The Headlines
MELTING LINCOLN. Jokes about a melting wax sculpture of the Lincoln Memorial, which has drooped into a “hot mess” amid record temperatures in Washington, D.C., are making waves online. The sculpture by Sandy Williams IV is part of a contemporary art installation at an elementary school. While the work was intended as a commentary on the permanence of monuments, it has since gained new meaning for online observers, the New York Times reports. As temperatures surged in recent days, Lincoln’s head, once flopped back across his chair, melted away almost entirely, leading some to suggest the President looked annoyed, was slouching, or was embodying a metaphor about current affairs in the country. Williams has said he knew that someday he would have to become concerned about what rising temperatures would do to wax art pieces like his, but, he said, “I didn’t expect that point to be this past weekend.”
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MONA LISA MADNESS. If the Louvre in Paris decides eventually to go through with an idea to move the Mona Lisa to a separate, newly built gallery with its own entrance, the cash-strapped French government won’t foot the bill, the Art Newspaper reports. Louvre president Laurence des Cars confirmed this spring that she and staff were discussing plans to possibly move Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, in hopes of stemming some of the overcrowding the painting regularly faces. The project would reportedly cost around €500 million ($535 million). A source at France’s culture ministry said, however, that “this is only an idea, put forward by des Cars. And if it ever becomes a project, the state will not participate in the funding.”
The Digest
The South by Southwest festival has cut sponsorship ties to businesses financing arms manufacturing after more than 80 artists withdrew from this year’s edition in protest against Israel’s military actions in Gaza. As a result, SXSW has discontinued its partnership with the defense contractor RTX Corporation and its subsidiary, Collins Aerospace, for the 2025 edition. [The Guardian]
An original watercolor illustration that appeared on the cover of the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sold for $1.9 million at Sotheby’s New York on Wednesday, making it the most valuable Harry Potter item ever sold. The painted illustration by Thomas Taylor was estimated to sell between $400,000 and $600,000, and was first auctioned in London for $108,280 in 2001. [Forbes]
Entrepreneur Dave Werklund has donated $75 million to the Arts Commons and Olympic Plaza, a performing arts center in Calgary, Canada. So far, the renovation and rebuilding expansion project has raised $498.5 million of a $660 million goal. [Calgary Herald]
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei talks to Monopol in time for the publication of a new graphic novel about his life. “I’m not angry with Germany,” he said, in response to questions about his previous complaint that Germany is not an “open society.” [Monopol]
A curator at England’s Strawberry Hill House has uncovered a Roman bust of Emperor Caligula that had been lost for some 200 years. Silvia Davoli spotted the bust in the family collection of Sir John Henry Schroder, who purchased it in the 1890s, but thought it was a “possible Renaissance bronze of a youth,” not an ancient artifact. [Smithsonian Magazine and The Guardian]
The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, reopened to the public June 22, following months of repairs to damage caused by the Noto Peninsula earthquake this past January that destroyed a glass ceiling. [ArtAsiaPacific]
In other earthquake-related news, Florence’s Jewish community has raised nearly all the €380,000 needed to repair a damaged 18th-century synagogue in Siena. In February 2023, a 3.5 magnitude earthquake destabilized the vault and roof of the building designed by Giuseppe del Rosso in 1786. [The Art Newspaper]
The exhibit “Draw Me Ishmael: The Book Arts of Moby-Dick,” at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, thoroughly and engrossingly addresses how illustrators and publishers have approached the 1851 novel by Herman Melville, writes Laura Jacobs. Moby Dick is, after all, “the most persistently pictured of all American novels,” curator Dan Lipcan notes. [The Wall Street Journal]
The Kicker
AS THE FRENCH LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS NEAR, with the populist far-right National Rally (RN) leading the polls, Le Monde has spoken to culture workers around the country about the potential impact of the party’s victory, which many fear might lead to a culture of conservatism like that in Italy right now. Some are concerned that key leaders at cultural institutions will be replaced with right-leaning figures, as Giorgia Meloni ’s government has done, and that institutions will face funding cuts and censorship. The RN’s current program would also favor funding for French heritage preservation over that for contemporary art. “The world of culture is in panic,” Roxana Azimi and Michel Guerrin note.