Sydney celebrating New Year’s Eve, 2012. (Getty Images)

James Panero asks, “What’s a museum?” The piece includes an epic history of Western art museums. [The New Criterion]

Ariella Budick looks back on the 1913 Armory Show. [FT via @TheArmoryShow]

In Chongqing, China, pirate architects are constructing a copy of a Zaha Hadid building now under construction in Beijing. The pirates may finish first. [Spiegel Online]

After living in the former First Roumanian-American Congregation synagogue at 70 Hester Street for 45 years, artists Thomas Nozkowski and Joyce Robins are being forced to move. [City Room]

Ted Loos’s 2010 profile of Mr. Nozkowski’s work. [NYT]

Ms. Robins’s work. [JoyceRobins.net]

Georgina Adam recaps the year. [FT]

Martin Gayford looks back on 2012. [Bloomberg]

Sebastian Smee on the year in art. [Boston Globe]

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