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Brett Littman Named Next Director of MCA San Diego

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego has announced that its next director and chief executive will be Brett Littman. He will begin in the role in October. The fifth director in the institution’s 85-year history, Littman succeeds Kathryn Kanjo, who departed the MCA San Diego after 15 years in January to lead the newly merged UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. Littman was chosen after a six-month national search. “Brett is a visionary museum leader whose experience spans some of the country’s most respected contemporary art institutions,” MCA San Diego board president Maryanne Pfister said in a statement. “His ability to balance artistic ambition with organizational leadership, combined with his past personal connection to San Diego, makes him exceptionally well-positioned to guide the Museum into its next era.” An alumnus of the University of California, San Diego, Littman has spent his three-decade career in New York, having a string...
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Alison Jacques Gallery Hit with Lawsuit After Artist’s Estate Cancels Sale to First-Time Collectors

Two Swedish-American buyers are suing London’s Alison Jacques gallery, accusing breach of contract over the sale of three works by the Swedish-born artist Monica Sjöö, whose estate Jacques represents. The estate and the gallery say that Marie St. Germain, the adviser to Yoed and Natasha Anise, misrepresented the couple ahead of the purchase; they also claim that they believe the Anises would not be promising stewards of the artist’s works, the Art Newspaper ( TAN ) reports. The Anises, who paid £264,000 (about $358,000) for three paintings from the 1990s, split their time between Stockholm and Austin, Texas, and operate a tech company.  The paintings in question had been included in a retrospective dedicated to Sjöö, “The Great Cosmic Mother,” which opened at the Moderna Musseet in Stockholm in 2023. Born in Sweden in 1938, Sjöö spent the majority of her life in Bristol, England. Sjöö, who died from cancer at 66 in 2005, described herself as a “radic...
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Matchday Scoring Highlights: Poneke Ruffnuts (30) v Johnsonville Cripples (20)

The Poneke Ruffnuts completed the first round Mike Copeland Cup-second round John Davies Cup double when they beat the Johnsonville Cripples in the Reserve Grade Division 1 championship final on Kilbirnie Park. In their 30th season, the Ruffnuts came through to win their fifth John Davies Cup title since its inception in 2015, getting off...
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Sideline Conversions 17 August (some rugby news and information to start the week)

Lineout time at Rugby League Park on Saturday, with the Wellington Centurions and Māori teams in action in drizzly conditions.  Monday morning edition – updates and additions expected to come: A busy weekend of rugby just completed, with St Pat’s Silverstream and Poneke celebrating the most. Silverstrream won five college rugby titles on Saturday and...
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Why Brancusi’s Sleek, Streamlined Sculptures Still Seduce

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“The legendary actress visits Christie’s galleries at Rockefeller Center and finds herself captivated by the gilded sculpture.”  Thus trumpets the tagline for Nicole Kidman’s assignation with Constantin Brancusi’s bronze and gold leaf Danaïde (1913), circulated online this past spring in advance of the work’s auction.  The “cinematic short film” produced by Christie’s indeed reveals the Hollywood star finding herself… duly captivated. She rushes an unnamed caller off the phone to stalk the sculpture in her stilettos from behind a circular curtain. To the tune of David Bowie’s “Golden Years,” Kidman gazes fixedly into Danaïde ’s burnished, nearly vacant visage. The camera cuts intermittently to a speculative montage of her inner experience.  Like some ancient oracle, the sculpture’s mere presence unleashes a series of visionary insights into its presumed (read: decidedly fantastical) origins: from all manner of Greek statuary to easter...
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Super Cooper Leads Silverstream to Triple Treat

By Steven White & Adam Julian Photos by Andy McArthur/Caroline Lewis St Patrick’s College, Silverstream won their third straight College Sport Wellington Premiership First XV title at a wild and windy Jerry Collins Stadium today, trampling  Wellington College 38-14. Winning their 10th Premiership and third in a row for the first time, Silverstream bettered their 35-14...
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Italian Police Recover $10 M. Worth of Artworks by Cezanne, Matisse, and Renoir

If 2025 was the year of the museum robbery, perhaps 2026 will be the year of the recovery. On Friday, Italian police announced that they had recovered three artworks stolen in March from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca near Parma in Northern Italy, according to Reuters . The recovered paintings are Paul Cezanne’s Still Life with Cherries  (1890), Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s late-career  Les Poissons  (1917), and Henri Matisse’s  Odalisque on the Terrace  (1922). Their collective value is said to be in excess of $10.4 million. A  report  by the BBC in March noted that  Les Poissons , the sole oil on canvas, is worth the most, valued at around €6 million ($6.9 million). The Cézanne and Matisse are both works on paper. The Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of the Carabinieri, the national gendarmerie of Italy, found the works in an apartment in Parma; nine Moldovan nationals have since been placed under investigation. The...
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