With Basquiat’s work transformed into an overhyped commodity, it can seem difficult to assess it for ourselves.
Barbican
Posted inArt
A History of Science Fiction’s Future Visions
The Barbican Centre’s Into the Unknown explores science fiction as a cultural force, and how it channels our most optimistic and dystopian projections about the future.
Posted inArt
The Collections Behind Great Artists
“Artists, as we know, are notorious collectors, but you always wonder what came first, the chicken or the egg.”
Posted inOpinion
What, Exactly, Is Censorship?
Last week, the controversial production “Exhibit B” was canceled by the City of London’s Barbican Centre, which issued a statement decrying the “profoundly troubling” protests that “silence artists and performers.”
Posted inIn Brief
Controversial Barbican Show Canceled After Protest Blockade
Citing “the extreme nature of the protest and the serious threat to the safety of performers, audiences and staff,” the Barbican in London has canceled its production of South African director Brett Bailey’s controversial installation “Exhibit B.”
Posted inNews
Protesters Call for Cancelation of Performance Dramatizing Colonial Racism [UPDATED]
A theatrical performance art piece scheduled to run at the Barbican in London later this month has become the subject of a protest, with 14,881 people (as of this writing) signing an online petition calling on the performing arts center to cancel the show.
Posted inArt
Duchamp’s Endgame, in Chess and Art
BRIGHTON, UK — Swapping out pieces in a game of chess is only a smart move provided you hold the most on the board, or at least the strongest position. But a new show at the Barbican in London suggests chess could be a “metaphor of exchange” between the artists it lines up. According to the theory, Duchamp swaps ideas with acolytes: John Cage, Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg. And yet the Frenchman, superb chess player that he was, came out conceptually on top by the time of his death in 1968.
