Why has a crumbling bottle plant been rebuilt in Paris? The stunning show suggesting the future is Ghana-shaped

stained glass takes on unexpected formsAn ordinary egg carton becomes something unexpectedly precious in the hands of artist Hayden Clay Williams. Its familiar folded shape is reconstructed from fragments of jewel-toned stained glass, with turquoise, amber, and soft pink panels joined by silver-colored seams. Sunlight passes through the delicate structure, scattering patches of color across the surface below. The humble carton, designed to protect fragile eggs, has become an object that needs protecting itself. Williams brings the same playful approach to a traffic cone and a folding wet floor sign, recreating familiar objects in a material usually associated with decorative windows and Tiffany lamps. Their recognizable silhouettes remain intact, though their surfaces have taken on an entirely different character. There is something playful about a roadside safety object made from breakable glass, especially when the finished sculpture looks somewhat convincing from a distance.

In a scene that could have been ripped out of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a historic floor globe used by General Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II was broken when Pentagon staff tried to move it, according to The Washington Post. As reported by the paper, the globe caught the eye of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who ordered for it to be moved into his office to ogle on his own.

The National Park Service has revised its plans to redevelop the Tidal Basin region of the National Mall in Washington, DC. The plan zeroes in on West Potomac Park, which Trump picked in May as his preferred site for the planned National Garden of American Heroes. One leading historic preservationist interpreted the plan as a way to create space for the project, reports the Washington Post. “The plan that we saw is really about making the space for the Garden of Heroes,” Charles A. Birnbaum, founding president and CEO of the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation, told the paper, adding that, however, “the Garden of Heroes is not included in the plan” and that it “feels like a placeholder for something else that’s going to be inserted.” The Cultural Landscape Foundation, headquartered in DC, was established in 1998 to educate the public about the nation’s shared landscape heritage. It calls attention to threatened sites and gives a biennial $100,000 landscape architecture prize.

Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum removed an ancient Egyptian mummified head from view because there was no “informed consent from the deceased individual,” the museum said. The move has upset some conservative politicians in Scotland, with one alleging that it is a sign of “woke madness.” According to the Times of London, the museum had previously displayed the mummified male head in its galleries. But it has now been moved to storage, and in its place is a notice reading: “We have removed human remains from this display as a mark of respect.”

Scott Mescudi, the rapper known as Kid Cudi, announced on Instagram that he is working on a biopic about the oft-mythologized New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The film, titled JEAN, will be written and directed by Cudi, who will also star as the titular artist. Cudi shared an image of the first page of a draft of his script, dated August 25, 2026, and said that filming is set to begin in 2027. In his post, Cudi writes that people have been encouraging him to play Basquiat for years but that “no project actually came to be” so he decided to write it himself. He shared a mock-up of a poster for the film featuring a black and white photograph of himself as Basquiat, stylishly dressed in a suit and tie and smoking a cigarette, with a wig mimicking Basquiat’s trademark free-form dreadlocks. “This isnt the final just a rough,” Cudi writes about the wig. “trust me we gon get it perfect.”

Upcoming deadline for MFA program applications at University at Buffalo The University at Buffalo Department of Art invites applications for its MFA in Studio Art degree. The UB MFA is a two-year program in which students, faculty, visiting artists, and curators participate in an energetic, interdisciplinary dialogue around contemporary art. Students develop independent studio practices alongside thematic labs, research, academic electives, seminars, studio visits, group critiques, and exhibitions, while engaging with vibrant local and international arts communities. Our graduates go on to build acclaimed careers in the arts. The Department of Art is situated within an “R1” designated research University, enabling access to knowledge bases across a wide range of creative and academic fields. The department, located in the Center for the Arts, houses the Departments of Art, Media Study, Theater and Dance as well as the UB Art Galleries’ CFA Gallery. Our curriculum encourages interdisciplinary studio practice and research.