Greece to Cap Acropolis Visitor Numbers, Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood Plan Art Show, and More: Morning Links for August 3, 2023

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The Headlines

CROWD CONTROL. In a bid to reduce crowding at the Acropolis in Athens, the Greek government said on Wednesday that it will soon begin limiting visitors to 20,000 each day, with hourly limits, the Associated Press reports. Recently, daily attendance has run as high as 23,000, with the majority of large groups arriving before lunchtime. The new arrangement will be put in place next month. The nation’s culture minister, Lina Mendoni, said, according to the AP, “Obviously tourism is desirable for the country, for all of us. But we must work out how excessive tourism won’t harm the monument.”

A DISPATCH FROM ACADEMIA. Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, is planning a CA$26.3 million (US$19.7 million) museum to replace its current art gallery, Burnaby Now reports. The newly constructed Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Gallery, which is being designed by Siamak Hariri, will have 12,000 square feet. ● Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, hired Diana Y. Chou—who has held positions at the San Diego Museum of Art, the National Museum of History in Taipei, and other institutions—to lead its Richard M. Ross Art Museum. ● And Issa Lampe has been tapped to be director of the University of Richmond Museums, ArtDaily reports; she started in June and was previously deputy director for academic and curatorial affairs at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.

The Digest

Following an investigation, the National Gallery of Australia returned three 9th-century Cham sculptures to Cambodia that it believes were looted. The museum paid the late dealer Douglas Latchford, who was accused of trafficking stolen artifacts, $1.5 million for them in 2011. [The Guardian]

The next edition of the Kyiv Biennial will open in the Ukrainian capital and two other cities in the country in October, with events also planned in Vienna, Warsaw, and Berlin. An artist list will be released next month. [Artnet News and Artforum]

A new study of infants and grownups looking at Vincent van Gogh paintings found an overlap in their preferences for particular works, suggesting that there may be “a link between the sensory biases of babies and adults’ aesthetic judgments,” Nicola Davis writes. [The Guardian]

In December, RM Sotheby’s will offer the all-white 1989 Lamborghini Countach that Leonardo DiCaprio drove in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). It is one of only a dozen that were delivered to the United States. Its high estimate? A cool $2 million. [Bloomberg]

Next month, London’s Tin Man Art gallery will present new paintings made by Radiohead singer Thom Yorke and artist Stanley Donwood, who has been responsible for the superstar band’s album covers for almost 30 years. [Pitchfork]

The Kicker

WHAT I LIVED FOR. Author Joyce Carol Oates has a new collection of stories out, and spoke to W magazine about her life and cultural interests. For one, she’s a big fan of the late, great artist Wolf Kahn, and owns five or six pieces by him. “I never ever get tired of it, I just sit and stare at them,” she said. The last art show that she loved? “Well, almost everything I go to I like a lot, because that’s why I go,” she said. “I’ve seen the Avedon photography exhibit twice, which is at Gagosian. It’s excellent. It could be larger.” [W]