- 19 years after legislation passed to establish Greece’s first contemporary art museum, it’s finally opening. Greece’s art scene sounds like a mess, but people are hopeful the new EMST can change that. [Al Jazeera]
- There’s a one-legged Statue of Liberty with a crazy life story in Japan. Manaka Murakami, a student at Tokyo University for the Arts, is planning her thesis exhibition on the theme of the devastating 2011 earthquake. She tracked down the replica Statue of Liberty in a coastal town, which lost its leg in the tsunami, but was otherwise unscathed, and it’s going to be incorporated into her show. [The Asahi Shimbun]
- Images from New York’s Halloween parade. Covering political themes this year we see a bad hombre, a brexit, some NRA zombies (a personal favorite), and a basket of deplorables. Other costumes include boobs, a naked guy, a plug, a broken computer, plenty of injured people and 2015. [Gothamist]
- New York University’s 23 story sports center has got the green light. This is a lot of floors for ellipticals, so we hope they include a several story mountain in there or something. The building is of relevance to art folk, because it will also apparently house a performing arts center. The building will be divided into two towers. The project is expected to be completed in 2021. [Curbed]
- Long, but interesting read: Jacoba Urist examines the changing role of college museums in the academic and art worlds. Universities are spending big bucks on exhibitions, starchitecture, and collections. Some are starting to rival their non-academic peers. [The Atlantic]
- The Shanghai art collective Chi She has a new home in the West Bund Arts District. The building, designed by Archi-Union, was essentially “printed” by bricklaying robots and looks kinda like a pixelated buffering video of a warehouse. [Dezeen]
- This report of a conversation between Ai Weiwei and Tania Bruguera does not cast a positive light on Ai. Bruguera asks him a question about the ethical implications of restaging a well-known photograph of a Syrian father holding his dead toddler and Ai responds by accusing her of not being a full political artist, just a “Cuban” political artist. [ARTnews]
- How a Yoko Ono joke from The Simpsons ended up becoming an actual sculpture in her show at The Reykjavik Art Museum. [i-D]
