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Good Morning!
- Pakistan’s Karachi Biennale has cancelled its fifth edition due to “war conditions prevailing in the region.”
- A 300-year-old Jingdezhen porcelain bowl and box mysteriously shattered inside a British Museum display case, sparking a debate on Chinese social media.
- German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has warned of nationalist threats to “freedom of art.”
The Headlines
KAL CANCELED. Pakistan’s Karachi Biennale has cancelled its fifth edition, themed “Kal” (Tomorrow), due to “war conditions prevailing in the region,” according to an Instagram announcement, Hyperallergic reports. The art exhibition was due to run January 16 to 31, guided by curator Noor Ahmed, who reportedly was not consulted on the decision to cancel. “Artists and partners have been contacting me, and they are all quite disappointed about how communications and commitments with them are being handled,” Ahmed told Hyperallergic. She added that the event’s closure was “detrimental for Pakistan’s international art ecosystem,” and that “during a time of stated war and unrest, art becomes all the more powerful.” Over 100 artists and three co-curators were engaged with the project. The Karachi Biennale Trust, which organizes the event, did not respond to a request for comment.
GONE TO PIECES. A Jingdezhen porcelain bowl and box mysteriously shattered inside a display case at the British Museum, and when photos spread on social media, so did questions about their preservation and a perceived lack of attention around the incident, reports Artforum and the South China Morning Post. The museum confirmed the incident occurred on October 4 but found no signs to explain how a three-hundred-year-old bowl could have fallen onto a box below, breaking both objects, which are now being repaired. Chinese visitors posted photographs of the broken pieces in the display, which “has sparked debate on Chinese social media over how museums should protect fragile works,” reported SCMP.
The Digest
In a speech at the opening ceremony celebrating the newly expanded Kunsthalle Würth in the German town of Schwäbisch Hall, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned of nationalist threats to the “freedom of art,” referencing institutions such as the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation museum and design center, which “fears for its survival.” [dpa]
Art Cologne, an art fair founded in 1967, is moving to a new, more spacious venue in Hall 1 of the Confex Conference and Exhibition Center, starting with the October 2027 edition. [Monopol]
Donald Insall, an architect and “pioneering conservationist,” who notably worked on renovating and preserving Windsor Castle after it was damaged in a 1992 fire, has died at age 100, his studio announced. [Dezeen]
Meet Invictibellatrix amberina, a newly discovered cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex whose fossil was uncovered on the Isle of Wight. Better yet, the new name partly means “unconquered female warrior.” [Times of London]
In a first, Israel returned 22 antiquities to Greece amid the latter government’s campaign to restitute missing parts of the Acropolis that were removed and placed in museums around the world, including the Parthenon Marbles. [The Associated Press]
A 15th-century mosque in Thessaloniki, which at one point was used as a cinema called Alacazar, has just reopened as an arts and cultural exhibition space run by the Metropolitan Organization of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki (MOMus) following years of restoration work. [The Art Newspaper]
The Kicker
MAKING A SPLASH. Archaeologists have just uncovered the oldest-known shipwreck off the Turkish coast, dating to between 4,400 and 4,700 years ago, or around the time that Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza was built, reports Independent and the Journal of Maritime Archaeology. Researchers found double-handled ceramic containers and stone anchors that would have been carried in what was likely a wooden trade ship, the remains of which have long vanished. “The three-holed stone anchors found in the wreck area resemble those seen in Bronze Age Minoan, Cypriot, Anatolian, Levantine contexts,” stated researchers, who noted these details could reveal new information about Bronze Age shipping techniques.