Eviction Of Small Detroit Arts Center Suggests City’s Rising Fortunes

“The plight of the Carr Center — the public face of the 25-year-old Arts League of Michigan — is a multilayered story whose meaning shifts depending on perspective. From one angle it looks like a tale of gentrification: A small cultural organization that moved into the neighborhood when property values were low can no longer afford to stay amid escalating prices in a downtown on the make. From a more global perch, the longstanding financial challenges facing the Carr Center, including annual deficits of about $200,000 on an $800,000 budget, are consistent with the troubles often affecting black and Latino nonprofit arts groups nationwide.”

Picasso And The Making Of ‘Guernica’

“As the most ardent promoter of Spain’s pavilion [for the Paris World’s fair], [Juan] Larrea … realized that the obliteration of Guernica would provide the artist with the very subject he had been seeking. When Picasso claimed to have no idea what a bombed town looked like, Larrea replied, ‘like a bull in a china shop, run amok.'”

A Cheeky Shortlist For 2016 Turner Prize

“This year’s artists include one who made an 18ft sculpture of a man’s bare buttocks, another obsessed by corrugated shop window shutters, another whose sculptures are described as ‘slippery and elusive’ and a fourth who allowed thrilled visitors to ride around the gallery on a choo-choo train.”