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Rafael Moneo receives the Venice Biennale’s Gold Lion for Lifetime Achievement award.
The Spanish architect, educator, and critic Rafael Moneo has been named as this year’s recipient of the Venice Biennale Gold Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award. One of the most transformative architects of his generation, Moneo received the Pritzker Prize in 1996 and the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2003. “Throughout his career, Moneo has maintained a poetic prowess, reminding us of the powers of architectural form to express shape but also to endure,” a Venice Biennale spokesperson said in a statement. “He has also been tenaciously committed to architecture as an act of building.” On May 22, he will be officially recognized during an awards ceremony that will also recognize Lina Bo Bardi.
After sparking controversy, an NFT of a Basquiat drawing gets pulled from the market.
A controversial NFT of a drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat has been pulled from auction after it surfaced that the owner didn’t possess the license or rights to the work. Basquiat’s estate intervened when the firm Daystrom listed Free Comb with Pagoda (1986) for sale on the platform OpenSea and offered the purchaser the option of destroying the original work. “The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat owns the copyright in the artwork referenced,” said David Stark, the representative of Basquiat’s estate. “No license or rights were conveyed to the seller and the NFT has subsequently been removed from sale.” The work was expected to fetch up to $120,000 when it last went under the hammer, in 2012, but failed to sell and was purchased by a gallery in 2015.
A series of sunny digitally animated billboards by David Hockney will enliven five cities.
Starting in May, five international cities will receive sunny digital billboards by the British artist David Hockney organized by the digital platform CIRCA. The two-minute animation will be broadcast on billboards in Times Square in New York, as well as prominent locations in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, and Seoul. The image depicts a saturated landscape not unlike the one Hockney sees from his window in Normandy, France, where he’s lived since 2019. Ultimately, the work imparts feelings of hope as the world emerges from winter and pandemic lockdowns amid the vaccine rollout.
In preparation for a radical rebranding, Vetements is expected to change its name.
Recent trademark filings suggest that the Zurich-based fashion house is preparing to change its name or release a sub-label. From April 2020 to February of this year, Vetements filed 25 different trademark applications in various territories including the United States, Italy, Singapore, and Switzerland, for “VTMNTS.” According to filings, the new name is intended to be used on everything from garments, accessories, and retail store services to fragrances, eyewear, and jewelry.
After widespread public backlash, the NYPD is retiring its Boston Dynamics robot dog.
New York council members have officially barred the Digidog. The Boston Dynamics-made robot dog was formerly employed by the New York Police Department to help keep New York safe, but it wasn’t long before people began to complain that the four-legged dog-bot was disturbing and proof of the local law enforcement’s penchant for surveillance methods like the cellphone trackers and drones that it already employs.
Today’s attractive distractions:
An artist faked her own wealth to gain access to Manhattan’s priciest pads.
The world’s most valuable stamp is going under the hammer for $15 million.
Billion-year-old water samples may answer questions about extraterrestrial life.
Two models for a Norman Rockwell painting reunite after nearly seven decades.
