News Round-Up: January 24 - 30

"#refugees" by aiww

Ai Weiwei Closes Danish Show in Protest of New Refugee Law - Once again, Ai Weiwei is in the news. This time, he has closed his show in Copenhagen in protest of a new law that allows Danish authorities to search the homes of refugees. Under the new law, Danish authorities would be able to confiscate refugees’ belongings to pay for the expense of them staying in Denmark. The Faurschou Foundation gave a statement saying they backed his decision.

Facebook Censors Naked Artist - Brooklyn’s Christopher Stout Gallery found its Facebook account blocked after a photo of artist Lisa Levy sitting naked on the toilet was reported by users. Levy was only partially naked and her bottom half was completely obscured. This is not the first time facebook has removed art that they deem to be offensive.

News Round-Up: January 17 - 23

Monkey Can’t Sue for Copyright

60% of North American Museums Charge Admission - The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) has released its annual report which details statistics about how museums in North America have been doing. New data in the report shows that in 2015, 60 percent of museums charged for admission. The other 40 percent offered, for the most part free admission, with a select few museums operating on a suggested donation policy. The report has a lot of fascinating statistics, including average operating expenses and object acquisition sources.

Artworks by Chagall, Matisse, & More Stolen From Trailer in LA - Several artworks by Leroy Neiman, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall, and Henri Matisse have been stolen, along with the trailer that housed them, from an industrial park in LA. The works, with a combined value of $250,000, were taken in November and questions are being asked as to why it is only now being made public. Bafflingly, the owner had left his valuable collection parked on the street because he had “run out of storage space.”

News Round-Up: January 3 - 9

Kodak and Yves Béhar Revive the Legendary Super 8 Camera

This year, Béhar partnered with Kodak to bring the Super 8 back, for the first time since 1982, as a film-digital hybrid camera updated for modern filmmakers. A (non-working) prototype is showing this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, and Kodak expects to put the camera on the market in September. It’ll cost between $400 and $750, but Kodak expects the final figure to skew closer to $400.

	10 Buildings We're Looking Forward To in 2016 The past 12 months has seen some remarkable projects delivered around the globe; from the world’s second tallest building — Gensler’s Shanghai Tower — to the many pavilions of the Milan World Expo. The ambitions of designers and developers remains undiminished, though, and 2016 will see the completion of a host of new, groundbreaking, genre-defining architectural landmarks around the world. [Architizer]
	3-D Printed Ceramics Could Build Next-Gen Spaceships Engineers have always liked ceramic parts -- they are strong, lightweight and handle heat better than many metals, ideal for crafting parts for airplanes or rockets. Heat-shielding tiles on the space shuttle were made from ceramics, for example. Now researchers have used a 3-D printer to make customized ceramic parts that have also overcome the Achilles’ heel of ceramic objects: their tendency to crack. [Discovery]

News Round-Up: November 15 - 21

Source: Vitaedesign

How Americans Show Support For France

	Climbing Toward the World’s First Rope-less Elevator System Almost one year ago, elevator manufacturer ThyssenKrupp announced its plans to develop the world’s first rope-free elevator, MULTI, which promised to convey building occupants not only vertically, but horizontally, as well. Now, it boasts the first fully functional model, and it’s working and moving as planned. Unveiled yesterday at the ThyssenKrupp Innovation Center in Spain, the 1:3-scale model features a pair of 32-foot-high shafts shared by four cabs to demonstrate linear motor technology, which is based on magnetic levitation (Maglev) trains. Source: Architizer
	These Cities Of The Future Would Be Built Entirely Of Bamboo What if cities were surrounded by pollution-sucking bamboo forests, and built from bamboo instead of steel? ... As the plant grows—as much as a foot a day—it acts like an air purifier, generating up to 35% more oxygen than a similar stand of trees, while absorbing the same amount of carbon dioxide. As it's harvested, it automatically regrows without being replanted. And in a building, it's two to three times stronger than a steel beam of a similar weight. Source: Fast Co. Exist

News Round-Up: Charlie Hebdo

January 19th Cover of The New Yorker drawn by Ana Juan

The New Yorker has always had extremely topical covers under Mouly’s art direction, and this is a prime example.  Juan's use of red sponged like blood over the street level to draw attention to the fact that the top of the tower is drawn as a pencil is inspired.

Interview: The cartoonist Luz, who’s on staff at Charlie Hebdo but was late to the fateful meeting, says the cartoons have taken on a significance they were never intended to have: “In the end, the symbolic weight is exactly what Charlie has always worked against: destroying symbols, breaking down taboos, bursting bubbles of fantasy. It’s wonderful that people are giving us their support but it’s going against Charlie’s cartoons.”

Interview: MAD Editor John Ficarra's appearance on CBS's Sunday morning news

Interview: Robert Crumb, who lives in France and drew a cartoon about the Prophet Muhammad for the newspaper Libération, gives his take on Charlie Hebdo, which he compares to the underground comics of the 1970s.

Interview: Robert Crumb’s old publisher Ron Turner, stands up for satire’s right to be offensive.