Category: visual

The New York Times‘s co-chief art critic looks at how the debate over Schutz’s Open Casket at the Whitney Biennial has developed, reminds us that African-American opinion on the issue is not monolithic, and suggests that those calling for the painting to be suppressed or destroyed have more in common with, for instance, Rudy Giuliani’s crusade against Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary than they might like to admit.

“Better known for her passionate, tragic relationship with Rodin and her 30-year confinement in a psychiatric hospital near Avignon, [Camille] Claudel was largely forgotten as an artist until the late 1970s. The new museum holds most of the sculptures that she did not destroy when her affair with Rodin ended.”

“Clumsy, aggressive, cheap-looking (despite costing £100,000), it’s the very opposite of a raindrop. Like the worst public art, it’s also the very opposite of art — ungenerous, suggestive only of itself. Who to blame? The artists, Solas Creative, for sure. But also the arrogance of the bureaucrats who commissioned it.”

Basically, it boils down to three reasons (minus the random disturbed person with a screwdriver): It’s famous; it’s politically charged; it’s sexually explicit.

Arthur Langerman’s father died in Auschwitz, and he has spent years collecting statues, postcards, posters, cartoons and other examples of anti-semitic European art. Now some of it is on display in Norway because the collector sees the situation as urgent: “Langerman believed antisemitism was on the decline when he began his collection. Today, he’s no longer so sure.”

Do we even need to say it? Yes, it’s kangaroos.

His work – gates and fences in the city itself – will serve as a comment on the new American mindset. He says, “We are witnessing a rise in nationalism, an increase in the closure of borders, and an exclusionary attitude towards migrants and refugees, the victims of war and the casualties of globalization.”

Photographer and filmmaker Moffatt never wants to repeat herself. The pavilion “will feature two new large-scale photographic suites and two films. Commissioned by Naomi Milgrom and curated by Natalie King, the exact nature of the works in this exhibition is still a tightly guarded secret, but Moffatt says she used a lot of natural light – often shooting directly into the sun.”

No, seriously. People love their Hockney, and he returns the favor: “The vast audience that his retrospective has attracted is sure to please Hockney, who has always been an advocate for his art being not for a small elite.”

With a new board president, the former Museum for African Art is also pitching a new simulation of what it will look like inside – if it can raise the money.