Dec 17, 2020 • View in browser

Good morning. 🌨️ Today, we share a photograph that is believed to be the longest exposure image ever taken, Cara Despain wrotes about the recent monolith ridiculousness and how it perpetuates colonialist thinking, and a podcast with artist Shahzia Sikander shares her hopes for a post-pandemic art world.

– Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief

Derek Fordjour's Heavenly World

Derek Fordjour, "STRWMN" (image courtesy the artist and Petzel, photo by Daniel Greer)

“If you grew up in the Black church as I did, upon walking into Petzel Gallery to see Derek Fordjour’s Self Must Die exhibition, you will recognize in the first gallery the hallmarks of the church,” writes Seph Rodney.

In his latest show, Fordjour’s penchant for lush colors and surfaces dovetails with the theme of churchified rituals of remembrance.

In Other News

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s proposed budget for the coming year will include $25 million to transform historical sites, many of which include statues commemorating soldiers of the Confederacy.
The Mellon Foundation announced that a second round of grants from its Art Museum Futures Fund will aid 14 small-sized arts museums.
A group of artists and cultural workers staged a protest outside of Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, rallying to defund the museum they see as a disagreeable ode to Germany’s colonial past.
A photograph discovered inside a beer can at the University of Hertfordshire’s Bayfordbury Observatory may be the longest exposure image ever taken.

On "Goodbye, Dragon Inn"

The Nostalgia of a Movie Theater’s Final Days

Tsai Ming-liang’s newly restored film Goodbye, Dragon Inn flips the notion of moviegoing as a sanctified experience.

Ela Bittencourt