Category: visual

The issues at the museum have raised eyebrows in art circles nationally. “Obviously the Walker has a slight cloud over it right now,” said Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. “It’s a cloud; not a downpour, but it needs to get out of it quickly.”

“[Stephen Towns’s] Joy Cometh in the Morning series presents six painted figures, each representing a martyr from the rebellion … In Towns’s vision, each wears a noose around their necks, held in place by one raised fist, a gesture of black power.” An employee at one venue where the paintings were shown objected, “stating that she shouldn’t have to look at black faces with nooses around their necks at work.” Towns immediately withdrew the series from the show, leaving blue tape on the walls where each canvas had been. Cara Ober writes about the debate than ensued.

The show at the Santander Bank Cultural Center in Pôrto Alegre, titled “Queermuseu,” had been running for more than three weeks without incident when a self-styled “libertarian” group called the Free Brazil Movement (which was heavily involved in the movement to impeach former president Dilma Rouseff) began vehement protests of the exhibition on social media, argiung that the show promoted pedophilia, bestiality, and blasphemy. (There are no images in the show depicting sex with children or animals.) Santander Bank abruptly shut the show down, not even notifying the curator. Now protesters have been gathering to demand that “Queermuseu” reopen.

Zaryadye Park, designed by High Line architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro and located on the site of the old Soviet-era Rossiya Hotel, isn’t having trouble because of shoddy work. (Not with those architects, nor with the personal interest of Vladimir Putin.) The problem is vandalism: the first day, someone threw an object through the glass roof of the media center and concert hall, and more than 10,000 plants in the park have been trampled or stolen.

Although the museum’s president and chief executive, Daniel Weiss, says the director’s role has not “changed in any material way”, the job description makes clear that rather than acting as the top dog, the new director will be expected to work well with others—especially the museum’s president and board.

“Ann Freedman, the former director of the now defunct Knoedler gallery, has settled the last of ten lawsuits against her arising from a $70m forgery ring that forced the 165-year-old gallery to close in 2011. The lawsuit was brought by Frances Hamilton White, a California collector who with her then-husband had bought a purported Jackson Pollock for $3.1m in 2000.”

“The local Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine newspaper said [the state of] Hesse and [the city of] Kassel had each agreed to take over loan guarantees of €3.5m. … The local newspaper said the cost overruns for the current edition of Documenta were partly owing to miscalculations by the management team” – particularly concerning the costs of running part of the event in Athens.

The exquisitely detailed strip was found during a dig in a field near the village of Boxford in Berkshire. Experts have already described it as the most exciting mosaic discovery in Britain for the last 50-years.

“Nine steel pavilions, rising several stories high, have already been erected at the centre of the royal cremation park, or Sanam Luang. The skeletal thrones that stood bare just weeks ago have now been adorned with gilded and carved cedar, teak and timber. … When it comes to crafting a royal funeral pyre the devil is in the detail. Every carving, flick of the paint brush, or wooden strut has been designed, excoriated and redesigned multiple times.”

“The digital age has made everyone want to get their hands into things and get dirty and messy and make things out of clay. With that comes the voice of the hand, which is inherently imperfect.”