Bill Gates’ open dislike for NFTs, the Smithsonian to return Nigerian artifacts, and more art news

A SUMMARY OF THE MOST EXCITING ART NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

Bill Gates Slams NFTs

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has made no bones about his dislike for NFTS. During a TechCrunch talk on Tuesday, Gates said that NFTs are “100 percent based on greater fool theory.” “It has at its heart this anonymity through which you can avoid taxation, any sort of government rules,” he said. “Anyway, I’m not involved in that.” He even specifically addressed the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a popular series of NFTs featuring primates whose features and outfits change depending on the image. Works from that series have sold for as much as $3.4 million. “Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely,” he said, barely stifling a laugh. “You know, I think that’s incredible.” Catch the entire story on ARTnews.

The Smithsonian to Return 29 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

This week, the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents voted to deaccession a group of Benin bronzes, making good on a pledge from earlier this year to return the stolen objects to their home country of Nigeria. Twenty-nine Benin bronzes will be returned to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments. All of the objects were looted by British soldiers in a notorious raid of Benin’s Royal Palace in 1897. This move has been prompted by the museum’s new policy, which went into effect across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums on April 29, and declared that museum objects found to have been looted, taken under duress, or otherwise unethically sourced are eligible for return to their country of origin. Read the entire story on Artnet News. 

A Sculpture Stolen from a Tuscan Chapel Could Be in Cleveland

For decades, the whereabouts of a sculpture stolen from a Tuscan chapel remained unknown. If the claims made by nine Italian senators were accepted to be true, the piece may have been hiding at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) nearly the whole time. In a July 2020 parliamentary session, the group had urged the country’s Minister of Cultural Heritage to pursue the restitution of the artwork to Italy.No conclusive action has been taken so far. The piece, a five-and-a-half-foot-tall terracotta relief by Italian sculptor Benedetto Buglioni, depicts the Madonna enthroned with the Christ Child on her knee, the two of them flanked on either side by Saints Francis and Giovanni Gualberto. Created around 1510–20, the sculpture is glazed with pigments made from crushed glass, imbuing it with a uniquely vibrant color palette that hasn’t faded with time. Read Artnet News for more.

Thieves Nearly Melt $1 Million Worth of Artwork

Several important works of art by the late Greek-Austrian artist Joannis Avramidis, valued at more than $1 million, were nearly lost forever when two Romanian thieves mistook the pieces for scrap metal. Five bronze reliefs and two bronze sculptures were due to be melted down in a furnace in Vienna after being swiped from a studio in the city’s historic Leopoldstadt district last month. The duo was caught on June 9 and police got to know about the impending recycling. Police shot into action and the pieces have since been returned to their rightful owner. Artnet News has the entire story.