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.
Photographs by blogger Bucky Turco capture the chaos of the pro-Trump mob storming the Capitol building on January 6.
Commentators are calling attention to Trump’s hypocritical silence on the defacement of federal monuments during the insurrection at the Capitol. He had previously authorized “up to 10 years in prison” for anyone who vandalizes or destroys federal property.
From an artist’s rendition of Capitol police rolling out the red carpet for pro-Trump insurrectionists, to memes about the Viking hat and white supremacist tattoo-clad QAnon supporter, people have turned to social media to cope with and reflect on the events of January 6.
Last month, a DC arts organization postponed its projection of a bloody artwork by Andrei Molodkin, which floods an acrylic model of the White House using blood donated by US citizens. The decision was made after a violent march in December that led to several stabbings, and in anticipation of the violence that might follow the Georgia runoff election results.
See a rundown of some of the many artworks and creative acts that were censored in 2020.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is seeking first-person accounts for Stories of 2020, a time capsule about the whirlwind year.
Juliana Notari’s “Diva,” a massive, concrete and resin vulva sculpture built on a hillside in Pernambuco, Brazil, has prompted outrage from conservative groups.
The most recent excavation of a 15th-century Aztec shrine revealed the skulls of 119 men, women, and children.
The Valentine Richmond History Center in Virginia wants to display a Jefferson Davis statue created by artist Edward Valentine, the museum’s first president and a major Confederate sculptor.
The Amsterdam District Court rejected claims from the heirs of a Jewish art collector that a 1909 painting by Kandinsky in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum was sold under Nazi-era duress and should be returned.
As of January 1, the public domain includes classics like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, Alain Locke’s The New Negro, and the silent film “Lovers in Quarantine.”
Transitions
The Carnegie Museum of Art announced Ronald Lee Newman as deputy director; Dana Bishop-Root as director of education and public programs; and Aryn Beitz as director of design and publishing.
Jim Coddington has joined the Joan Mitchell Foundation‘s board of directors.
Amanda Coulson was announced as the founding director of TERN Gallery.
Douglas Melini is now represented by Miles McEnery Gallery.
VICTORI + MO is changing its name to Dinner Gallery.
In Memoriam
Roderice Cardell (1987–2021), South Carolina artist involved in painting a local Black Lives Matter mural | Fox Carolina
Anthony Gauthier (1942–2020), Wisconsin mural artist | Green Bay Press Gazette
Maury Berggren (1938–2021), Kansas stained-glass artist | The Mercury
MF Doom (1971–2020), popular rapper and record producer | Rolling Stone
Kim Tschang-Yeul (1929–2021), abstract artist | ARTnews
