— NYC Gives $23 Million to Arts Education: New York City has allotted $23 million for arts education next year, which will be used to hire 120 new art teachers for underserved middle and high schools in the public school system and support partnerships with the city’s cultural institutions. Yesterday’s announcement at the Bronx Museum of the Arts also disclosed that $7.5 million of that sum would be used to repair and upgrade existing arts facilities in schools. Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “For too long, we had underinvested in arts education and cultural education in our schools. And it was time to right that wrong and do something aggressive about it.” [WNYC, NY Daily News]
—Putin Bans Swear Words in Art: Russian president Vladimir Putin has just signed a new measure into law that bans swear words in art, film, and theater. The highly controversial law, which does not specifically define what constitutes profanity, has been interpreted as an effort by Putin to gain even more support from the Orthodox church. The law indicates that offenders will be fined and films containing obscenity will not be given distribution licenses. [AFP]
— Sotheby’s to Auction Bunny Mellon Collection: Sotheby’s will auction off the collection of the late Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon and her husband Paul Mellon beginning in November. The collection includes $100 million worth of art, jewelry, furniture, and decorative objects from the Mellons’ multiple residences in the U.S. and abroad. Highlights from the collection include paintings by Rothko and Diebenkorn that once hung in the National Gallery. [NYT]
— Creating a Koons Poem: LA Times critic Carolina A. Miranda mashed up reviews of Jeff Koons’s Whitney retrospective into a hallucinatory work of poetry. [LAT]
— Shipping Container Find: 20 works of art worth $4.5 million, including a piece by Os Gemeos, were found in a shipping container sent from Florida to Brazil, and authorities believe they are part of a tax evasion scheme. [TAN]
— BayeuxGets An End: After a year of work, embroiderers in Normandy have just finished a 10-foot-long addition to the Bayeux tapestry, which scholars believe is missing its end section. [BBC]
— John Wilson has stepped down from his post as executive director of the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego. [Times of San Diego]
— Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum is the first international museum to receive the BREEAM-NL In-Use sustainability certificate with a score of “Very Good” for building, management, and use. [Art Daily]
— Today in appointment news, Katie Pfohl was named the LSU Museum of Art’s new curator and Dr. Vanja Malloy was appointed American Art curator at the Mead Museum of Art at Amherst College. [Post South, Art Daily]
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