Columbus Statue at the White House
Trump installs a toppled Columbus statue outside the White House, a Paul Klee exhibition in New York opens without its centerpiece, and photos from Morandi’s studio in Bologna.
In these strangest of times, up is down and right is wrong. In DC, President Trump installs a statue of Christopher Columbus outside the White House. It's a replica of a monument to the colonizer that protesters tore down in Baltimore during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. In New York, a Paul Klee exhibition at the Jewish Museum opens without its centerpiece, the famous "Angelus Novus" (1920), due to "current conditions" in Israel, where the work is held.
To cheer things up, enjoy Joel Meyerowitz's heart-pleasing photos of Giorgio Morandi’s preserved studio in Bologna and read about the Indian modernists who practiced "Global South" solidarity way before it became an academic buzzword. Also, Julia Curl visits an exhibition in Houston that radically changes her mind about AI art. Watch out, it can happen to you, too.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
Joel Meyerowitz on Photographing Giorgio Morandi’s Studio
“He was assembling a force field of geometric objects,” said Meyerowitz, whose book of images exploring the painter’s famous still lifes is being rereleased this spring. | Greta Rainbow
Elias Sime: FINAL DROP (የመጨረሻዋ ጠብታ) at James Cohan’s 52 Walker Street Gallery
Working with electronic components such as circuit boards, computer keys, and telecommunications wires, Elias Sime creates lyrical abstract compositions that shift seamlessly between evocations of landscape, urban topography, the human form, and expansive fields of radiant color. These works make visible the movement of material goods across the globe while illuminating the fragility of our networked existence.
News
- Trump installed a reconstruction of a Christopher Columbus statue outside the Eisenhower Executive Office building on the White House compound. The original was among dozens of Columbus monuments toppled in 2020 during nationwide protests against racial violence.
From Our Critics
The Angel of History Is Stuck in Jerusalem
The iconic Paul Klee work is missing from an exhibition about fascism at the Jewish Museum in New York due to “current conditions” in Israel. | Natalie Haddad
Before the “Global South,” Indian Modernists Dreamed of Solidarity
Historian Atreyee Gupta unravels the threads of catchall terms like “Global South” to trace the connections between Indian painters and anticolonial figures like Frantz Fanon. | Nageen Shaikh
Raw Material: The Art and Life of Susan Kleckner
This exhibition at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery is the first comprehensive retrospective of the pioneering feminist, filmmaker, photographer, and performance artist.
Feature
Is There an Ethical Path for AI Art?
There is a destabilizing, dreamlike sense of awe in encountering something without knowing the answer to sanity’s most fundamental question: “Is this real?” | Julia Curl
Member Comment
Susan Shutan on Aruna D’Souza’s “Zarina Brought the World to New York”:
From the Archive
Joel Meyerowitz’s Wild Flowers Is a Reminder That the World Is Still Blooming
In its expanded new edition, Meyerowitz’s photo book makes incidental details the leading characters. | Esmé Hogveen
