 54 paintings “smashed” expectations by raising more than £20,000 during an auction at David Duggleby on Sunday, with bids from as far afield as the US and the Bahamas. [BCC]

Birmingham Museums Trust (BMT) has announced that Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery will partially reopen in the fall. Starting October 24, visitors will be able to step into the Round Room Gallery, Industrial Gallery, Bridge Gallery, and Edwardian Tearooms. The entire site has undergone a £5 million revamp. The display will feature both new and familiar artworks. “We know this is news that a lot of people have been waiting for and we are so happy to be able to open more of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery,” said co-CEOs Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah. [Museum Association]

Newlyweds can now rent out the Paestum and Velia park in southern Italy for three hours—during which time members of the public will be barred from entering—to take pictures of their special day among the ruins of the ancient city. The privilege will cost them €7,000. The announcement adds fuel to a debate about whether it is right for publicly owned cultural heritage to be hired out for private use. [The Art Newspaper]

Art created by young people is on display at a professional gallery. It follows workshops run by Level Two youth project in Felixstowe, with sculptures, paintings, and photography installed at 142 Art Gallery in the Suffolk town. “I sanded it down, put a router through to make the shape and then put resin in it,” said 10-year-old Oscar, who was inspired to create chopping boards and a table with a blue resin river effect cut into the surface. Megan Pilcher, the project lead, stated: “We wanted to create a project that showcases the creativity and talent of young people in Felixstowe.” [BBC]

The Spanish High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community has suspended the process for choosing the management of the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern. This suspension comes five months after the resignation of Nuria Enguita (allegations of conflict of interest were made concerning a donation of land to a nonprofit founded by Vicente Todolí, who served on the international jury that awarded her the position), and after the lawyer and collector Luis Trigo filed an appeal on the basis that the governing council acts as judge and party. “I don’t say so, the law says so,” he said. [EL PAÍS]

THE KICKER

FAKE ALERT. Fans were excited: Las Vegas–based Kings Auctions had announced in July that it would be selling off several dozen of Michael Jackson’s signed drawings to the highest bidder. This announcement is called into question by the late King of Pop’s estate, which had the works examined years ago and has issued a “buyer beware” warning. The lot of 78 drawings, each of which is said to have been created by the music icon during downtime while touring the world, is due to go under the hammer on August 3. “The Estate of Michael Jackson does not accept that this artwork was created by Michael Jackson,” Jonathan Steinsapir, counsel for the estate of the pop superstar, wrote in a statement. “We have made this clear to the auction house and others many times since. The Estate asked for evidence that these works were in fact created by Michael, and no sufficient evidence has ever been produced. Caveat emptor.” [The Hollywood Reporter]