AI and Tomato Soup

October 20, 2022 • View in browser

Good morning. 🌤️ You can try to ignore it, but AI is becoming an inevitable part of art-making today. In some ways it's exciting, and in others, it's frightening. Today we report on how AI learning machines can finish your artwork for you or let famous artists like van Gogh and Hilma af Klint paint your hometown with convincing results. You can expect more coverage of these quickly developing technologies and the ethical problems they bring up.

And speaking of van Gogh, Rebecca Zorach writes in an op-ed today that critics of the activists who threw tomato soup at his painting in London last week should stop clutching their pearls and worry more about the lives of future generations. And if you missed it, watch how our Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian tackles this issue, answering the question: Why museums?

— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor

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In the wake of a new retrospective, some are casting scrutiny on the way in which aspects of the artist’s biography are being characterized. | Jasmine Liu

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Pre-Raphaelite Power Couple Makes Their US Debut at the Delaware Art Museum

A Marriage of Arts & Crafts: Evelyn & William De Morgan in Wilmington, Delaware, showcases paintings and ceramics by two underrecognized yet influential artists. Learn more.

WHAT'S HAPPENING

A quick snap of the mural in progress from around four years ago. (photo courtesy Pirate Studios)

A mural in Gowanus becomes the butt of the joke after people noticed it would spell “GO ANUS” if a gate was lifted.

The Perelman Arts Center is endorsing a luxury development at the World Trade Center despite activists’ calls for more affordable housing.

Stable Diffusion’s “Diffuse the Rest” tool turns any sketch into a finished work.

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SITE Santa Fe Presents Endless Journey, a Solo Exhibition by New Mexico-Based Artist Max Cole

This show surveys over six decades of Cole’s ongoing career, featuring works that highlight her lifelong investigation of rhythmic, repetitive lines and composition. Learn more.

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Georgia O’Keeffe, Reframed

A new exhibition at the Denver Art Museum renders the artist’s persona through newly identified photographs. | Sommer Browning

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CCS Bard Offers Expansive Resources and a Transformative Education in Curatorial Studies

Students in this two-year graduate program in New York enjoy access to the Hessel Museum of Art, the CCS Bard Library and Archives, and opportunities to curate in practice. Learn more.

How John Mitchell Shakes Up Portraiture

Mitchell is conscious of the many profound changes occurring in our society, and the urgent need to challenge old tropes. | John Yau

A Difficult but Necessary Exhibition About Roadkill

Jeanne Dunning's works attest to widespread human disregard for animal life, and their finished form insists on both their deadness and how it happened. | Lori Waxman

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Cey Adams Celebrates 40 Years of Art and Design at Boston University Art Galleries

Adams’s first career retrospective features over 60 works that showcase his wide-ranging practice, from graffiti and photography to painting and collage. Learn more.

MORE FROM HYPERALLERGIC

What if Van Gogh Could Paint Your Hometown?

Neither Picasso nor Hilma af Klint ever visited the Faroe Islands, but in a new exhibition, a museum uses AI to imagine how these artists would have painted their archipelago. | Jasmine Liu

The Lasting Appeal of Wittgenstein's “Picture Theory”

If Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus radically redefines the scope of philosophy, it has proved irresistibly suggestive to literary theorists, poets, and artists. | Mark Scroggins

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IN MEMORIAM

Mario Algaze (1947-2022)
Cuban photographer | PDNB Gallery

Jack Brogan (1930-2022)
Fabricator for many California Light & Space artists | New York Times

Tigre Mashaal-Lively (1985-2022)
Santa Fe artist | Santa Fe Reporter

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