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The Headlines
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THE HONOR ROLL. British architect David Chipperfield has been awarded the 2023 Pritzker Architecture Prize, his profession’s highest honor, which comes with $100,000 and a bronze medal. “Subtle yet powerful, subdued yet elegant, he is a prolific architect who is radical in his restraint,” its jury said in a statement. Chipperfield, who turns 70 this year, has created acclaimed buildings or expansions for an array of art museums, including the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Kunsthaus Zurich, the Figge Art Museum, in Davenport, Iowa, and the Neues Museum in Berlin. It all began with some small design jobs in the 1980s, the architect told the Guardian. “With shop interiors, the projects in Japan, and some competition entries, you could magic up the idea—with sleight of hand—that I had a real office,” he said.
TODAY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD. Under a deal signed on Tuesday, three Parthenon fragments held by the Vatican Museums will be returned to Greece, the Associated Press reports. Technically, it has been structured as a donation from the Vatican to Greece and the Orthodox Christian archbishop of Athens. ● While excavating the grounds of the Leicester Cathedral in England, archaeologists found what they believe is a Roman shrine dating back some 1,800 years, the AP reports. ● And experts studying a second-century vase dug up in Colchester, England, have determined that the gladiatorial match on its exterior occurred in what is now Colchester, per the Washington Post. It’s the only known depiction of such an event taking place in Roman Britain.
The Digest
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art said that its fundraising campaign for its Peter Zumthor–designed new home has reached $736 million, about two percent shy of its goal of $750 million. It reported a $700 million total last October. Construction is underway and slated to be finished in late 2024. [Los Angeles Times]
Speaking of monumental fundraising and building efforts, reconstruction work is continuing at the fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and it should be able to reopen by the end of 2024, according to French officials, though some work will stretch into 2025. [The Associated Press]
Businessman Richard Caring’s George club in London is selling off some of its art, including a Tracey Emin neon, with proceeds going to the Caring Family Foundation, which addresses child hunger, reforestation, and other issues. The tony spot is set to reopen after a refurbishment in June. [Bloomberg]
Former Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was released from U.S. prison last year in a prisoner swap for baseball star Brittney Griner, opened a show of his paintings in Moscow yesterday. Artworks by the so-called “Merchant of Death” reportedly feature film actors from Soviet times and animals, among other subjects. [The Associated Press]
Photographer Aida Muluneh will have a dozen of her brilliant colored photographs displayed on bus stops in Boston, Chicago, and Abidjan in the Ivory Coast this month, for a project organized by the Public Art Fund. [The New York Times]
And while we are on the subject of famed photographers, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin let Architectural Digest into their airy home out in the Hamptons. It features Isamu Noguchi lanterns, a large Frank Stella litho, a Robert Greene painting, and a bevy of choice furniture by big-league designers. [Architectural Digest]
The Kicker
THE EXPENSIVE MOMENT. A couple weeks ago, the New Yorker ran a selection of almost entirely unknown photographs that Henri Cartier-Bresson took in New Jersey in 1975. Now the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, has interviewed the person who kept those pictures safe for the past half-century, photographer Peter Cunningham. On the New Yorker Radio Hour, Cunningham describes working as Cartier-Bresson’s assistant on the project and watching the master work. “He didn’t overshoot, like we do now, with our digital cameras, where there’s no limit,” he said. “It used to cost us 35 cents each time we pressed the shutter.” [WNYC Studios]
Source: artnews.com