Met's Raphael Show Draws 500K+ Visitors; Guggenheim Legionella Scare; LACMA Panned

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 'Raphael: Sublime Poetry' exhibition attracted over half a million visitors, averaging 6,800 per day, making it the museum's biggest hit since the pandemic and since 2018's Catholic fashion-mania. Meanwhile, the Guggenheim Museum was among 31 Upper East Side properties identified in New York's Legionella bacteria outbreak; it has been disinfected with no risk to visitors. A review by Juliana Halpert at e-flux Criticism pans the new Peter Zumthor-designed David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, criticizing both its design and curating as the death of civic life and historical thought. Psychologist Adam Mastroianni's 'grand unified theory of cultural stagnation' argues that risk-taking art declined because life is better, not worse, leading to fewer risks; he recently published a sequel, 'The Decline of Deviance 2.' The exhibition 'David Byrne/Saul Steinberg: Influence and Affinity' is on view at 125 Newbury in Tribeca, showing works by the Talking Head frontman alongside the New Yorker cartoonist.