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last week in art

Ai Weiwei and Shepard Fairey Made Skate Decks to Honor Trump’s 100 Days

Also in the news: the 2017 NFL draft and censorship on Instagram.
Image courtesy of The Skateroom

A lot went down this week in the weird and wild world of Art. Some things were more scandalous than others, some were just plain wacky—but all of them are worth knowing about. Without further ado:

+ Ai Weiwei and Shepard Fairey made custom anti-Trump skateboard decks to mark POTUS's first 100 days in office. [The Daily Beast]

+ Two men posed as art collectors stole $30 million worth of paintings from an art dealer in northern Italy. [DPAvia IL Giorno]

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+ Former chief White House photographer, Pete Souza, landed a book deal that will feature 300 of the best photographs taken during the Obama administration.  [Creators]

+ Fox Searchlight Pictures announced that Wes Anderson's highly anticipated stop-motion film, Isle of Dogs, will be hitting theaters on April 20, 2018. [Creators]

+ The owner of two Chinese vases, previously valued at roughly $1,300, learned that the antiques she inherited from relatives could potentially fetch up to $2.5 million at auction. [The Telegraph]

+ Sotheby's is set to host 60 artist from 14 countries in the auction house's first-ever contemporary African art sale. [Harpers Bazaar Arabia]

+ The Tate recently came under fire after reports emerged that the museum had asked staff members to help pay for a boat that would serve as a parting gift for outgoing director Nicholas Serota. [The Guardian]

+ The World Monuments Fund launched an Instagram campaign using the hashtag "#ModernCentury" that aims to draw attention to buildings around the world in danger of being demolished. [The Art Newspaper]

+ Instagram has removed three images posted by the Museum of Fine Arts because they violated the company's policy on nudity. [The Boston Globe]

+ In a recent profile, Mark Bradford claims The New York Times published four images of his work without his permission. [Hyperallergic]

+ Revered American video and performance artist, Vito Acconci, died in Manhattan on Thursday at the age of 77. [The New York Times]

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via Wikimedia Commons

+ The Metropolitan Museum of Art is considering changing their suggested donation policy in order to make tourists pay a required admissions fee. [The New York Times]

+ In a Facebook post published on Wednesday, admins of the Tasmanian musical festival, Dark Mofo, announced that a very bloody upcoming performance by the highly controversial Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch's will go on as planned. [Facebook]

+ A stage that is being built for the 2017 NFL draft has been blocking the famous steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the last two weeks, forcing visitors to enter through the museum's West Entrance. [Philly.com]

+ Oscar-Winning director of Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme, died on Wednesday at his Manhattan home. He was 73. [The Hollywood Reporter]

+ Director M. Night Shyamalan announced he was making a sequel for 'Unbreakable' and 'Split' in a series of tweets on Wednesday. [Twitter]

+ The artist and activist group, Decolonize This Place, launched a campaign to raise awareness for the more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners who have gone on hunger strike in detention facilities in Israel. [Hyperallergic]

+ Egypt, Iran, Peru, Bolivia, China, Iraq, Greece, and Italy are forming a coalition to prevent further destruction of vulnerable historical sites. [The Greek Observer]

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