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The Headlines
SERENITY NOW.On Friday, Venice announced a plan that will require tourists intent on a day trip to the city tomake a reservation and pay a fee between €3 and €10 (about $3.13 to $10.43), depending on the size of anticipated crowds, the New York Timesreports. The new system will go into effect this coming January. Worry not, veteran Biennale fans: People sleeping overnight in the city will be exempt from the new fees, since a daily tax is already charged in such cases. Venice, the Most Serene Republic, is “an open-air museum and to preserve it, it’s necessary to limit the flow of people,” Dina Ravera, who runs a high-end tour company,toldBloomberg. “Otherwise, it would be like leaving the doors of theLouvre open.” However, some locals worry that the move could hurt the city’s economy.
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Ernie Barnes Painting Heads to Bonhams, Climate Activists Hit Another U.K. Museum, and More: Morning Links for July 6, 2022
Environmental Activists Have Glued Themselves to More Paintings in U.K. — Frame Damaged
IT’S DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN.Climate activists in the United Kingdom have once again staged a protest at a major art museum. On Monday,Just Stop Oilhit theNational Galleryin London, theGuardianreports,gluing themselves to the frameofJohn Constable’sThe Hay Wain(1821) and placing images atop the work that presents its verdant landscape as an environmental ruin. The action followssimilar protestslast week at institutions in London, Glasgow, andManchester. “Ultimately, new fossil fuels are a death project by our government,” one activist told the paper. “So yes there is glue on the frame of this painting but there is blood on the hands of our government.”
The Digest
On Friday, Germany and Nigeria inked a deal in Berlin that will see lootedBenin Bronzes and other material returned to the African country. Two bronzes were handed over at the ceremony. “This is just the beginning of more than 1,000 pieces from the Kingdom of Beninthat are still in German museums,” German’s foreign minister,Annalena Baerbock, said.[The Associated Press]
Kurt Markus, an Army Ranger-turned-photographer who took cowboys and supermodels as two of his key subjects, died last month at the age of 75. “A true artist,”Cindy Crawfordwrote on Instagram. “Your work was both beautiful and beautifully honest.”[The New York Times]
Marcus Fairs, the founder and editor-in-chief of the architecture and design magazineDezeen, has died at 54. Fairs was a “brilliant journalist, visionary entrepreneur, and much-loved father, husband, colleague, and friend,” the outlet said in a statement.[Dezeen]
A 17th-century gilded silver shield that was was missing from theDresden City Museumin Germany at the end of World War II went back on view there on Saturday. Researchers at thePhiladelphia Museum of Artidentified the piece in its collections and recently repatriated it.[PhillyVoice]
Attention is growing for Africa’s NFT scene,Joseph Ndukwureports.[ARTnews]
THE POP PAGES.For his first solo album,BTSmemberJ-Hopesaid thathe has tappedKAWS to create cover art (not yet unveiled). And singer Lykke Litold theFinancial Timesthatshe recently boughta bunch of books aboutLouise Bourgeois,Marlene Dumas, andCindy Sherman. “I love Cindy Sherman because she speaks to something I battle with a lot: how does one age as a woman without becoming insane?” Li said.
The Kicker
THROW THE BOOK AT THEM.TheFinancial Timestook a deep dive into thewild topic of book thefts, which have some clear parallels with art thefts. For one thing, if you steal an ultra-famous book, it will be hard to fence it. “Unless you’ve got aJames Bondvillain stroking a white cat who just wants to hold these items, most rare notebooks are like theMona Lisa—totally and utterly unsaleable,”Bernard Shapero, an antiquarian book dealer, told the paper. That said, such “klepto-connoisseurs” do exist, according to the story.[FT]
