Stunning Numbers Detail Absence Of Women Artists "People were saying: 'I find I can't even have this conversation about equality in the art world' because so many people think it's already been achieved. Because figures like Tracey Emin have defied the statistics, their rare success misleads people into thinking women get an equal shot." The Guardian (UK) 05/24/13

Museum Directors Look For An Evolutionary Model "Concerns about the number and scale of museums raised issues about the capacity for an industry-wide restructure, integrated collections and even the possibility of a moratorium on new museum construction for two to five years." The Australian 05/23/13

Hirshhorn Museum Director Resigns Over 'Bubble' Project Delays "Richard Koshalek, the high-profile director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, announced his decision to resign by the end of the year after the Hirshhorn board's split vote Thursday on the fate of the Seasonal Inflatable Structure project, informally known as the 'Bubble'." The Washington Post 05/23/13

Tate Britain Buys Constable For £23M To Share With Regional Galleries "A turbulent landscape in which storm clouds and sunlight vie for mastery over Salisbury Cathedral, which John Constable hoped would help secure his eternal reputation as an artist of genius, has been acquired by the Tate ... will be shared and travel between a group of regional museums, including the national galleries of Wales and Scotland." The Guardian (UK) 05/23/13

Legendary Picasso Catalogue Returns To Print "Comprising 33 volumes and more than 16,000 images," Pablo Picasso - known in the art world as "the Zervos" - "was the result of an intense four-decade collaboration between the artist and [scholar/dealer Christian] Zervos." The New York Times 05/23/13

China's Museum Boom Doesn't Necessarily Include Museum Visitors "In recent years, about 100 museums have opened annually here, peaking at nearly 400 in 2011, according to the Chinese Society of Museums. The frenzied construction of cultural infrastructure follows earlier building binges involving roads and bridges. But it's harder to manage a museum than a highway. For one thing, you need to fill museums with worthwhile exhibits and visitors." NPR 05/22/13

The Whitney's New Logo (Having It All Ways?) From the museum's description of the logo: "It shows the Whitney as an institute that is breathing (in and out), an institute that is open and closed at the same time. An institute that goes back and forth between the past and the future, moving from one opposite to the other (history and present, the 'Old World' and the 'New World', between the industrial and the sublime, etc.), while still moving forward." Hyperallergic 05/21/13

Dealer At Center Of Knoedler Gallery Scandal Arrested For Tax Fraud "As alleged, Glafira Rosales gave new meaning to the phrase 'artful dodger' by avoiding taxes on millions of dollars in income from dealing in fake artworks for fake clients," said federal prosecutor Preet Bharara in a statement. The New York Times 05/22/13

The Architecture Of Antarctica "It is no coincidence that many of the buildings in the first exhibition on architecture in Antarctica, shaped like caterpillars or icebergs, on stilts or stubby legs, will look like science-fiction illustrations - the storms, blizzards, extremes of temperature, darkness and howling winds they have been designed to withstand are so extreme that conditions have been likened to those on Mars." The Guardian (UK) 05/21/13

Isn't It Time To Recognize Great Women Architects? "Female architects don't often attract the attention of the Pritzker jury. Of the Pritzker's 37, only two were women, Zaha Hadid, of the U.K., and Kazuyo Sejima, of Japan." Bloomberg 05/21/13

'Something Monumental Has Been Happening': The Met's New European Art Galleries Peter Schjeldahl: "I had an eerie sense, while surveying the results the other day, that here was a brand new major institution which, somehow, had plundered the holdings of the Met." The New Yorker 05/20/13

The Amazing Ambulatory Art Of Pakistani Trucks "Showcasing the Pakistani tradition of painting vehicles elaborately, the trucks are covered with everything from detailed arabesques and Urdu calligraphy to portraits of Pakistani pop icons - or some combination of all three." Foreign Policy 05/13/13 (slide show)

Frank Lloyd Wright Homes Are Splendid - Unless You Live In One "It's often tricky to renovate an architectural treasure while preserving Wright's innovations, such as radiant-floor heating, carports, built-in furniture and soaring clerestory windows. Meanwhile, permanent easements held by the Wright conservancy on 16 private Wright residences limit exterior alterations." The Wall Street Journal 05/16/13

What, Exactly, Is Going On With The Andy Warhol Foundation? In short: A board authenticating pieces of art it had previously declared fakes, lawsuits, countersuits, and possible reasons for the Foundation's decision to sell all of its Warhols. The New York Review of Books 06/20/13

Why Is China Copying Western Icons, Towns, Cities? Hallstatt, Austria, is in China. So is the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, Christ the Redeemer, and a soon-to-be-completed Manhattan. There are others, too, and it's all part of this weird (at least to us Westerners, or this one Westerner who is writing this) proliferation of what are being called "copy towns." Pacific Standard 05/16/13

Raid On Prominent Manhattan Gallery "As newspaper photographers gathered around, agents hauled away computers and boxes of documents as part of a sweeping investigation involving the gallery's owner, Hillel Nahmad, 34, who is known as Helly and is accused along with several others of playing leadership roles in a $100 million gambling and money-laundering network with connections to Russian organized-crime figures." The New York Times 05/17/13

Nearly Half A Billion Dollars: Christie's Holds Richest Art Auction In History "Record prices for 12 contemporary artists including Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat made history on Wednesday night. The sale of postwar and contemporary art at Christie's in Rockefeller Center totaled $495 million, the highest sales figure at any art auction." The New York Times 05/16/13

Cambodia Presses More US Museums To Return Antiquities "Buoyed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's decision this month to return two stolen statues, Cambodia is asking other museums to examine any Khmer antiquities they acquired after 1970, when a 20-year period of civil war and genocide gave thieves free range to loot the country's ancient temples." The New York Times 05/16/13

Unknown Dalí Watercolors Come To Light "At a glance they seem like familiar 19th-century botanical lithographs, the type you see on endless hotel room walls. But look closer and the plum appears to be running away, the raspberries look embarrassed and the grapefruit ... well, it's enough to make the viewer blush." The Guardian (UK) 05/15/13

Interpol On The Lookout For Qaddafi Art Holdings "The UK government has confirmed that art is likely to be among the items seized as part of a drive to recover billions of dollars worth of assets siphoned off by the Qaddafi family during four decades in power." The late dictator's son Saif al-Islam "was known to be a keen art collector and reportedly active on the Islamic art circuit." The Art Newspaper 05/16/13

On The Art Market As An Arbiter Of Quality Christopher Knight: "So the art market is a judge of quality, just like Mom and cousin Fred are, but hardly the best judge. There's a simpler explanation as to why collectors and dealers aren't the ones deciding who, finally, are the important artists. (Nor, for that matter, do curators, critics or the general public.) It's because artists do." Los Angeles Times 05/16/13

Mayan Pyramid Demolished For Road Gravel "A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize's largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday." Yahoo! (AP) 05/14/13

Is Money Laundering A Problem In The Art World? (Yes) "April's federal charges against the New York dealer Helly Nahmad included that he worked 'to launder tens of millions of dollars on behalf of the illegal gambling business.' While Nahmad has pleaded not guilty to all the charges in the indictment, the accusation raises the questions of whether (and if so why) art would be used in this way." The Art Newspaper 05/13/13

Artists Occupy Budapest Museum Over Replacement Of Director "Around 30 activists from the group 'United for Contemporary Art' have been occupying the entrance hall of Budapest's Ludwig Museum in the Palace of the Arts since last week. The protest, which is still ongoing, is directed at the 'lack of transparency' in the selection process of the Ludwig's new director." The Art Newspaper 05/15/13

German Galleries Fight Against Hike In VAT On Art "The German federal association of galleries and dealers ... has, for the moment, won a major battle to keep VAT rates down on the purchase of original works of art. The European Commission has been trying to raise German VAT tax on original works of art from 7% to 19% to bring it in line with higher VAT rates in the rest of Europe." The Art Newspaper 05/15/13