This week: a Renaissance altarpiece returns home, Yoko Ono at the Broad, the anti-AI writing movement, an uncertain future for butterfly collectors, the harp is hot again, and more.
Paint deterioration works hard, but conservators work harder. Daniele Rossi (right) and a team of restorers took part in a two-year-long process to bring Renaissance painter Fra Angelico's earliest known altarpiece back to life. Funded by the nonprofit Friends of Florence, the project uncovered new layers of the "Fiesole Altarpiece" (1420–23), depicting angels and saints encircling the Madonna and child. The restored work has now returned to its original home: the San Domenico convent in Fiesole, Italy. (photo Claudio Giusti, courtesy Friends of Florence)
At 93 years old, Yoko Ono has witnessed multiple generations take up the questions at the heart of her practice, which at its core is about our humanity and responsibility to one another. Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed's dispatch from recent performances of Ono's works — including "Cut Piece" — traces her oeuvre as a living organism in itself, bringing new lessons with each iteration:
