Week in Review is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world. Subscribe to receive these posts as a weekly newsletter.
New York City’s new budget, approved On July 1, will slash the city’s budget for arts and culture by 11% in fiscal year 2021. The city’s education department will suffer a nearly 70% cut of art education programs ($15 million compared to $21.5 million last year).
Nan Keeton is resigning as deputy director of external relations at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) weeks after the museum came under public scrutiny for censoring the comments of Taylor Brandon, a Black former worker who spoke against institutional racism at the museum.
A new Instagram account called @ChangeTheMuseum is amplifying anonymous testimonies of racism in museums.
A group of artists called Artists for Workers parodied the New Museum to call out its “political inaction.” The group created a website replicating that of the museum, but instead provides resources for anti-racist organizing.
The Boston Art Commission voted unanimously to remove the city’s Emancipation Memorial, which depicts an enslaved man kneeling at the feet of Abraham Lincoln.
The mayor of Richmond, Virginia ordered the immediate removal of all remaining Confederate statues, bypassing an upcoming City Council vote on the decision.
At Oxford University, activists are calling for the removal of a monument to 19th-century imperialist Cecil Rhodes.
The Mississippi government voted to remove the Confederate banner from its state flag.
In a small city in Washington, a story about a police officer who was photographed wearing a Nazi tattoo on his forearm has rattled the local community. For about a month, local residents of Walla Walla have held rallies and sent hundreds of letters and emails to the local city council and the police department urging them to address the employment of Nat Small, a former US Marine scout sniper and current member of the local police force.
A British 18-year-old who threw a child from the balcony of Tate Modern pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder and admitted to premeditating the attack. He was sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.
The internet is having a field day with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s latest stunt — a mountain installation representing the curve of COVID-19 infections in the state.
Artist Tania Bruguera was arrested in her home in Cuba under pretenses of “pandemic contagion,” preventing her from attending a protest against the killing of Hansel Ernesto Hernández Galiano.
Following a month of negotiations, the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) Union has reached an agreement with the institution’s leadership, and a mail-in union election has been scheduled for July.
Transactions
The USC School of Architecture and Getty Research Institute have acquired the archive of architect Paul Revere Williams. In 1923 Williams became the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects; in 1957 he became the organization’s first African American fellow. He embarked upon a six-decade career in the 1920s with residential commissions in Los Angeles. The architect came to be known for his landmark civic structures at home and abroad, as well as the homes that he designed for celebrity clients including Bert Lahr, Frank Sinatra, and Lucille Ball. The archive includes around 35,000 plans, including plans for unrealized projects, blueprints, diazotypes, hand-colored renderings, and more.
At Hauser & Wirth, Simone Leigh’s editioned sculpture “Sentinel IV” (2020) was sold to raise money for Color of Change, a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to civil rights and racial justice. The bronze sculpture, a 20-inch cast of a larger work by Leigh. The gallery reported that the full edition of 25, each priced at $25,000, quickly sold out, with 100% of the proceeds going to Color of Change.
In an effort to cut costs, Christie’s merged its Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary departments, forming a new department named “20/21”. Alex Rotter, a contemporary specialist, will chair the department, supported by Giovanna Bertazzoni, a Modern specialist, as vice chair. While spurred by the business challenges associated with the pandemic, the merger also reflects the increased desirability of postwar and contemporary art in recent years. Christie’s will also be laying off staff and cutting back on printed catalogues.
This Week in the Art World
United States Artists bestowed the 2020 Berresford Prize upon Linda Goode Bryant. | Culture Type
Artist collective Elmgreen & Dragset is now represented by Pace Gallery. | ARTnews
Tate Britain announced the 10 winners of the Turner Bursaries, given in lieu of this year’s Turner Prize. | Artsy
Threewalls in Chicago announced the winners of the 2020 RaD Lab+Outside the Walls fellowship. | via email announcement
The National Endowment for the Arts announced the 855 grant recipients of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. | National Endowment for the Arts
Dr. Lana Sloutsky was named Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Museum of Russian Icons in Massachusetts. | via email announcement
Gray appointed Laura Lester to the position of Director in New York. |ArtDaily
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School announced the five awardees of its 2020–2022 fellowship. | via email announcement
Newark Arts awarded mini-grants to 15 arts organizations. | New Jersey Stage
Anna Katrina Olujimi is the new Chief Financial Officer of the Noguchi Museum. | via email announcement
In Memoriam
Harry Britt (1938–2020), gay rights activist and politician | San Francisco Chronicle
Milton Glaser (1929–2020), graphic designer | New Yorker
Ida Haendel (1928–2020), Polish-American violinist | ABC News
Gregory Katz (1953–2020), journalist | Associated Press
Johnny Mandel (1925–2020), Hollywood film composer | New York Times
Margarita Pracatan (1931–2020), Cuban-American singer | Guardian
Carl Reiner (1922–2020), comic actor, writer, director, and producer | CNN
Carl Solway (1935–2020), art dealer and gallerist | Cincinnati.com
Charles Webb (1939–2020), novelist | Los Angeles Times
The Latest
Remembering the Migrants Who Died in US Detention
Artist Jackie Amézquita will lead a caravan of trucks with the names of the deceased to LA sites representing systems of oppression and solidarity for immigrants.
Mark Thomas Gibson’s Cartoons See the US Going Nowhere
If Thomas Nast, who is considered the “Father of the American Cartoon,” has an heir, it is Gibson, who goes one step further and elevates caricature and commentary into art.
LSU School of Art Grants Highest MFA Stipends in the Southern US
With funded assistantships, full tuition waivers, and generous stipends, Louisiana State University helps students lay the groundwork for a successful lifelong art practice.
Kahori Kamiya Transmutes Grief Into Play
Through artworks that encourage viewers to explore varied vantages, Kamiya conveys her accrued wisdom and experiences without the weight of their pain.
Maya Deren in Vivid Focus
Maya Deren: Choreographed for Camera depicts how the artist’s life and ideas cemented her place as a champion and influencer of culture.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago Offers Summer Art and Design Courses Online and On-Campus
Emerging and established artists can choose from over 50 Adult Continuing Education courses at one of the most influential art and design schools in the US.
AI Image Generators Finally Figured Out Hands
Midjourney fixed its inability to render hands realistically, one of the telltale signs of an image being AI-generated.
Lorraine O’Grady, Emily Jacir Among American Academy of Arts’s 2023 Awardees
Artist Faith Ringgold and scholar Helen Hennessy Vendler received this year’s gold medals.
IDSVA Offers a Non-Studio PhD in Visual Arts: Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Theory
With no campus, the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts is a truly nomadic institution, existing everywhere our students and faculty are.
MTV’s The Exhibit Needs a Cutthroat Judge
In episode three, the artists created works about the pandemic and bonded with each other, which is cute but doesn’t really make for good TV.
Cauleen Smith’s Drylongso Depicts a Bygone Oakland
Smith’s 1998 film exudes the DIY charm of a low-budget, first-time feature while keenly depicting the complexities of both race- and gender-related inequalities.
Tyler School of Art and Architecture Opens 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition Series
Students working in diverse disciplines explore temporality, connectedness in time and space, and global reckonings. On view in Philadelphia.
Take Ai Weiwei’s Middle Finger Anywhere in the World
A new collaboration between the artist and Avant Arte invites users to flip the bird anywhere and everywhere on Google Maps.
Required Reading
This week, gifted DeSantis a “fascist” snowflake, NASA’s Webb telescope captures a supernova, corporatizing London’s creativity, and much more.