How can artists responsibly use images that are not their own, especially when those images are tied to the history of another culture? And how can museums display such work while respectfully engaging with marginalised communities?
Tag: 02.06.18
A History Of The Late, Unlamented CD Longbox (Remember Those?)
These aren’t the “jewel box” CD cases, mind you – they’re the long, mostly empty plastic containers that jewel boxes were stuffed inside for record store shelves, and they were supposed to be removed at the cash register. “From a distance, it seems like putting a CD or a cassette inside a massive [plastic] box, of which more than half of it was effectively useless, would be a really questionable choice. But the record industry had a couple of good reasons for doing so.”
It Was ‘Art In Action’: Artist Behind Removal Of That Painting Of Naked Nymphs Explains What Went Down
Sonia Boyce: “The recent, temporary removal from Manchester Art Gallery of John William Waterhouse’s 1896 painting Hylas and the Nymphs, which depicts Hercules’s handsome male lover being lured to his death in a pond by seven long-haired, topless nymphs (pubescent girls), was an attempt to involve a much wider group of people than usual in the curatorial process.” And it did.
Missing Nigerian Masterpiece Turns Up In London Flat
“Ben Enwonwu’s 1974 painting of the Ife princess Adetutu Ademiluyi, known as Tutu, is a national icon in Nigeria, with poster reproductions hanging on walls in homes all over the country. The artist, regarded as the founding father of Nigerian modernism, painted three versions of Tutu and the image became a symbol of national reconciliation. But all three were lost and became the subject of much speculation.” Until late last year, that is.
Learning To Be A Reader In A Small-Town Library
Steven Kurutz, a reporter for The New York Times who now has the entire New York Public Library to look through: “I loved being in a room filled with books. Two rooms, actually. There was a small-town stillness, an atmosphere of benign neglect inside our little library that suggested the great works of Western lit were mine alone to discover. … The persistent feeling that the public library belonged to me, that it was a clean, well-lighted place built and kept open for one reader, was reinforced.”
Time To Leave Bad-Acting “Geniuses” Behind
Roxane Gay: “We can no longer worship at the altar of creative genius while ignoring the price all too often paid for that genius. In truth, we should have learned this lesson long ago, but we have a cultural fascination with creative and powerful men who are also “mercurial” or “volatile,” with men who behave badly. There are all kinds of creative people who are brilliant and original and enigmatic and capable of treating others with respect. There is no scarcity of creative genius, and that is the artistic work we can and should turn to instead.”
The Physics Behind Figure Skaters’ Amazing Jumps
Evelyn Lamb explains the issues of mass, inertia, vertical velocity, and angular momentum – and she talks to an applied physiology professor who figured out how tiny changes in arm position could make the difference between triple jumps and quads.
Artist Sues New York’s Biggest Art Museums For $100 Million For Forming A Cartel (And Excluding Him)
“In an 18-page court filing, Robert Cenedella alleges that a ‘corporate museum cartel’ engaged in an ‘unlawful conspiracy’ to manipulate the market for contemporary art. The lawsuit … says the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, the New Museum, and Museum of Modern Art all excluded Cenedella and ‘innumerable other deserving artists’ while driving up the prices of their collections.”
Study: What If Artists Retained Equity In The Sales Of Their Work?
“In their paper, titled Democratizing Art Markets: Fractional Ownership and the Securitization of Art, the authors, using historical sales data from the Leo Castelli gallery, have modelled a sample portfolio to determine what would have happened had Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg retained 10% equity in their own works sold by Castelli between 1958 and 1963.”
Jacquie Jones, 52, Award-Winning Filmmaker And Advocate For Other Black Filmmakers
“As a director, Ms. Jones won a Peabody Award for the four-hour documentary 180 Days: A Year Inside an American High School. … In 2005 Ms. Jones was appointed executive director of the National Black Programming Consortium, now called Black Public Media. Her work there included moving beyond the organization’s role supporting black filmmakers. During her tenure, the consortium created an online digital media project documenting the 2005 hurricanes that devastated New Orleans and neighboring Gulf states.”