Category: visual

There’s Now An Artist-In-Residence At The Philadelphia DA’s Office

“It makes perfect sense to DA Larry Krasner, who sees the arts as central to the criminal justice reform movement … ‘the connection between the reforms we’re trying to make in Philadelphia and the people in Philly who are part of that movement are best made in some ways through the arts,'” he said. The first artist in the position is James Hough, who spent years painting parts of murals for Mural Arts Philadelphia while in prison and is now finally seeing his finished work. – The Philadelphia Inquirer

Arguments For Returning The Parthenon Marbles To Greece Are Compelling

Maybe it’s true that if Lord Elgin had not taken the sculptures they would have been destroyed, by the Turks or the Venetians or the pollution in Athens. And it is true that, as stated in the Times article, the Parthenon sculptures are accessible, and free to six million visitors a year. But Athens gets visitors, too, and Greece is no longer under the Ottoman Empire—in 2021, it will celebrate two hundred years since the beginning of its war of independence—and it can take care of its heritage. – The New Yorker

Chicago Architecture Biennial Examines How Design Shapes Urban Protest

It’s a study of human behavior. And it’s a study of the ways in which the architecture of public spaces is designed to control the ways humans move, perhaps by funneling people towards an exit or preventing mass gatherings. (Think: Hong Kong.) It also reveals the situations in which the human is no longer at the center, but becomes technology-adjacent. – Los Angeles Times

Marciano Foundation: The Museum That Wasn’t

“To put it bluntly, the Marciano Art Foundation was never a real museum. Yes, it had access to a collection—some 1,500 pieces acquired primarily by Maurice Marciano, including L.A.’s trendiest artists as well its most talented. Yes, it organised a big show every six months or so—installations by Jim Shaw, Olafur Eliasson, Ai Weiwei and, most recently, Donna Huanca. But it lacked the staffing and organisational structure that signal an ongoing commitment to core museum missions such as caring for art and sharing it with a broad audience.” – The Art Newspaper

Where’s The Stolen Gold Toilet? There Are Few Clues But Lots Of Theories

“The police are still looking for the missing john — an artwork called America by Maurizio Cattelan — but, so far, they remain empty-handed. … Six people had been arrested in connection with the theft, only to be released later without charge.” Local residents have any number of ideas about what’s happened to America, and the common thread to all of them is that no one takes the incident seriously. – The New York Times