The Metropolitan Museum of Art gets into Web3 with a blockchain-based art history game.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has launched Art Links, its first blockchain-based Web3 game, where players explore connections between over 140 works from the museum’s collection and earn NFT badges as rewards. Developed in partnership with TRLab, the game offers weekly challenges that highlight art movements, materials, and symbols while introducing players to the blockchain’s artistic potential.
Trade experts are speculating about possible changes to the U.S.’ “de minimis” tariff exemptions.
President Trump is reviewing the “de minimis” tariff exemption, which allows duty-free imports under $800, citing trade imbalances and fentanyl-related concerns as reasons for his review of the policy. Critics argue that it enables Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu to evade tariffs and inspections, fueling U.S. trade deficits and undermining labor laws. Changes to this policy could slow China’s export growth and GDP while prompting global shifts in customs regulations.
Standing 865 feet tall, Sixth and Guadalupe becomes Austin’s tallest skyscraper.
Gensler has completed Sixth and Guadalupe, which stands at 865 feet tall and is Austin’s tallest skyscraper. Its trapezoidal design honors the city’s Capitol View Corridor zoning, preserving sightlines to the Texas State Capitol. The project is also a bellwether of Austin’s growing shift toward vertical, mixed-use developments as its population continues to grow.
According to billings data gathered by the AIA in 2024, business is down at architecture firms.
The AIA/Deltek Architecture Billings Index dropped sharply to 44.1 in December 2024, signaling a decline in business conditions for architecture firms after brief economic improvements in October and November. While inquiries for new projects grew modestly, the value of newly signed contracts fell further, reflecting ongoing uncertainty about the viability of planned construction projects heading further into 2025.
Jo Baer, a pioneer of minimalist painting in ‘60s and ‘70s New York, has died at the age of 95.
The late painter Jo Baer leaves behind an artistic legacy that redefined contemporary art by pushing painting and abstraction to its limits. Known for her hard-edge abstractions in the 1960s and 1970s, she challenged norms in New York’s male-dominated art scene before evolving her practice with symbolism and figuration after relocating to Europe. Her work, celebrated in major exhibitions from the Guggenheim to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, remains on view at MoMA’s “Vital Signs: Artists and the Body” through February.
Today’s attractive distractions:
The story behind this “Brutalist UFO” in Bulgaria is even wilder than its architecture.
To see and be seen: 150 years of performance at Paris’ Palais Garnier Opera House.
In a very different act of performance, FKA Twigs’ front row style served at Rick Owens.
In The Paris Review, a close read of the impact of James Baldwin’s Istanbul years.
