Attention, Fascism Ahead
Artists pay tribute to Alex Pretti, Trump ruins the art market, the story of an early Caravaggio masterpiece, and John Yau slams Jeff Koons's new Manhattan show.
A piece by Lauren Moya Ford in this edition explores a Barcelona show about Joan Miró's fascination with the United States. “In the future world, America, with its energy and vitality, must play a leading role,” he once told Matisse. It makes you wonder: How would Miró feel about the US today?
Not too good, I assume. In today's America, artists pay tribute to Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse slain by federal agents in Minneapolis. In Philadelphia, artist-made road signs warn of fascism ahead. Meanwhile, the country might lose its art market dominance due to Trump's brute immigration policies.
On a lighter note, we have great reviews for you from Carolina A. Miranda, Lori Waxman, and Imani Wiliford, plus a special treat from John Yau, who minces no words in his review of a new Jeff Koons exhibition.
Lastly, we're hiring! We have job openings for an Associate Editor, Staff Reporter, and Marketing Manager. Apply here, or send us your best and brightest. Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
Jeff Koons’s Reflective Sculptures Mirror the One Percent
"When I try to picture where Koons’s sculptures belong and to and about whom they are speaking, I think about President Trump’s plan for a gaudy 90,000-square-foot ballroom for 1,000 guests," writes John Yau. Ouch.
News
- Artists honor the life and work of Alex Pretti, who was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis last weekend. Among them is artist Molly Crabapple, whose ink and gouache drawing of the moments before his killing is an ode to Pretti's ability to remain calm and composed amid chaos.
- Nan Goldin accuses the Art Gallery of Ontario of censorship after the museum halted an acquisition of her work over her public stance on the Gaza.
- Scientists say they’ve discovered what may be the earliest rock art ever in a limestone cave in Indonesia.
- A “sprinkler emergency” at the newly reopened Studio Museum in Harlem forced the institution to temporarily close to remediate the water damage caused by the incident.
- The National Museum of Asian Art will repatriate three bronze sculptures to the Indian government, half a century after they were stolen from a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu.
- Remember NFTs? Apparently, neither do its own platforms. Nifty Gateway, which was plagued with reports of user issues, is the latest marketplace to call it quits.
Opinion
How Trump Is Jeopardizing the US Art Market
"If entering the United States suddenly requires surrendering your digital life and your family’s private information, how long before people simply choose not to come?" asks art advisor and former museum leader Rob Fields in his piece about the implications of Trump's anti-immigration policies for American dominance in the global art market.
Gabrielle Goliath Strikes a Tuning Fork of Dissent
Why would a nation that accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice censor an artwork that mourns Palestinian lives? Was the culture minister merely incompetent and irrational? Scholar M. Neelika Jayawardane, who researches South African art and literature, thinks we're asking the wrong questions. She argues in an opinion today that this example, and the art piece by Gabrielle Goliath at its heart, reveals a broader framework of state censorship that artists are uniquely positioned to resist.
A Closer Look
The Moment Caravaggio Became Caravaggio
Even an Old Master was young once. A Morgan Library & Museum exhibition about Caravaggio’s “Boy with a Basket of Fruit” is a portrait of an artist as a young man — ambitious, talented, and maybe a little petty. “He’s not a perfect artist yet,” curator John Marciari tells Associate Editor Lisa Yin Zhang in an interview. But this work is the first in a sequence tracing the arc of an unknown provincial painter's transformation into one of the undisputed giants of Western art history.
Artist’s Street Signs in Philadelphia Warn of Fascism Ahead
An artist who goes by Make it Weird has installed signs mimicking common traffic signage across Philadelphia to alert residents of ICE threats and looming authoritarianism. One of the signs reads: "Somewhere in America, a little girl is hiding in an attic writing about ICE." Isabella Segalovich reports from Philadelphia.
A Millennia-Long Fascination With Armor
Historian Sarah Bond takes us through a new installation of the Worcester Art Museum’s armor collection — the second largest in the country. “As it turns out, the setting of knights’ tales doesn’t just take place in the storied landscapes of the European Middle Ages,” she writes. “They stretch across Eurasia, Africa, Japan, and beyond” — even making their way to “a galaxy far, far away.”
From Our Critics
Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot Meet as Equals
An exhibition sets out to rescue Morisot from the assumption that she was under Manet’s influence, but it's far from academic or revisionist. | Bridget Quinn
Ingrid Hernández Reveals Tijuana’s Hidden Beauty
Often seen as too American to be Mexican, too Mexican to be American, the city is presented by the artist as it is, not as anyone assumes it might be. | Carolina A. Miranda
Ellen Harvey’s Elegy to Lost Places
Her painting series is a record of those grand and mundane places lost to time or other occurrences, whose presence we continue to mourn. | Lori Waxman
The African Diaspora Pictures Itself
A new exhibition rejects Western colonialism as a framework for understanding African aesthetic production. | Imani Wiliford
How Joan Miró and America Fell in Love
“In the future world, America, with its energy and vitality, must play a leading role,” he told Matisse. | Lauren Moya Ford
For Dyani White Hawk, Love Is an Act of Resistance
Her exhibition "Love Language" invites viewers into the vibrant cultural legacies of Native art, and connections to land, lineage, and community. | Sheila Dickinson
Michelangelo and Titian’s Rivalry That May Never Have Been
William E. Wallace openly uses what he calls “informed imagination” to explore the relationship between the two masters in his new study. | Olivia McEwan
Community
In Memoriam
Influential art dealer Marian Goodman, groundbreaking Korean modernist Chung Sang-hwa, and preservation architect John H. Beyer are among the community members we honor this week.
Required Reading
An 18-year-old painter in Gaza, Zohran’s documentarian, anti-ICE art sleds in Minnesota, the brilliance of “Heated Rivalry,” hidden reggaetón history, and more links from around the internet.
Art Movements: The Brooklyn Museum's New Top Contemporary Art Curator
Robert Wiesenberger is the Brooklyn Museum’s new senior curator. Plus, the Newark Museum, Grey Art Museum, and the Clark Art Institute get new directors in our weekly roundup of industry news.
A View From the Easel
This week, Sasha Lynn Roberts watches the sunrise as she paints in Pupukea, Hawaii, and Arleene Correa Valencia watches the sunset as she embroider canvas in Napa, California. Your studio could be next!
