Category: visual

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) says it is immediately terminating the contract of director general and chief curator Nathalie Bondil following what it describes as “disturbing testimonies from employees reporting an obvious deterioration in its workplace climate.” – Global News

“While carrying out renovation work on the Nacional Monte de Piedad building – which dates back to 1755 and is now a historical pawnshop on Mexico city’s central plaza – workers came across unusual basalt slab floors underneath the building. According to the archaeologists, the floors had been an open area in the palace of Aztec ruler Axayacatl — father of Moctezuma, one of the final rulers of the Aztec empire — between 1469 and 1481.” – Deutsche Welle

“[The museum’s press] release cites a ‘toxic’ work environment and ‘several departures of key employees’ over the last year — as well as an external evaluation of the museum’s internal climate and what it calls [Nathalie] Bondil’s ‘inflexibility’ in finding a solution. … The decision also follows a week of public controversy … not only [over] the work environment complaints … but also [over] a hiring decision made by the board against Bondil’s advice last week.” – Canadian Art

Newark’s artists have applied their imagination to both cope with the time and seize its possibilities. Many have been documenting public and personal lives, and some have contributed their skills to activist campaigns. Their output is now coming into view in multiple forms, including exhibitions — online and getting ready for in-person reopening — as well as zines, posters, and resources such as a citywide artists’ database. – The New York Times

COVID-19, unfortunately, has given the nation pause, but for LACMA it may be a blessing, a reason to apply the brakes: the pandemic has opened up time, offering the museum board, the LA County supervisors, and the public the chance to reconsider what everyone already knows is a mistake. According to a recent survey (conducted by a group with which I am involved), only a shocking five percent of 2,750 people polled want the Zumthor design. LACMA’s stubbornly entrenched board of directors steadfastly refuses to acknowledge that this is the most unpopular public project ever to have been proposed for a major cultural institution in Los Angeles. – Los Angeles Review of Books

Bonnie Lucas loves to take pretty things, cut them up, rip them apart, and then remake them into art. “The store-bought object is not meant to be cut up and dismantled. It’s highly valued in our culture. Especially by women. We take care of things, we wash things, we store them. Especially feminine and pretty things. A few people I know said, You really cut that doll up? My mother said that to me. She’s appalled that I did this, actually.” The New York Times

Why consume museum resources to honor settler colonialism or racism? India and former satellite states of the Soviet Union offer a different path. “In these places, no effort is made to preserve old statues. They’re just left to fade away. In India, the colonial monuments are fundamentally neutered in public, left to erode in a long-neglected park. In, say, Estonia, Soviet monuments are dumped to the side and kept largely out of view.” – The Boston Globe

What virus? “Since the beginning of June, five major art galleries have opened here: Pace, Skarstedt, Van de Weghe, Michael Werner and Sotheby’s, all arms of New York art powerhouses. And more are on the way soon.” – The New York Times

Well, you know, new medical research buildings. “University spokespeople claim that UC San Francisco is unable to cover the costs of removing and preserving the murals, estimated at $8 million. If the price of saving 10 frescoes is prohibitive, one wonders where the university will find the funds for its proposed 1.5 million-square-foot expansion project. Perhaps the university could start by dipping into its nearly $4-billion endowment.” – Los Angeles Times

The statue of Edward Colston loomed over the city at the beginning of June, and historians had given up hope to get even a plaque of context about the man. Now, “beaten-up, bloodied and graffitied, Colston’s statue is no longer just another piece of mediocre, late-Victorian public art. As is the case with the hundreds of segments of the Berlin Wall, which today stand in museums across the world, the graffiti Colston has acquired is as historically significant as the object on to which it was scrawled.” – The Guardian (UK)