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Casinos are starting to use immersive fine art experiences to lure new crowds.
“Hoping to expand their appeal beyond the slot machine and buffet crowd, some casinos are turning to fine art galleries or exhibitions to bring in new business from customers who might not otherwise visit a gambling hall. In the process, they are helping not only broaden their own customer bases, but are also putting new eyeballs in front of some of the world’s great works of art. One such effort began Friday at Atlantic City’s Hard Rock casino, where the highly acclaimed “Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” exhibit opened. The 30,000-square-foot display uses over 300 of Van Gogh’s works, reproducing them digitally and projecting them onto screens, walls and floors.” [H/T The Associated Press]
The professor caught in the Basquiat forgery scandal tells her side of the story.
“A University of Maryland art professor caught up in the art forgery controversy swirling around a now-discredited exhibit of the works of the late painter Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Orlando Museum of Art went public Friday in an effort to clear her name. Jordana Moore Saggese, a professor of American art at the university, wrote in a statement released Friday night by her attorneys that tentative opinions that she expressed in two reports as to the authenticity of more than two dozen paintings purportedly by Basquiat, once known as “the Black Picasso,” were twisted and taken out of context. She wrote that her provisional analyses were used to provide an aura of legitimacy to the exhibit that she had never intended.” [H/T The Baltimore Sun]
Tosin Oshinowo’s plan to rebuild Ngarannam. Image courtesy UNDP and Tolulope Sanusi…
Tosin Oshinowo is rebuilding a settlement for a community displaced by Boko Haram.
“In 2014, the small community of Ngarannam located in northeast Nigeria was left destroyed and deserted following attacks by insurgent group Boko Haram. Since then, the village in Borno state has been left mostly desolate, with many of its residents displaced in overflowing refugee camps miles away. But the Nigerian government, along with the support of the United Nations Development Programme, have decided to rebuild. The new infrastructure is nearing completion this summer. It will provide 500 new housing units, a health clinic, a primary school and instructor quarters, a marketplace, and other services including road infrastructure. The architect behind the plan is Tosin Oshinowo, who has been dubbed Nigeria’s “beach house queen” for her portfolio of beach houses in Nigeria.” [H/T The Architect’s Newspaper]
American Eagle acquired two supply chain startups and is building a logistics network.
“When American Eagle bought a pair of logistics start-ups last year, it was widely seen as an ambitious—if expensive—attempt to get ahead of the shipping delays and warehouse shortages that have dogged the fashion industry since the start of the pandemic. Now, it’s betting it can sell logistics services to rival retailers, just like it sells jeans, T-shirts, and swimsuits to teens. American Eagle’s logistics ambitions center around Quiet Logistics, the e-commerce services provider it acquired for $350 million last November. Quiet fulfills online orders and handles returns for brands such as Outdoor Voices and Peloton out of nine warehouses spread across the U.S. American Eagle wants to use that platform to build an “open marketplace” where retailers share warehouse space, delivery trucks and more. By pooling resources, small and mid-sized businesses would pay less for logistics, making them more competitive with giants like Amazon and Walmart.” [H/T Business of Fashion]
“A Hundred Years” (1990) by Damien Hirst. Photography by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images…
A German museum removes Damien Hirst’s fly-killing artwork after PETA speaks out.
“An art installation has created a buzz after Damien Hirst had his art—featuring hordes of flies that die—removed from a German museum’s exhibit. Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg dismantled the installation A Hundred Years (1990) after animal rights group PETA filed a complaint to the city. The city of Wolfsburg then requested the installation be taken down and the museum complied. Germany’s Animal Welfare Act bans the killing or harming of animals without proper reason.” [H/T Business Insider]
Volkswagen breaks ground on a major cell factory for electric vehicles in Germany.
“Electric vehicles require batteries to help them zip down the road. Those batteries consist of a multitude of individual cells that together form a battery system. Today, in Salzgitter, Germany, the Volkswagen Group broke ground on a new factory that will crank out those cells, someday producing enough of the powerpack units for around 500,000 vehicles every year. Production is set to begin in 2025.” [H/T Popular Science]
SKKN by Kim…
Today’s attractive distractions:
Brian Roettinger dissects the packaging of the beauty line SKKN by Kim.
Istanbul is emerging as the unlikely global capital of the hair transplant.
The Miami Herald is working on a documentary about the Surfside collapse.
Jeff Koons’s flashy BMW Art Car is the car he “always wanted” for himself.
