Category: visual

Duncan Grant’s Recently Rediscovered Erotic Art Is ‘A Blast Of Joy’ In Tough Times For The Arts

“What images they are: defiantly subversive and explicit multiracial homoerotica, bursting with passion, flesh, joy, love, freedom and everything else gay people were legally barred from experiencing and expressing at the time. The underlying message of Grant’s paintings is still uplifting in 2020: art will always find a way, whatever the obstacles, hardships and dangers.” – The Guardian (UK)

Back To The Museum – But Alas It Had Lost Its Charm

Phil Kennicott: “I had thought I might escape the outside world for a few hours, shut out the chaos and crisis. But in room after room, the vast majority of the objects were mute and meaningless, and only those that somehow referenced other periods of crisis spoke with clarity. I had entirely lost my ability to experience art as escape.”- Washington Post

Guggenheim Museum Investigation Comes Up Empty But Chief Curator Is Leaving

An independent investigation into how the Guggenheim Museum handled last year’s exhibition on the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat has concluded there is no evidence that the show’s guest curator, Chaédria LaBouvier, who is Black, “was subject to adverse treatment on the basis of her race,” the museum announced on Thursday. The museum simultaneously announced that Nancy Spector, the artistic director and chief curator, who is white, was leaving “to pursue other curatorial endeavors and to finish her doctoral dissertation.” She has spent 34 years at the Guggenheim and has been publicly criticized by Ms. LaBouvier. – The New York Times

Why Pantone’s Color System Is Problematic

On the surface, this system seems like a useful service, but ultimately it’s become a way to try and make color a private business. It does provide a standard for various industries around the world, but Pantone considers the colors and color formulas to be its intellectual property. This means that they can’t be openly shared, so in order to speak this language of color, you have to shell out for a guide, which will cost you around $650. – Slate

The Artistic Value Of A Banana?

Conceptual artists in the 1960s argued that an artwork’s identity is not to be found in its physical manifestation but in the artist’s idea. That idea can, but does not have to, take material form. Following that logic, the material object is a manifestation of an idea, and it is the idea that is bought and sold on the art market. – The Conversation

Unknown Style Of Rock Art, 6,000 Or More Years Old, Found In Northern Australia

The Maliwawa Figures, as they’re called, date from 6,000 to 9,000 years ago and are unusual in picturing humans and animals together. Archaeologists say they are “a missing link in the history of Aboriginal art, bridging the gap between the large naturalistic animals characteristic of the dynamic figures, created about 12,000 years ago, and the stick figures that arose around 4,000 years ago, known as X-Ray art.” – Artnet

How Museum Gallery Design Will Change Post-COVID

In the future, experts anticipate bigger galleries that will be purpose-built to allow for social distancing, with the option to divide up the space with partitions as needed. Adjustable gallery architecture “is going to be important”, says Bruce Davis, a partner with the New York architects Cooper Robertson. “You’ll want spaces that can easily be changed and can adapt to changing trends in the display of art as well as the pandemic.” – The Art Newspaper