A painting of the black victim of a 1950’s lynching, included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, was bitterly controversial. Debate continues, at a lower volume. Some see the core issue as “treating Black pain as raw material”. The artist thinks the painting is being viewed “out of context”. Perhaps the question they are all getting at is – “who gets to tell a community’s story”.
When first shown “American Gothic’ was celebrated as an ode to regional conservatism. Is that what Wood really thought? Most likely he was gay. His landscapes “imply a freedom that Wood rarely had. It has to be significant that he’s airborne in these views, floating above the earth, maybe even escaping the fraught region that was his life.” More images are here.
New York’s Met has introduced compulsory admission fees. Doesn’t it still believe in “the general mobilization of the mind”? ‘User pays’ seems part of the answer. And then there is the cost of the Met, a history-focused institution, getting into contemporary art. Absent this venture, the Met “could have [allowed] nonmandatory admission fees … for all visitors, forever.”
Mary Beard claims this 16th century silverware is “the greatest jigsaw puzzle on earth”. Twelve plates, dazzling in their quality, were made, one for each of the first 12 Caesars. But who made them and for what purpose? Further, why were they pulled apart and then incorrectly put back together? Extraordinary eye candy, if you will, as this video (3.5 min) shows.
Something from the outer reaches of the art world. de Borchgrave, a painter by training, re-creates dresses drawn from Renaissance art through to the Ballets Russes – all created from just folded and painted paper. Well known in Europe, a retrospective show of her work is currently touring the US. Multiple images are here.