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Foster + Partners brings responsive architecture to Apple’s first outpost in Malaysia.
Apple has unveiled its first retail store in Malaysia. The outpost, dubbed Apple the Exchange TRX and located in Kuala Lumpur, features a striking cantilevered roof that evokes traditional Malaysian design. Foster + Partners, the firm behind the new store, aimed to blend cultural aesthetics with modern architecture, thwarting Kuala Lumpur’s unforgiving heat in the process.
Elton John is auctioning off his wardrobe to fund HIV prevention and treatment.
The Elton John AIDS Foundation has partnered with eBay to launch a landmark auction of Elton John’s wardrobe. The initiative aims to raise funds to support HIV prevention and treatment, furthering the foundation’s mission of ending the AIDS epidemic. Some items, like a pair of Patrick Cox loafers, were even custom-made for him.
Accusers of Kehinde Wiley urge museums to investigate the artist’s alleged misconduct.
A letter penned by Joseph Awuah-Darko, Terrell Armistead, Nathaniel Lloyd Richards, Derrick Ingram, and others who have voiced allegations of sexual misconduct by Wiley responds to the National Coalition Against Censorship’s concern over the cancellation of Wiley’s museum shows. The artists’ statement emphasizes that “artistic merit, while significant, should not take precedence over issues of moral injury and human dignity,” suggesting that the canceled shows reflect a reckoning with the harm Wiley’s alleged actions have caused. (Wiley denies the allegations.) The group asserts that holding artists accountable is crucial, even when their work holds significant cultural value, and urges institutions to adopt “clear investigative protocols.”
Valparaiso University plans to sell donated paintings to address its financial deficits.
The university closed its Brauer Museum of Art and dismissed the museum’s former director, making strides in a controversial funding plan centered around selling three valuable paintings including Georgia O’Keeffe’s Rust Red Hills, Frederic Edwin Church’s Mountain Landscape, and Childe Hassam’s Silver Vale. The lot is expected to fetch more than $20 million, but the American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors have both publicly condemned the proposition, saying it violates the intentions of donor Percy H. Sloan.
Estúdio Campana has unveiled a publicly accessible nature park near São Paulo.
The Brazilian studio’s latest undertaking, a landscaped park with 12 pavilions, merges art with nature on 130 acres of land near São Paulo. The project brings together local materials, natural fibers, and plants, all in the interest of increasing denizens’ access to art and environmental education. Co-founder Humberto Campana dedicated the park to his brother and late co-founder Fernando, and to the family’s ancestral roots in Italy.
Today’s attractive distractions:
On the Canary Islands, Lanzarote is emerging as a queer-friendly travel hotspot.
An early Harry Potter watercolor fetches an eye-popping $1.9 million at auction.
Disney’s Splash Mountain enters its next chapter as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
NASA charts its next, if not final frontier: bringing ‘shrooms to outer space.
