Tens of thousands of magic lantern slides, for decades hidden in the collections of museums and archives across Europe, are currently being digitized and released into the public domain.
News
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James Baldwin’s Longtime Home in Southern France Faces Demolition
The acclaimed writer James Baldwin moved from New York to Paris in 1948 and then to Saint-Paul de Vence in the south of France, where he eventually died with his longtime lover, the obscure Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger, at his side.
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Poll: What Does This Aggressively Restored 9th-Century Moorish Castle Look Like?
An architect’s restoration of a 9th-century Moorish castle in southern Spain has drawn outcry from locals and historians, with many drawing comparisons between the registered national monument’s new look and the infamous case of Beast Jesus.
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Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a museum’s photography contest backfired terribly, the alleged perps behind Verona’s €15 million art heist were arrested, and a trove of books on medieval witch hunts stolen by the Nazis was recovered.
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A 3D Database of Threatened Syrian Heritage Sites
A team of digital surveyors is working to create the world’s largest 3D database of archaeological sites in Syria, focusing on those at risk of destruction.
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With Its Own Arts Center, Beast Jesus Rises Again
It was inevitable: Beast Jesus is getting its very own arts center in its home of Borja, Spain.
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Art Movements
This week in art news: an anonymous artist blindfolded 100 public statues in Rio de Janeiro, Venice was declared Europe’s most endangered heritage site, and the National Academy revealed plans to sell its buildings on Fifth Avenue.
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Fall with Bruegel’s Rebel Angels in a Virtual Reality Experience
Thanks to a new virtual reality project launched this week by the Google Cultural Institute, you can now immerse yourself in one of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s most bizarre paintings and hang out with the peculiar creatures that cover its canvas.
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Shakespeare’s Only Handwritten Manuscript Contains a Message of Empathy for Migrants
Aside from a few signatures, only one example of William Shakespeare’s handwriting survives, a speech from around 1600 that imagines Sir Thomas More addressing the rage of an anti-migrant crowd in England.
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TSA Confronts Age-old Question: Bomb or Abstract Art?
Today, TSA Public Affairs spokesperson Lisa Farbstein tweeted a photo of an object the organization’s staff encountered at New York’s JFK Airport.
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Abracadabra! Republicans Want to Designate Magic a “Rare and Valuable Art Form”
You may not believe in magic, but it has touched the souls of a number of Republicans, who are now calling for the nation to officially recognize it “as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure.”
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Grayson Perry, Schoolchildren, and Others Design Postcards to Support Syrian Refugees
“MACHO POSTURING / THERE IS NO GOD,” reads British artist Grayson Perry’s newest drawing, which depicts an industrial wasteland with territories marked “fragile hope,” “crap jobs,” and “motorway of dreams (mistaken).”
