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Roundup: The art world braces for Brexit, Lucas dumps Chicago museum plan, searching for Vincent Van Gogh

Big Ben is reflected in a puddle as a cyclist rides by.
(Leon Neal / AFP/Getty Images)
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How Brexit may affect artists and the art market. George Lucas abandons plans for a museum in Chicago. Miami models allege that an artist asked them to do intimate things with a rope. Plus: Examining the museum industrial complex, Eero Saarinen’s weapons work, the search for a Vincent Van Gogh lookalike, and the pitfalls of artificial intelligence. Here’s the Roundup:

— George Lucas is abandoning his plans to build his Museum of Narrative Art in Chicago, instead casting his gaze on San Francisco. The Chicago Tribune says good riddance.

— Auctions brace for a post-Brexit week. Plus, how the referendum may affect artists.

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Artists dance during a protest against interim President Michel Temer in front of the Ministry of Culture in Rio de Janeiro last month.
Artists dance during a protest against interim President Michel Temer in front of the Ministry of Culture in Rio de Janeiro last month.
(Mario Tama / Getty Images )

Artists and other cultural figures in Brazil are emerging as a fierce opposition to Michel Temer, who is serving as interim president after President Dilma Rousseff’s (perhaps indefinite) suspension.

Tony Feher, a U.S. sculptor who used simple objects to achieve profound meanings, has passed away.

— New York Museums are cutting back on staff — leading the Art Newspaper to ask whether donors might ever be interested in ponying up for operating expenses in addition to fancy new wings.

— A pair of models in Miami allege that an artist having a show at the city’s Institute of Contemporary Art pressured them to violate themselves with a piece of rope as part of a performance. The job paid $15 an hour.

— “Is Tate Modern a museum, a coherent showcase for carefully selected artworks? Or is it just a repository of myriad objects that were vacuumed up because they seemed important or affordable at the time, and because it has space to fill?” Dominic Green on the museum expansion arms race.

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— Architect Eero Saarinen once designed weapons for the CIA (technically the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, the CIA’s predecessor).

— Sort of related: A fall exhibition in San Francisco will explore topics of homeland security in a series of former defense batteries at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Christian nuns watch as a team of experts begin renovation of Jesus' tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City.
Christian nuns watch as a team of experts begin renovation of Jesus’ tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City.
(Ariel Schalit / Associated Press )

— Conservation begins on one of Christianity’s holiest sites: Jesus’ tomb.

— The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., will be showing a rare trove of Korans this fall.

— Power couple Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, and fashion designer Duro Olowu, prefer to remain strictly under the radar.

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— A look at the work of the prolific SoCal photographer John Divola, a figure known for injecting wry interventions into settings of architectural decay.

— A collaboration between a photographer from the United States and a composer from Mexico examines the raw cultural power of the U.S./Mexico border wall in “Border Cantos.”

— Do you look like Vincent Van Gogh? Artist Douglas Coupland would like you to get in touch.

— An old Trump campaign bus turns into a rolling work of art.

— Transportation update: A peek at the station that will connect Metro riders to LAX (modern with a nod to airplane wings). Plus, the L.A. Metro/SFBART Twitter haiku battle.

— A fascinating piece on the way artificial intelligence can embody the values and prejudices of its creators.

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— “At the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida, Jesus is crucified most afternoons around 5 p.m.” And thus begins a story by Jacob Silverman about a trip to an Orlando Biblical theme park in the Baffler. So good.

— And last but not least: A San Francisco drag queen creates a Cindy Sherman tribute — with Cheetos. Sublime.

Find me on Twitter @cmonstah.

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