Required Reading
This week, sacred Hopi artifacts go on sale in Paris, NYC settles with OWS over damaged library, Gagosian helps Pratt students, Qatar buys a well-known Picasso in the UK, museum layoffs, transgender in comics, and more.
MOCAtv presents a conversation between artists Wangechi Mutu and Santigold on the making of the video “The End of Eating Everything.” The video is Mutu’s first animated work, created in collaboration with Santigold and co-released by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and MOCAtv on YouTube. You can watch part of the completed video by Mutu here.
This week, sacred Hopi artifacts go on sale in Paris, NYC settles with OWS over damaged library, Gagosian helps Pratt students, Qatar buys a well-known Picasso in the UK, museum layoffs, transgender in comics, and more.
A French court rejected requests from the Hopi tribe and US government to stop the sale of 70 sacred Hopi Indian masks at the Drouot auction house in Paris on Friday. The LA Times reports:
Jo Beranger, a 52-year-old French filmmaker, yelled as auctioneers showed a 1970s image of a now-dead Hopi leader holding a mask, and told the AP that it was “a scandal” and “shameful” that his image had been used; guards escorted her out of the hall.
Meanwhile, auctioneer Gilles Neret-Minet likened one mask to a clown’s face, and said another had eyes that reminded him of the diamond-shaped logo of the French car-maker, Renault. “I must remind people that these masks are for personal use only,” he told prospective bidders. “If they are shown in public, they will be confiscated by the Indians.”
Outside, about a dozen French protesters gathered, one waving the flag of the American Indian Movement, whose 1968 founding helped usher in a new era of assertiveness by Native Americans over their social, political and legal rights.
New York City has settled the lawsuit over the destruction of the Occupy Wall Street Library in Zuccotti Park:
In an agreement announced today, the City of New York will pay more than $365,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by people whose property was destroyed when the New York Police Department raided Zuccotti Park and evicted Occupy Wall Street on Nov. 15, 2011.
… Occupy Wall Street claimed $47,000 in damages, all of which the city agreed to pay today … On top of the damage claims, the city will also pay $186,350 in fees and costs to Occupy Wall Street’s lawyers.
Related: Moly Crabapple’s Occupy-inspired altarpieces.
In an act of goodwill, Gagosian Gallery is arranging an exhibition for Pratt Institute students who lost their art work in a February fire at the Brooklyn school. The weeklong show will take place on the eighth floor of the Seagram Building on Park Avenue. The fire destroyed the work of 35 of the 44 seniors at Pratt.
Qatar has reportedly acquired Pablo Picasso’s “Child with a Dove” for £50m ($7 m). The painting was one of the best known works by Picasso in the UK.
The virtual museum of Iraq is funded by Italian sources and gives you a great sense of the archeological and artistic heritage of the West Asian country.
Graffiti in Rattlesnake Canyon at Joshua Tree National Park has closed down the park:
Officials believe that the defacing has escalated as vandals have used social media to brag about their actions … Damage has now affected archaeological sites, and park officials say they don’t have the resources to quickly clean the rocks.
The historic mosque in Daraa, Syria, has been destroyed as the result of shelling during the Syrian civil war. It dates back to the 7th C. It seems unclear which group actually destroyed the mosque, Syrian government troops or opposition forces.
The Baltimore Sun reports that the Baltimore Museum of Art layed off 9% of its staff (or 14 employees):
According to a report released Monday by the Washington-based American Alliance of Museums, 16 percent of the 347 museums nationwide surveyed in the report were forced to lay off employees in 2010; 13.4 percent issued pink slips in 2011, and 5.4 percent let staff members go last year.
DC Comics is introducing the first transgender character into mainstream comics. Character Alysia Yeoh reveals that she is a transgender woman in Batgirl #19:
Taking care to distinguish Yeoh’s sexual orientation from her gender identity, Batgirl writer Gail Simone noted that the character is also bisexual.
Artist Niki Johnson’s has created portrait of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI out of 17,000 colorful condoms.
And reading lists compiled by artists.
Required Reading is published every Sunday morning EST, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts or photo essays worth a second look.
