Category: visual

Shortly before she died in 2007, philanthropist Linda Pace had a dream in which she saw a shining red counterpart to the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz which would hold her art collection and make it available to the public. A dozen years later, Ruby City has opened, with a building (yes, it’s red) designed by David Adjaye. – San Antonio Current

Peter Schjeldahl: “The renovation is a big deal for the global art world, and certainly for New York. It runs up against problems old and new. Generously enlarged quarters will only marginally relieve a chronic crush of visitors, the museum victimized by its own charisma. Enhanced representations of art by women, African-Americans, Africans, Latin-Americans, and Asians can feel tentative, pitched between self-evident justice and noblesse oblige. But such efforts are important and must continue. We will have a diverse cosmopolitan culture or none worth bothering about.” – The New Yorker

The Vanguard Artists Collective is “a tight-knit group of like-minded members of the creative class looking to push each other in their artistic practice while nurturing the next generation of great Detroit artists.” And their success hasn’t come overnight. – Detroit Free Press

And will it ever appear again? With less than two weeks to go before the Louvre’s Leonardo exhibition, “there are now serious doubts as to whether the star of the exhibition will be included, as the Paris museum had hoped.” – The Observer (UK)

In this case, “That’s a trash fire!” was not a metaphor: In 1969, Puerto Rican and other Latinx activists used garbage fires to get city services to finally take them seriously, and Hiram Maristany took photos of it all. – The New York Times

They were painters, too, not just muses for the men. Why doesn’t everyone know that? Er, for instance: The classic-looking Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund is not by one of the big boys of pre-Raphaelite art. It is the work of Evelyn De Morgan, a woman whose painting was often compared to that of Burne-Jones. Sir Edward, indeed, was scathing about the young artist in his private letters, a sure sign that he felt rattled by her talent.” – The Guardian (UK)

Brexit. Or maybe Macron? In any case, “London galleries are launching new spaces in Paris, and US dealerships, who would once have chosen London as their European base, are going to Paris instead.” – The Observer (UK)

The Studio Acting Conservancy was just starting demolition work at a former church that will be its new home in Washington, D.C.’s Columbia Heights when the crew boss called the theatre’s founder, Joy Zinoman, to tell her about a discovery, “an enormous frieze of the Last Supper that was hidden behind drywall for more than a decade.” And now there’s a bit of a problem: “Acting studios are supposed to be bare.” – Washingtonian

What defines the protests in the public’s memory might just be the art, including statues likening protesters to the Statue of Liberty and pop-art posters of Chinese officials and the city’s leader, Carrie Lam. “Street art and graphic design are defining features of the pro-democracy demonstrations that have roiled the semiautonomous Chinese territory since June. Artists often work quickly and anonymously, and present their oeuvres either in Reddit-like internet forums or public places with heavy foot traffic.” – The New York Times

Hilariously to anyone who’s ever worked in, or anywhere near, pastels, “There’s one theorist who said it was better for women to use because they wouldn’t soil their fair hands the way that they would with oil paint.” – NPR