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- A new study says enjoying art regularly makes people younger.
- A nonprofit is suing the Trump Administration for painting D.C.’s Reflecting Pool blue.
- France’s president says new law for restituting art looted during colonialism is “unstoppable.”
The Headlines
AN ARTWORK A DAY KEEPS … YOU YOUNGER? A new study has found that enjoying art—whether experiencing it or making it yourself—can be correlated to slowing the biological aging process, with the “same effect on aging as a weekly workout,” reports the Times of London. (Anyone who recently spent a week tramping across Venice from one exhibit to the next would have to agree.) Researchers from University College London (UCL) found that at least a weekly dose of art—preferably of diverse forms and types—made people on average about a year younger, as suggested by changes to DNA and in terms of overall health, than those who rarely treated themselves to the creative arts. In fact, the study, published in Innovation in Aging, concluded that the artsy group appeared to age as much as 4 percent slower than their counterparts, with similar effects to those of a weekly workout. (It should be noted that those who benefited most from their art-injection were over 40, and the study was done on 3,556 adults in the UK.) “These results demonstrate the health impact of the arts at a biological level. They provide evidence for arts and cultural engagement to be recognized as a health-promoting behavior in a similar way to exercise,” said Daisy Fancourt, the study’s lead author from UCL’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care.
POOLSIDE AT LINCOLN MEMORIAL. On Monday, the Cultural Landscape Foundation, an education and advocacy nonprofit in the Washington D.C. area, sued the Trump administration for painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue, and is seeking to stop the work, which is already well underway, reports the Washington Post. In their lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the nonprofit argues that Trump did not seek the required federal reviews prior to changing historic landmarks. They also maintain that the pool’s original basin was designed to give a sense of depth and reflection. Trump’s new blue tint, which a contractor has called “American Flag Blue,” is “more appropriate to a resort or theme park,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, head of the Cultural Landscape Foundation. The current administration insists that the blue-paint job and renovation are needed to stop leaks, and initially claimed they would cost only $1.8 million, per a contractor chosen without seeking competing bids. However, that number has since exploded to $13.1 million, paid by the Interior Department, the New York Times first reported.
The Digest
During a France-Africa partnership summit in Nairobi on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that even after he is out of office, future leaders of France will not be able to roll back a newly passed French law for restituting art looted during colonialism, because “we built something irreversible and unstoppable.” [Le Figaro and AFP]
New York–based artist Trevor Paglen, known for his engagement with technical issues such as surveillance and AI, will curate the third edition of “Zero 10,” Art Basel’s new digital art sector, running in the Swiss city from June 17–21. [ARTnews]
The third floor of Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Batlló apartment building, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Barcelona, has been restored to its original 1906 style and can be rented out by the hour. [El País]
Berlin’s Savvy Contemporary art space recently won an Art Basel award, but hasn’t been able to open a single exhibition this year, due to insufficient funds. [Monopol Magazine]
The Penn Cultural Heritage Center at the Penn Museum is launching a new survey looking at the collecting policies, acquisitions, deaccessions, and more at US museums and libraries. [Artnet News]
The Kicker
PATTI SMITH’S CALL TO ARTISTS. The day before the Venice Biennale opened to the public over the weekend, singer and songwriter Patti Smith performed for a small audience at the Santa Maria di Nazareth church, as part of the inauguration of the nearby Holy See Pavilion, reports Ocula. The pavilion for the Catholic Church and Vatican City, titled “The Ear is the Eye of the Soul” and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers, invites visitors to walk through a garden within a 17th-century convent while listening to music by 24 artists, including Smith, in collaboration with the Soundwalk Collective. The “sonic prayer” works were inspired by the life of Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179).
“If we have a calling to do such work, the calling of an artist, we cannot run away from it, like Job, we cannot attempt, because we will be drawn back into our calling,” Smith said to the audience, which included actor Willem Defoe and an ARTnews reporter. “It also reminds us that it is our mission to articulate, within a body of work, the full capacity of the visionary imagination, and to place, through a whole body, work that will incite, excite, and inspire the people,” Smith added.
