In Sherpa’s art, Tibet and California, thangka and pop art, Buddha and Mickey Mouse mingle and morph to create a new visual language.
Erin L. Thompson
Erin L. Thompson, a professor of art crime at John Jay College (City University of New York), is the author of Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of American Monuments (Norton, 2022).
Posted inBooks
The Stories of Art History’s Detectives
The provenance researcher must be a detective, figuring out alternative ways to get at information that major participants in the trade are often unwilling to disclose.
Posted inBooks
Guantánamo’s Artists Fight for Beauty
Remaking the Exceptional allows us to feel the furious joy that emanates from those who have saved their own lives with activism and art.
Posted inBooks
Sex Tourism With Statues
Buddhist Art of Tibet: In Milarepa’s Footsteps is a cringe-worthy display of “spiritual colonialism.”
Posted inArt
Artists’ Doomed, Inspiring Resistance to Hitler
The stories of the Red Orchestra show the power of joy, creativity, and love in the fight against the compliance, fear, and silence upon which fascism still depends.
Posted inOpinion
Cambodia’s Stolen Treasures Must Be Returned to Where They Belong
And no, Cambodia doesn’t need the Metropolitan Museum’s help in preserving its cultural heritage.
Posted inArt
The Surprising Mix of Tradition and Innovation in Nepal’s Contemporary Art Scene
The work of many of Nepal’s contemporary artists suggests that the distinctions between labels like ancient and modern, or foreign and Nepali, will blur if you shift your point of view.
Posted inArt
Surrounded by Wealth, an Artist’s Comment on Education Loses Its Edge
Within the well-patrolled boundaries of Madison Square Park, it’s hard not to see Hugh Hayden’s Brier Patch as just another amenity, offering a pleasant opportunity for virtue signaling.
Posted inOpinion
How the Met Museum Justifies Looting
The African Origins exhibition ignores the fact that approximately 160 objects from Benin are held by the museum under ongoing demands for their repatriation.
Posted inArt
Returned to Nepal by the FBI, a Sculpture Becomes a God Again
Last week, I flew to Nepal and witnessed a ceremony to replace a looted Lakshmi-Narayan sculpture to its original location.
Posted inOpinion
What Do We Do with the Work of Immoral Artists?
Where should we “draw the line” between sacrificing great art and supporting artists who are predators and bigots?
Posted inFilm
Decolonizing the (Sitcom) Museum
What does Rutherford Falls, a new TV series that prominently features two small town museums, tell us about the way people see the contentious stories on display in history and art institutions?
