Weekly

November 20, 2021 • View in browser

The topic of “immoral” artists has been widely discussed in the last few years, particularly as #MeToo emerged as a global movement demanding justice for sexual abuse and harassment survivors. This week, Erin Thompson discusses philosophy professor Erich Hatala Matthes’s new book that grapples with the art of artists who exploit others. She ponders how we can explore the dark part of human nature without giving into its toxicity.

Also, union staff at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts go on strike, when is a Bible not a Bible, and reviews of Adam Pendleton, HJ Bott, Fei Li, Anicka Yi, Pippa Garner, and more.

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief 

What Do We Do with the Work of Immoral Artists?
Erin L. Thompson considers the promotion and consumption of these artists' works through Erich Hatala Matthes’s book “Drawing the Line.”

I am convinced, after reading Matthes’s book, that we can act ethically when we marvel at an artwork produced by an immoral artist — even if the artwork is intimately connected with that immorality and even if the work itself makes us deeply uneasy.

NEWS THIS WEEK

“‘I guess Summer’s Over!” by John Speirs won the Spectrum Photo Creatures in the Air award. (© John Speirs/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2021)

• The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards announced this year's hilarious, and strangely relatable, winners.

• The USPS unveils a collection of stamps featuring the abstract expressionist landscapes of Ojibwe artist George Morrison.

• Frida Kahlo's self-portrait Diego y yo sells for a total of $34.9 million at auction, shattering records for Latin American art.

• Union members at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston staged a strike in protest of stagnant wages and a lack of meaningful job security measures.

• UK official states that the decision to repatriate the Parthenon Marbles lies solely on British Museum.

LATEST IN ART

Installation view of Adam Pendleton: Who Is Queen? (courtesy the Museum of Modern Art, photo by Andy Romer)

The Frenzied Cacophony of Adam Pendleton
Zoë Hopkins on Adam Pendleton: Who Is Queen? at the Museum of Modern Art.

Given the increasing calls for a world beyond museums and monuments, Who Is Queen? is caught in the crosshairs. Yes, the project is unsettling on its own terms, but also mired in the tensions of the very thing it devours.

An Under-Recognized Geometric Abstractionist Who Took a Different Path
John Yau on HJ Bott: A Baroque Minimalist at Anya Tish Gallery.

The Coexistence of Beauty and Evocations of Race and Power
Seph Rodney on “Behold” at Welancora.

Fei Li, “I don’t know how to cook but I know how to buy off the kitchen god” (detail)

The Double Consciousness of Being a Chinese Woman Living in America
John Yau on Fei Li: The Unofficial History of Tomorrow at First Street Gallery.

[Fei Li's] inquiry into the dual consciousness that comes from being a Chinese woman living in the diaspora is an important subject that much of the art world has yet to acknowledge. 

At Tate Modern, an Installation Blurs the Line Between Technology and Biology
Anna Souter Anicka Yi: In Love with the World at Tate Modern.

Pippa Garner’s Household Inventions Reimagine the World
Renée Reizman on Pippa Garner: Immaculate Misconceptions at Joan.

ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC

From Carmen Jones (1954), dir. Otto Preminger (image courtesy Cinémathèque québécoise)

A New Archive Shows Where to Stream Hundreds of Classic Black Films
Cyndii Wilde Harris speaks to Maya Cade, creator of the Black Film Archive, about showcasing an “abundance of Blackness across time.”

When a Bible’s Not a Bible
Dr. Kathleen Kennedy demystifies an engraved medieval bead and debunks claims of it resembling a Bible.

The Parthenon Sculptures Should be Repatriated Immediately
"The principle that one misdeed deserves to be redressed before another, because it stems from a situation of greater violence, is wrong." — Rafael Cardoso

Shot in Rome During Lockdown, Zeros and Ones is a Different Pandemic Thriller
Jake Cole: "Abel Ferrara’s new film evokes the paranoia of modern information overload."

Is Sex Tech the Next Feminist Frontier?
Alexandra Weiss highlights five artists that are using technology to explore sexuality and bodily autonomy.

Required Reading
This week, the only LGBTQ+ historic district in the US is falling apart, three Asian-American Modernists, Ai Weiwei on reclaiming art from capitalism, Thanksgiving and genocide, and more.

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