Category: visual

Four Seasons Total Landscaping joins the slabs of forlorn border wall and the graffiti-encrusted bathroom in Lafayette Square as the real monuments of an administration intent on ugliness and pathetic façades. Maybe the choice of venue was a not-at-all understandable mix-up. – Curbed

Sculptor Maggi Hambling argues that her statue is for Mary Wollstonecraft — who published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792 — not of Mary Wollstonecraft. The latter it is certainly not: it is a small, silvered figure of a generic naked woman arising out of an abstract mass incorporating vague images of breasts. As writer Caitlin Moran put it, “Imagine if there was a statue of a hot young naked guy ‘in tribute’ to eg Churchill. It would look mad. This, also, looks mad.” – The Guardian

“In the footsteps of the unintentionally iconic Monkey Christ, the Tintin St George, the near-fluorescent Virgin and Child – not to mention the less than sinlessly executed Immaculate Conception – comes … well, it’ s hard to say. The latest Spanish restoration effort to provoke anguished headlines and much social media snarking is, or rather, was, a carved figure adorning an ornate, early 20th-century building in the north-western city of Palencia.” – The Guardian

Despite repeated attempts by affiliated tribes to return the collection to New Mexico, the funerary objects remain at the Weisman. Under a 1990 federal law, institutions that receive federal funding must create an inventory of any Native American cultural objects or funerary remains as a part of the repatriation process. The University and the Weisman have come under fire by Native American communities, anthropologists and the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC) for their delay of inventory. – The Star-Tribune (Mpls)

“The estate of Robert Indiana and the late artist’s longtime representative have tentatively agreed to settle their legal dispute and asked the judges in the complicated case involving his art and legacy to pause the proceedings so they can work out the details of the settlement. … Indiana died at age 89 within a day after the suit was filed. In addition to dragging on for more than 2½ years, the case has cost the Indiana estate as much as $8 million in legal fees.” – Portland Press Herald

That’s South Korea, where the novel coronavirus is largely under control and Art Busan has now begun in the country’s second city. The fair didn’t begin on schedule (it was postponed from its usual date in May), but it is happening as other Asian fairs (such as the new Art SG in Singapore) are still being cancelled. – ARTnews

“The money is coming in the form of Chairman’s Grants, the NEH’s method of providing emergency funding to safeguard cultural heritage in the face of (what are typically natural) disasters. Instead of courting controversy by re-erecting downed Confederate leaders, however, the NEH will use the money to restore a selection of mostly neutral choices.” – The Architect’s Newspaper

The artist Senga Nengudi’s early sculptures became icons of the Black Arts Movement – and she’s still exploring the ways the body shapes art, and art, along with dance, can distort and reflect, especially, a Black female body. – The New York Times

Zehra Doğan had little access to visual art materials during her imprisonment in Turkey, where she was jailed for painting a Kurdish town that was destroyed by Erdogan’s government in 2015. “With no paper, Doğan used newspaper, cardboard and clothes as canvases. For paint, she found that crushed herbs made green, kale was a substitute for purple, and pomegranate or menstrual blood could be used for red. Blue ballpoint pen, cigarette ash, coffee grounds, pepper and turmeric make up much of the rest of her prison palette.” – The Guardian (UK)