By 2035, California will ban the sales of new gas-only-powered cars. The California Air Resources Board, the Los Angeles Times reports, voted Aug. 25 that all new car and light truck sales must be zero-emission vehicles. Dan Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at University of California, Davis, told the Times that the zero-emission mandate “is the most important and transformative action that [the air resources board] has ever taken.” [Los Angeles Times]
As countries, museums, institutions, and collectors grapple with the repatriation of art and artifacts, Architectural Digest found itself in hot water for publishing in its January 2021 print issue a spread on the luxury San Francisco residence of billionaire heiress Sloan Lindemann Barnett and editing out evidence of the looted Cambodian relics inside. The discovery—made public in an Aug. 15 article—was made by The Washington Post, which is in the thick of a broader investigation into art traffickers and looted goods, many of which now live in Western art museums.
“Some of these statues are of enormous historical and cultural importance to Cambodia and should be repatriated as soon as possible,” Phoeurng Sackona, the Cambodia’s minister of culture, told the Post.
The Post tapped Hany Farid, a visual forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, to compare the photo printed in Architectural Digest with one found on the website of the house’s architect, Peter Marino, FAIA; Farid found they both used the same source image. A representative for Marino’s firm told the Post that the firm did not provide the image to Architectural Digest. The image was also recently taken down from Marino’s website. Meanwhile Erin Kaplan, a spokesperson for the magazine, told the Post they didn’t publish the photo with the relics because of “unresolved publication rights around select artworks.” [Washington Post]
More concrete innovations worth following are coming out of Australia: Engineers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology are developing a method of using PPE waste—used isolation gowns, face masks, and rubber gloves—to increase the strength of the material by 22%, as published in several studies. In these studies, the PPE waste was "first shredded then incorporated into concrete at various volumes, between 0.1% and 0.25%." And, there is a lot of waste to tap—RMIT reports that “about 129 billion disposable face masks are used and discarded around the world every month.” In more RMIT concrete research news, engineers also found that 100% of aggregates in the material (traditionally gravel and crushed rock) can be replaced by rubber-tire waste, explaining that “the new greener and lighter concrete also promises to reduce manufacturing and transportation costs significantly.” [RMIT]
For the first time ever, the Queens, N.Y., studio of artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi, will soon be open to the public, made possible by a $4.5 million capital grant from New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs. Noguchi purchased the 3,200-square-foot warehouse in 1961, using the space to create larger-scale works and build a living quarters. The Noguchi Museum, across the street from the studio, will lead the restoration and renovation preceding a public opening. Archinect reports that "the museum declined to comment on any further details as design plans are still in the development phase." [The Art Newspaper and Hyperallergic]
The U.S. has faced an acute reckoning over monuments and representation since the civil rights uprisings of 2020; other countries are facing it, too: In Mexico City, Head of Government Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo has called for the removal of a feminist “anti-monument,” ARTnews reports. In September 2021, activists erected the statue of women’s silhouette with a raised fist to protest gender violence on an empty pedestal in a city roundabout where a statue of Christopher Columbus had been toppled in 2020. Sheinbaum Pardo wants to see the pedestal filled by a replica of the 15th-century sculpture “The Young Woman of Amajac” to honor Indigenous women. Activists, however, have decried this as move of “tokenism” by the city, as they say Indigenous people have been excluded from the public process. [ARTnews]
