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Francois Pinault will inaugurate Paris’s long-awaited Bourse de Commerce on May 22.
French museums have officially been given the green light to reopen on May 19. That’s welcome news for mega-collector Francois Pinault, who plans to inaugurate the long-awaited Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection in central Paris almost one year after it was originally scheduled to open. Pinault enlisted Pritzker Prize laureate Tadao Ando to reimagine the former stock exchange into an extraordinary multi-use art institution complete with a 284-seat auditorium, top-floor restaurant, and seven galleries that stretch across 73,000 square feet. The centerpiece of Ando’s revamp includes a 30-foot-tall concrete cylinder that curves with the building’s existing structure. It’s not yet known what artworks the Bourse will display; details are being kept secret until the opening.
Eli Broad, the philanthropist and entrepreneur who founded the Broad Museum, dies at 87.
Eli Broad, a philanthropist who invested nearly $1 billion to arts and culture institutions throughout Los Angeles with his wife, Edye, has died at 87. Since he moved to Los Angeles, in 1963, Broad co-founded the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and The Broad Museum, helped spearhead the effort to build the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and played a catalyzing role in developing Downtown’s Grand Avenue into a cultural nexus. “Eli saw the arts as a way to strive to build a better world for all,” Joanne Heyler, founding director of The Broad, said in a statement. “He was a fiercely committed civic leader, and his tenacity and advocacy for the arts indelibly changed Los Angeles. He will long be remembered for his unmatched generosity in sharing the arts passionately and widely.”
Illustration of Fanny’s by Konstantin Kakanias…
Commune will design Fanny’s, the restaurant at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has revealed details of Fanny’s, its restaurant and cafe. The 250-chair eatery, which will be developed by restaurateurs Bill Chait and Carl Schuster, will occupy a striking bi-level space designed by Commune Design in the museum’s Saban Building. In line with the museum’s focus on the history of show business, Commune’s design riffs on old Hollywood inspiration as embodied by classic spaces such as the Brown Derby and Perino’s, studio backlots, and the museum’s own 1939 Streamline Moderne architecture, which was formerly a May Company department store. The space will feature curved booths, an Art Deco–inspired bar, and work by local artists such as Atelier de Troupe, Adam Pogue, and Konstantin Kakanias.
The SEC didn’t laugh when Volkswagen jokingly announced its “Voltswagen” rebrand.
The April Fool’s Day joke didn’t quite land when Volkswagen announced that it would change its name to Voltswagen to reflect a new commitment to electric vehicles. Now, the misguided marketing stunt has resulted in an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The reasoning? Publicly listed companies aren’t allowed to fool their shareholders. The gag hasn’t influenced Volkswagen’s share prices, however, and any penalties it may incur will likely pale in comparison to the tens of billions of dollars that an emissions scandal has cost the company since 2015.
World War I Memorial in Washington, DC…
Washington, DC, welcomes a new memorial dedicated to American World War I soldiers…
Washington, DC, has recently inaugurated a memorial to American soldiers during World War I. The city technically already had one located in Pershing Park, near the White House, but it fell into disrepair soon after opening. The $42 million project, designed by architect Joe Weishaar, sculptor Sabin Howard, and landscape architects David Rubin Land Collective, involved rehabilitating the park and converting an erstwhile ice skating rink into a viewing platform. The memorial’s centerpiece, a 60-foot-long frieze, will see giant statuary figures installed by 2024; for now, a temporary canvas gives visitors a sense of what’s in store.
…while five artists are shortlisted to design a monument for Harriet Tubman in Newark.
Newark residents are being invited to share their feedback on five proposals by Abigail DeVille, Dread Scott, Jules Arthur, Nina Cooke John, and Vinnie Bagwell for the city’s forthcoming Harriet Tubman Monument. According to Newark mayor Ras J. Baraka, the monument “will reflect how Newark honors one of our great pioneers and warriors, and therefore it should in turn reflect the views of our residents.” The winner will be selected by a jury of art experts, historians, and community stakeholders this summer. News of the finalists follows the city’s decision to rename Washington Park to Tubman Square, where the new monument will replace the statue of Christopher Columbus that was removed in June.
Solar Mountain by NUDES…
Today’s attractive distractions:
TikTokers coin the term “cheugy,” a relentlessly specific new synonym for “basic.”
This installation would produce 300 MWH of renewable energy at Burning Man.
Victoria Beckham has some choice words about Justin Bieber’s new Crocs collab.
