Kennicott: How Seeing Video At The Barnes Foundation Made Me Reconsider The Whole Place

“It took seeing the museum’s powerful survey of Bill Viola’s rich, deep and deeply moving video work to fully understand what is so hollow and dispiriting about the main galleries of the collection, which hold an invaluable collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art assembled in the first half of the previous century.” – Washington Post

Trump Postponed Tariffs On Chinese Goods? Not On Art He Didn’t

Among the items imported from the People’s Republic that will be subject to import duties as of Sept. 1 are “paintings, drawings, engraving, prints and lithographs, sculptures and statuary of any material and antiquities more than 100 years old, as well as stamps and collectors’ pieces of archaeological interest.” And that will include Chinese items purchased from third countries. – The Art Newspaper

How Far Are Institutions Obligated To Protect The Art In Their Possession, And What Can The Public Reasonably Insist Those Institutions Do?

Reflecting on the contretemps over the Life of Washington murals at a San Francisco high school as well as the decision by one small Northern California museum to sell much of its art and another to end an exhibition program, Charles Desmarais considers “what I think of as a kind of cultural duty of care — with the avoidance of negligence or harm to works of art maintained by an organization for the public good.” – San Francisco Chronicle

Controversial San Francisco School Mural Won’t Be Removed. It Will Be Hidden By Panels.

In a 4-to-3 vote, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to reverse its earlier decision to paint over the series of 13 Victor Arnautoff frescoes, collectively titled The Life of Washington, at the city’s George Washington High School. Students and activists had complained of the murals’ depiction of Native Americans and of Washington’s African-American slaves, though Arnautoff had maintained that those depictions were meant to be critical of the country’s treatment of those two groups. – The New York Times