Can Steve Martin Help Bring Visitors to the Frick Collection?

As if a $220 million makeover weren’t enough, the Frick Collection in New York City has enlisted comedian Steve Martin to promote the newly reopened museum, which returned to its Fifth Avenue headquarters this spring.

In a new video posted to the Frick’s website and social media, the Only Murders in the Building co-creator and actor prances around the freshly renovated Gilded Age mansion, narrating a short history of the museum and its originator, the industrialist and notorious labor suppressor Henry Clay Frick.

Via Hyperallergic 

A New Book Explores the Fascinating Stories and Businesses Inside Chicago's Eccentric Fine Arts Building

“What is this place?”

Chicago author Keir Graff asks the question more than once as he’s describing the Fine Arts Building, the subject of his new book.

The question is an apt one. The ten-story building is part of the stone, glass, and steel cliffs that line Michigan Avenue and overlook Grant Park. From the outside, the building is “kind of blocky,” Graff describes. “It’s not a stunning building like the Rookery Building.”

Via WTTW

What’s on Cupid’s Mind at Versailles? A.I. Can Tell You.

Early one midsummer afternoon in the Palace of Versailles’ gardens, a pigeon landed effortlessly on a masterpiece of French outdoor sculpture: a 17th-century statue of Apollo on a chariot, pulled by four horses.

The statue, made of gilded lead, has stood in a vast fountain at Versailles in the three-plus centuries since Louis XIV was king of France — and it has now entered the digital age via a new feature on the historic site’s app: Powered by the tech giant OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, an audio tool lets visitors (on or off site) converse with 20 outdoor statues in three languages.

On that summer afternoon, I put the chatbot to the test.

Via NYT