Required Reading
This week: a record-breaking World Cup mural in Mexico City, the Gen Z of 19th-century France, van Gogh and AI, and more.
For the New York Review of Architecture, Thomas de Monchaux grapples with the ethics and complexities of the newly unveiled Studio Museum in Harlem and the Princeton University Art Museum, both designed by David Adjaye:
In light of the biographies of their architects, we who are obliged to use buildings cannot easily cease that use—ask anyone stuck with an authentic Philip Johnson. But nor can buildings be fully understood in ignorance, willful or otherwise, of the circumstances of their designing. “When the abuser is a publicly known, creative person, there is an added layer of complication,” wrote Daniela Soleri in the 2017 Medium essay in which she alleged a longtime pattern of abuse perpetrated by her late father, the cultish and visionary architect Paolo Soleri. (The accusation was reported further in a 2020 article in The Guardian.) She continued, “The work itself argues against you, is a source of power for him. You are challenging his successes and everything his work means to anyone who has gained from affiliation and decided that he and his work are essential to their own identity.” This possibility applies an unusual moral burden to any discussion of work by anyone subject to such imputation, especially when—as is the case with David Adjaye—the allegations are ongoing and may never be civilly or criminally adjudicated. As I write and you read, shall we stay aware of how the mere fact of these words, regardless of their content, may, in Daniela Soleri’s formulation, energize the works as such a source of power?
For Harper's Bazaar, Kaitlyn Greenidge interviews Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat, one of the finest novelists working today, about the allure of writing ghost stories and her daily process:
You wrote one of my favorite craft books ever, The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story, a book where you look at death in literature. Can you talk a bit about why you chose to write a craft book about this?
In 2007, I published a memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, about my uncle dying in immigration custody in 2004 and my father dying of pulmonary fibrosis soon after. I really had two fathers. My uncle helped raise me in Haiti. When I was writing the book, my mother explicitly told me to leave her out of it. It’s their book, she said. So after she died of ovarian cancer in 2014, I decided to write about her.
How do you write about someone who doesn’t want to be written about? How do you write about death at all? I started rereading some of the books I love with that question in mind.
Patagonia is going after drag queen Pattie Gonia, and the public is not happy about it. Archie Mitchell has the story for BBC:
Wyn Wiley, who performs as Pattie Gonia, said the firm was threatening "the erasure of my name, my advocacy, my community" and the livelihoods of those employed by the drag queen and climate activist.
"If Patagonia wants to celebrate Pride Month this year by taking a queer climate activist to federal court, then I'm here to fight for myself," Wylie said.
Hundreds of detainees at an ICE prison in New Jersey are on hunger strike, with crowds of supporters gathered outside its walls. For the Guardian, José Olivares and Julius Constantine Motal report on the strike and ICE's violent response:
As nighttime approached on Tuesday, a line of ICE officers, armed with guns, batons, Tasers and pepper spray, stood outside the facility gates, occasionally pushing the crowd back so official cars and vans could enter and exit the property.
This followed a hectic weekend of demonstrations and clashes. On Monday, a number of Democratic lawmakers, including New Jersey senator Andy Kim and Governor Mikie Sherrill, had attempted to enter the facility. Kim has made several visits inside the facility in his congressional capacity and has declared conditions “inhumane”.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, and its department secretary, Markwayne Mullin, accused the Democratic politicians of “spreading smears” about ICE and denied the strike was taking place.
Mia Sato reports for the Verge about the AI oversight fight between union workers and management at the New York Times:
Unionized staff with the Tech Guild say Times management has refused to provide the union with information related to how the company has used AI, its plans for AI use in the future, and how it will affect employees’ jobs and workflow. (The union filed an unfair labor practice charge earlier this month.) The Tech Guild, a NewsGuild of New York unit of around 700 software engineers, designers, product and project managers, and data analysts, also filed grievances saying Times management violated their collective bargaining agreement when it started using two internal AI tools that track and evaluate employee performance and activity.
Apparently, 19th-century French youth afflicted with le mal du siècle walked so Gen Z could run, scholar Emily Herring explains in Aeon:
Musset was not the first to articulate the idea of the mal du siècle. Some decades earlier, François-René de Chateaubriand had expressed his own generation’s malaise, warning of the ‘unsettled state of the passions’, the ‘tedium of the heart’ and the ‘secret inquietude’ of young people whose environment offered no outlet for their intense feelings. ‘With a full heart,’ he sighed, ‘we dwell in an empty world.’ The Romantic novelist Jean Paul helped give conceptual form to a similar idea by popularising the German term Weltschmerz, or world-weariness, the sense that suffering arises from the very order of the world. As the first decades of the 19th century unfolded, a number of other writers, not least Musset’s lover and principal interlocutor Sand, theorised and dramatised the moral malady of their age. Of all the expressions of the mal du siècle, however, the one Musset presented in the story of his alter ego Octave proved the most emblematic and enduring.
Defector's Brandy Jenson on the long-awaited mini series about Mary, the unsung Bennett sister in Pride & Prejudice:
What is most winning about this production is what it does not do. It does not attempt to modernize the material by having Mary make cutting quips directly to camera, or making her waltz to a Doja Cat track. Nobody in this show has noticeable veneers. We are spared the indignity of being treated like morons who need to be fed the medicine of 19th-century social critique by putting it in a spoonful of TikTok-ified honey.
Instead, the narrative itself feels fresh, simply by virtue of its interest in Mary’s development as a woman unsuited to the demands of her time, but nonetheless living in it. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking The Other Bennet Sister. She is worth paying attention to.
Matt Bernstein never misses (and the fact that someone thought this was a good idea is so bleak):
I knew Sam Altman reminded me of someone:
@philsnotchill Chatses #chatgpt #parody #comedy #lordoftherings #gollum ♬ original sound - Phil Gillen
Summer pup cup!
@maplethechocolatesausage Summer days 🍦#summer #heatwave #puppies #dogsoftiktok #sausagedog ♬ original sound - Ms.Kly - Klyracapinig✿🍒𐙚
Required Reading is published every Thursday afternoon and comprises a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.
