July 7, 2022 • View in browser

Good morning. ☁️ I hate to start with bad news, but it's hard not to when a white supremacist mob attacks a Black artist in Boston or when other Black artists in Philadelphia say they had been excluded from a commission for a Harriet Tubman statue.

Also today: Dan Hicks has a warning about how restitution of looted artifacts is being conducted; Michael Glover delves into Raphael's résumé; Hall W. Rockefeller reminds Jeff Koons that other artists have sent work to space before him, and more.

— Hakim Bishara, interim editor-in-chief 

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The Risks That Lurk in Europe's “Scramble for Decolonization”

As the global consensus on restitution passes the tipping point, some skepticism towards these sudden, improbable Damascene conversions towards restitution is probably justified. | Dan Hicks

WHAT'S HAPPENING

Wesley Wofford’s “Harriet Tubman: The Journey to Freedom” (photo by Amaury Laporte via Flickr)

• The city of Philadelphia is drawing criticism for commissioning a White sculptor to complete a statue of abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

• Musician and activist Charles Murrell was caught in a white supremacist march and injured on his way to work in Boston this weekend.

• The Getty Foundation announces a new pilot program funding ten two-year positions for underrepresented emerging arts professionals in LA.

LATEST REVIEWS

Raphael Between Heaven and Earth

The Renaissance master was boundlessly ambitious and intimidatingly energetic, charming, good-looking, diplomatic, and utterly opportunistic. | Michael Glover

White Boys and Divine Animals Bound Cleverly Together

Zadie Xa’s quilted textiles and Hernan Bas’s paintings of adolescent men enjoy a surprising but generative dialogue at San Francisco's Jessica Silverman gallery. | Claire Frost

ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC

Jeff Koons Doesn't Get It

While Koons may be a man on the moon, he’s looking back at Earth, oblivious to the vastness behind him, if only he would turn around. | Hall W. Rockefeller

A Girl Gets Out From Under Her Father’s Thumb in Murina

Croatian filmmaker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s debut feature accurately captures a certain kind of Balkan machismo. | Manuela Lazic

IN MEMORIAM

Jacki Apple (1941-2022)
Artist and writer | Artillery

David Blackwood (1941-2022)
Canadian artist | Toronto Star

Kurt Markus (1947-2022)
Photographer | New York Times

Hunter Reynolds (1959-2022)
Visual artist and AIDS activist | New York Times

Arnold Skolnick (1937-2022)
Artist famous for Woodstock poster | Washington Post

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