Category: visual

“MOLAA’s collection is, to be charitable, spotty. But the bizarre claim that certain first-rate artists are “overrepresented” in the collection, which chief curator Gabriela Urtiaga offered to The Times as a rationale for trying to unload 59 works, mostly graphics, does not inspire confidence in upgrading it.” – Los Angeles Times

“There is a vacuum when it comes to the representation of Latinos in U.S. culture and that vacuum gets filled by figures like Trump, who regularly vilifies Latinos, describing Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists.” As I’ve written in the past, the cultural arena offers little to counter to these depictions: it’s either a steady diet of stereotype (maid and drug trafficking roles in Hollywood movies) or just straight-up invisibility.” – Los Angeles Times

“Virginia Governor Ralph Northam wants to redesign Monument Avenue, a promenade in the capital city of Richmond lined with shrines to Confederate generals” — four of which were removed as a result of Black Lives Matter demonstrations this past summer, while the fifth, of Robert E. Lee, has been covered with protest art — “and he’s tasked the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts with the job.” – Artnet

“In a decision watched closely by restitution experts, a court in Amsterdam ruled on Wednesday that the Stedelijk Museum there can retain a Wassily Kandinsky painting that it acquired during World War II and which came from a Jewish collection. The 1909 work, Painting with Houses, has been the focus of a restitution battle that has been viewed as a litmus test for Dutch restitutions policy.” – The New York Times

“The 9m-high (30-foot) statue, with its head missing, was uncovered on a cliff between two high-rise residential buildings in the Nanan district of Chongqing. It is not clear when the statue was carved” — it’s believed to date to the Qing dynasty — “and local authorities are still investigating its cultural value.” – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

An anonymous businessman had been planning to bring the surrealist work, worth an estimated $340,000, with him from Düsseldorf to Tel Aviv last week — but he mistakenly left the painting behind at the airport, where cleaners saw the cardboard carton containing the painting and put it in the recycling bin. And that is where the piece was found the following day. – Smithsonian Magazine

This isn’t even about COVID. According to the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, the austerity measures that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador introduced in May of 2019 have led to budget cuts of 50% in the capital’s museums and 75% in regional museums; many staffers haven’t been paid for weeks or even months. And museum directors won’t raise this with the public or high officials for fear of reprisal. – Artnet

Commissioners repeatedly expressed skepticism about core elements of the redesign proposed by the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, with one warning the end result could make the Sculpture Garden look like an “Olive Garden.” – The Cultural Landscape Foundation