Category: visual

“Native voices in the conversation are often put aside, and a lot of times the folks that get the spotlight or the final say are those that are in the higher positions within the field. So it feels like, collectively, what everyone is talking about is this idea of not being heard regularly, not being recognized regularly within larger historical narratives, within the art field in general, and then even within this conversation. So, thank you all.”

D. Neal Bremer, a Kalamazoo resident who worked as COO of the GRAM from June 2015 until his termination on June 28 of this year, claims that museum executives regularly misused donor-restricted funds on other expenses, “including general operations expenses,” according to the lawsuit filed on Sept. 22 in the 17th Circuit Court for Kent County.

According to a statement issued by the museum, Beatrix Ruf resigned because of “the speculation in the media in recent weeks which may have an impact on the reputation of the museum.” Her duties will be taken over by the current management team, along with a short-term interim business director.

“After more than a year and a half of renovation work, the Freer reopened to the public over the weekend, along with a raft of new exhibitions at its partner institution, the subterranean Sackler Gallery to which it is connected by an underground tunnel. With the director of the Freer/Sackler, Julian Raby, set to retire early next year,” writes Philip Kennicott, “this project serves as a summation of his tenure: Sensible, accessible and stylish in a low-key way.”

“The art world lost track of acclaimed sculptor Auguste Rodin’s bust of Napoleon in the 1930s, but it’s apparently been on display for the past 85 years in the most unlikely of places – the council chambers in Madison Borough Hall.”

The architectural sculpture titled Domestikator was rejected by the Louvre for installation in the Tuileries Gardens because they were thinking of the children: the work was thought too sexually suggestive to be displayed outdoors. (A playground is not far away.) So the work will end up outside the Pompidou Centre instead.

Curious, Tim O’Brien asked Trump about the painting: was it an original Renoir? Trump replied in the affirmative. It was, he said. “No, it’s not Donald,” O’Brien responded. But, once again, Trump protested that it was. “Donald, it’s not,” O’Brien said adamantly. “I grew up in Chicago, that Renoir is called Two Sisters on the Terrace, and it’s hanging on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago.” He concluded emphatically: “That’s not an original.”

Landscape architects put rain gardens at the new Sandy Hook Elementary School to allow observation space before anyone enters the building, for instance. But “security focuses on what happened in the past. That can mean large barricades to stop cars from entering, bomb-sniffing dogs to check abandoned backpacks, and bag checks at gated entrances. Yet, all these defenses share a failure in common: there are protections against what previously worked.”

The story is quite amazing: “The artist, Tova Berlinski, was born in 1915 in the Polish town of Oswiecim, better known by its German name — Auschwitz. Newly married, she and her husband left for what was then known as Palestine in 1938, a year before the Germans conquered Oswiecim and began building the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp on the edge of town.”

Maybe: “We want the promise that everything is going to be O.K. … We want the joy back. We’ve moved away from the dark Edison bulb toward something bright.”