A man broke into the Dallas Museum of Art on Wednesday night, significantly damaging several artworks, including three Greek artifacts and a contemporary Native American piece.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Brian Hernandez, 21, shattered the museum’s glass entrance with a metal chair. Once inside, he began targeting the collection. Among the casualties of his vandalism was a 6th-century BCE Greek amphora, a ceramic vessel used to store liquids, and a Greek box dated from 450 BCE.

Police said Hernandez also destroyed a delicate bowl from ancient Greece decorated with vignettes of Heracles fighting the Nemean lion. A ceramic Caddo bottle depicting an alligator worth $10,000 was pulled from its displayed case and shattered on the museum floor. A dozen smaller objects also suffered minor damage.

“While we are devastated by this incident, we are grateful that no one was harmed. The safety of our staff and visitors, along with the care and protection of the art in our stewardship, are our utmost priorities,” the museum said in a statement.

Hernandez reportedly called 911 on himself while inside the museum before being apprehended by DMA security. He confessed to police and is currently detained at the Dallas County Jail on a charge of criminal mischief. In addition to the collection pieces, he is also accused of causing tens of thousands of dollars of damage to museum property including display cases and furniture.

Most New York gallerists who’ve opened spaces in the Hamptons got their start in the city and built up a network of artists and collectors before venturing out east. Dealer Harper Levine did the reverse. He started his gallery in East Hampton in 1997, tapping a rich community that would launch him from a rare bookseller to an established gallerist. Now, he has five spaces under his auspices, with three of them located in Manhattan.

This past weekend, Levine celebrated a major milestone, opening “25 Years,” a show in East Hampton that toasted the gallery’s 25th anniversary.

Dealer Jack Hanley and artist Cindy Sherman were among those who came this past Saturday to see the show, which includes work by Mark Grotjahn, Richard Prince, and Eddie Martinez. Artists Rashid Johnson and Joel Mesler, who both have nearby studios and also have work in the show, were also on hand, mingling among artist Mary Heilmann and collectors Stafford and Laura Broumand.

“I want to celebrate the fact that I survived this for 25 years,” Levine said in an interview last week in the gallery space he opened in New York’s Chelsea art district in 2020. The anniversary show, he said, is “a celebration of my life and business and is a way for me to sort of commingle artists. [It’s] about believing in my own story and seeing what we’ve been able to do.”

In 2001, Levine, who was born and raised in Manhattan, was living in Minnesota when he decided to come back to New York and make a new start. As he puts it, “I had a hundred bucks.” But his trip back home ended up coinciding with the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and, with a new baby in tow, he and his wife decided to instead settle in the Hamptons, where Levine opened a rare book store that eventually also became a gallery.

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The Headlines

ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, a 21-year-old man was arrested for allegedly breaking into the Dallas Museum of Art and seriously damaging at least four pieces on display, including a Greek amphora from the 6th century B.C.E., the Dallas Morning News reports. Initial reports had placed the value of the damaged works at $5 million, but the museum’s director, Agustín Arteaga , said that the actual figure may be “a fraction” of that. The man was charged with criminal mischief of $300,000 or more, which carries a possible sentence of five years to life in prison, according to the Guardian. Dallas police said that the suspect told the guard who apprehended him that “he got mad at his girl so he broke in and started destroying property.”

CHINA DISPATCH. The exact date has not been announced, but Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam said that the Hong Kong Palace Museum will be inaugurated this summer amid celebrations tied to the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, the South China Morning Post reports. Over in Shanghai, an intense Covid lockdown has ended, but cultural venues institutions remain shuttered, and there has been no word about when they will be allowed to reopen, the Art Newspaper reports. A rep for UCCA Edge, branch of the Beijing-based museum in the city, said that it will soon be able to install shows, which will ease reopening when that is allowed.

The Digest

Paul Gunther, a revered expert in arts administration who held posts at the Municipal Art Society, the New-York Historical Society, and the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, has died at the age of 65. [The New York Times]

The Dulwich Picture Gallery in London has quietly stopped billing its director as the “Sackler Director.” The move comes as many museums have removed the Sackler name from projects supported by the family, some of whose members have been accused of fueling the opioid crisis through the sale of OxyContin via their company Purdue Pharma. [The Art Newspaper]

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A stuccoed stone head from a 1,300-year-old statue of an ancient Mayan maize god has been unearthed by archaeologists in Mexico.

The head was found among ruins in Palenque. Located close to the Usumacinta River, Palenque (or Lakamha in the Itza language) was a Mayan city state in southern Mexico that ultimately ceased in the 8th century CE. The ruins there date from roughly 226 BCE to 799 CE. The former city is known for its impressive Mayan architecture, sculpture, roof comb, and bas-relief carvings.

Archaeologists with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) found the head while they were excavating a site in Palenque. While removing debris from a corridor connecting two sections of a palace complex, the team found inside a container with the head in a small pond.

Researchers believe that the pond was meant to symbolize the entrance to the Mayan underworld. According to Mayan beliefs, the universe was divided into three parts: the sky, the earth, and the underworld. In each were venerated locations that included caves and cenotes, which would have operated as a portal to the subterranean realm, Xibalba, ruled by the Maya death gods and their aids.

Arnoldo González Cruz, a researcher with INAH Chiapas Centre, told Heritage Daily, “The discovery allows us to further understand how the ancient Maya of Palenque relived the mythical passage about the birth, death and resurrection of the maize deity.”

The Guggenheim is committing to the burgeoning field of technology-based art.

The museum announced Wednesday the LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Initiative, which encompasses a new annual award program and the creation of a curatorial position dedicated to art that engages with virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, NFTS, and more.

The LG Guggenheim Award, administered by the Guggenheim Foundation, will recognize one artist every year for “groundbreaking achievements in technology-based art.” The award will be juried by an international panel of  artists, curators, museum directors, and other art professionals, and carries an unrestricted prize of $100,000. The first recipient will be announced at next year’s Young Collectors’ Council Party.

The inaugural LG Electronics assistant curator will focus on “deepening” the Guggenheim’s ties to such artists, in the form of exhibitions, research, and education.

Naomi Beckwith, museum deputy director and chief curator, said in a statement that by “promoting scholarship and public engagement, the LG Guggenheim initiative will provide essential support to the visionary artists who inspire new understanding of how technology shapes and is shaped by society.”

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