December 21, 2022

Good morning. 🌤️ It's been 51 years since art critic Lucy Lippard organized the pathbreaking exhibition Twenty Six Contemporary Women Artists at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut. With scant documentation of the original show, The Aldrich's team embarked on a five-year-long research process to mount the expanded tribute 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone, on view until January 8. Today, we take you behind the scenes of reconstructing Lippard's largely overlooked exhibition. I also recommend reading an article we published this week by Alexandra Schwartz, who co-curated the new show with Amy Smith-Stewart and with assistance from Caitlin Monachino, on how it all began.

In other stories today, a photo of Argentinian soccer legend Lionel Messi hoisting the World Cup has become the most liked image on Instagram, a totally uncalled-for medieval torture museum opens in Hollywood, Turkish authorities hound a film with LGBTQ+ content, and artist Philip Pearlstein passes away at age 98. Also: Did artist Nancy Holt predict the influencer age in her photography? Renée Reizman has some thoughts on that.

Finally, I would like to take a moment to thank you for reading Hyperallergic. It's such a pleasure and privilege to be part of this community with you. Please consider joining as a Hyperallergic member to keep our work independent, free for all, and fearless. We appreciate you.

— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor

Philip Pearlstein, Whose Paintings “Rescued the Human Figure,” Dies at 98

Pearlstein made a mark on the course of art history by depicting unromanticized views of the human body at a time when such realism was unpopular. | Elaine Velie

LATEST NEWS

Posters for Emin Alper’s Kurak Günler (2022) (photo Jennifer Hattam/Hyperallergic)

• The Turkish Culture Ministry is demanding its funding back on the film Kurak Günler after a smear campaign deemed it “LGBT propaganda.”

• Lionel Messi’s World Cup victory photo has accrued some 64 million likes (and counting), becoming the most-liked post on Instagram.

• The new Medieval Torture Museum in Los Angeles offers 6,000 square feet of Medieval contraptions and torture accouterments.

LATEST IN ART

Behind the Scenes of Remaking a Feminist Milestone

Reflecting on the five-year process of unearthing and restaging Lucy Lippard’s 1971 exhibition Twenty Six Contemporary Women Artists. | Caitlin Monachino and Amy Smith-Stewart

Philip Taaffe Digs Deeper Into the Rabbit Hole

It seems Taaffe is looking at the present as an extinction event, and that one purpose of painting is to bequeath some record of history and time to the future. | John Yau

How Nancy Holt Anticipated the Influencer Age

Though Holt's photos come from the mid-20th century, they anticipate 21st-century aesthetics and could be a backdrop in an influencer’s desert pilgrimage. | Renée Reizman

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ICYMI

How a Landmark Feminist Show Got Erased From Collective Memory

Art critic Lucy Lippard’s first outing as a feminist curator in 1971 has, until recently, been almost entirely absent from history. | Alexandra Schwartz

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Correction: Yesterday’s Daily email mistakenly attributed Lauren Moya Ford as the author of “In Praise of the Exhibition Catalogue,” which was written by Sarah Rose Sharp.