Category: visual

Rapid development in India is threatening knowledge of how humanity came to be. Sites are crumbling into rivers, being turned into rice fields, and being destroyed for buildings. “With sites holding the evidence of India’s past rapidly disappearing, reearchers worry about whether complex questions about humankind’s distant past can be answered.” – Wired

You can take one of two paths through the 20-year-old museum as it reopens, and nothing is comforting – not that that’s new. “Tate Modern has never been a relaxing place to visit. But we’ve never needed its clear eye for the restless more than we do now, as we learn the true meaning of modern times.” – The Guardian (UK)

Historically, the purpose of monuments, says Ken Lum of Monument Lab in Philadelphia, “has been to activate or even sustain a certain narrative of memory which people of influence have deemed worthy or important to maintain. They are mnemonic devices.” And, traditionally, they’ve usually been large sculptures of men. (If they were of women, those women were usually fictional or allegorical figures rather than actual people.) But that has changed over the past few decades, with the standard-bearer being Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Now that a whole slew of old-style monuments is being removed, Carolina Miranda looks at what might be replacing them. – Los Angeles Times

Online, that is. “Every day at sunset, Artist — an anonymous conceptualist who legally changed their name to question the biases built into the phrase ‘American Artist’ — will replace every image of an artwork on the Whitney Museum’s website with a picture of plywood, effectively boarding up the pages. The site’s unassuming white background will be turned black, obscuring all text in the process. Titled Looted, the work calls into question what is being stolen and through what means.” – Artnet

The workers — public-facing staffers who watched over galleries and answered questions about art — had announced plans to unionize with AFSCME in early November over concerns related to wages and working conditions. Days later, they were all laid off via email. The Marciano also announced it would shut down its galleries due to low attendance. A month later, the museum made the closure permanent. – Los Angeles Times

Her departure has unleashed a tempest in the art circles of Canada, where the Montreal museum is viewed as something of a national treasure; the debate over why Nathalie Bondil was let go has led to such confusion and rancor that the government has stepped in to investigate. – The New York Times

So far, at least, this isn’t as bad as many people had feared. A presidential spokesman, talking about plans to turn the historic Istanbul monument back into a mosque, said that Christian images that Muslim worshipers would face during prayers (i.e., toward Mecca) would be hidden at those times and uncovered when Hagia Sophia is open to visitors. He added that mosaics and paintings in other parts of the building would pose no problem. – Artnet

Now that the matter of a contemporary spire or roof for the medieval landmark has been settled, here’s an update on removing the (partially melted) scaffolding around the outside of the cathedral (a delicate and difficult process), clearing out the debris inside, restoring the vaults and gables and rebuilding the roof. – The Art Newspaper

Garry Garrels is perhaps the most prominent figure to tumble so far as art museums around the country, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art grapple with cultural tumult amid nationwide unrest after the death of George Floyd. In addition to Mr. Garrels’s 19 years at SFMOMA, he had also been a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. – The New York Times