Prince
- The Guggenheim just went public with its new website. Gone is the top navigation bar, and the cluttered four column information architecture. The navigation has shifted to a static top left box that floats as you scroll through the content. An improvement, I guess, but now it looks like a Martha Stewart website circa 2009. Too much teal. [Guggenheim]
- “Stay Purple.” Yesterday’s unexpected death of Prince saw its share of tributes, like Prince St station suddenly getting a P line, and Minneapolis’s First Avenue hosting an all-night street dance party in honor of the purple one. It’s been great seeing previous tributes — like Questlove discussing why Prince was hip hop, or Hilton Als on his black queer sexuality — get re-discovered. [The Internet]
- And in other tragic deaths, Richard Lyons, the founder of Negativland died at 57. Cancer sucks. [Rolling Stone]
- Damien Hirst is back with Gagosian. [New York Times]
- When I was visiting Lisbon last fall, I was blown away by the opulence and kitsch of its palaces — specifically, the Palácio da Pena, this insane mock-Manueline Disneyland former summer residence of the Portuguese royal family. So it’s cool to see documentation of the Lisbon-based art and architecture collective Os Espacialistas’s intervention at the Marquis of Pombal Palace in Oeiras. [Hyperallergic]
- Why is it, that whenever we read about a museum increasing their focus on contemporary art, it involves the purchase of a new building? You’d think the two were inextricably linked, when in fact, these projects are not always needed. Keep that in mind when reading “A Story of Two Worlds: Flush MoMA, Struggling Met”. The Met has plenty of amazing space to play around with—they didn’t need to the Breuer building to achieve that. [The New York Times]
- This year New Yorkers will spend two thirds of their income on rent. The Manhattan market, though, is softening. [Curbed]
