Weekly
November 12, 2022 • View in browser

I don't know about you, but I'm breathing easier knowing that the democratic system of government in the United States is slightly healthier than I feared earlier this week. Elections are the lifeblood of democracy and this week's midterm elections showed that the citizens of this country are taking their responsibility seriously — even if we're not sure which party controls either the House or Senate, yet.

This week, our news team has been working hard and their report on the issue of salary transparency in New York state — which went into effect recently — is eye-opening on many levels. One thing I've learned over the years is those institutions with the most money don't pay the most (and, in fact, it's often the opposite, which is what WAGE found years ago when the organization looked at the payments institutions were making to speakers, artists, and others). 

Let's take a look at the numbers in the article. The Shed — remember that fancy art space in the depressing Hudson Yards that raised over $500 million as of March 2019 in donations for its construction, programming, and other expenses? — well, the website doesn't even list an art handler salary. Gagosian gallery? They're offering a "front desk associate" $23/hour, which would translate to $45,000/year as a full-time job. And Christie's is offering candidates for its Business Development Coordinator position only $45–50,000/year. I'm speechless. 

I highly recommend reading John Yau's excellent piece about the new Bernice Bing exhibition at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. He writes:

The exhibition’s immediate takeaway was that the many paths Bing took in her work reflect her lifelong desire to find a unified self. To her credit, it seems that she never developed a signature style. The diversity of her artworks and subjects — from abstract landscapes to lotus sutras — shares something with another San Francisco-based artist, Ruth Asawa, who drew every day, worked in her community, and made figurative clay sculptures and abstract wire sculptures. The deep bond they share is their persistence. Bing was, as I wrote of Asawa, “a pioneer out of necessity.” Her search was not about style, being fashionable, or fitting in. It was about trying to acknowledge the multiple worlds one inhabits.

Beautifully put. And finally, one of our reporters wrote a brief history of the "I Voted" sticker, and it's really interesting.

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief

Gustave Courbet’s “Stone Breakers” holding museum protest signs (edit Valentina Di Liscia/Hyperallergic)

NYC Salary Transparency Law Exposes Art World’s Lowest Wages

Museums, galleries, and other employers are now obliged to disclose salaries — but that doesn’t mean they’re high. Elaine Velie (with the help of Rhea Nayyar) takes a deep dive into NYC’s art job postings.

NEWS THIS WEEK

Rembrandt, Detail of “Oil sketch of The Raising of the Cross” (c. 1642-1645) (courtesy Museum Bredius)

• Thought to be an imitation, a mysterious sketch at the Netherlands’s Museum Bredius is confirmed to have been painted by Rembrandt.

• "Deeply shaken" museum leaders signed a statement condemning recent climate protests targeting protected artworks.

• University of California's Berkeley Campus reports a sharp increase in students enrolling in arts and humanities majors in the last decade.

• Lee Bontecou, an artist who sculpted paintings and welded drawings, dies in her Florida home at 91.

• Artist and writer Brian O’Doherty, who pushed the envelope on questions of authenticity, identity, and gender, dies at 94.

INTERPRETING HISTORIES

Installation view of Hew Locke: The Procession at Tate Britain (photo Aditya Iyer/Hyperallergic)

Carnival and Colonialism Converge in Hew Locke’s The Procession

Aditya Iyer examines how Locke’s stunning, sensuous spectacle of pattern and color hints at the sinister elements that undergird Caribbean carnivals.

Troubling though it may be, digging into these hints and fully engaging with Locke’s vast panoply is a rewarding and unmissable experience, one that adroitly reminds visitors that colonialism has an afterlife.

An Artist’s Quest to Decolonize Southern California’s Water Supply

Renée Reizman on Lauren Bon and The Metabolic Studio: Bending the River at Pitzer College Art Galleries.

The Sesame Street of Art History

Isabella Segalovich expands on how artist Jayson Musson guides a potty-mouthed, weed-obsessed bunny named Olliethrough his version of art history.

REFLECTION & INTROSPECTION

Bernice Bing, "Self Portrait with a Mask" (1960), oil on canvas, 33 1/4 × 29 1/4 inches (courtesy Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Bernice Bing’s Search for a Unified Self

John Yau reviews Into View: Bernice Bing at the Asian Art Museum.

Can one ever arrive at a true self or are we always wearing one kind of mask or another?

After looking at “Self Portrait with a Mask,” I began to see the rest of the show through a different lens; each path Bing took with her work was in quest of a unity that she knew was impossible to attain.

Joiri Minaya Breaks Through the Camouflage

Jessica Shearer looks closer at how Minaya exposes Eurocentric narratives that exoticize real people while denying the reckoning owed to them.

Kei Ito Traces Tragedy and Mourning

Dereck Stafford Mangus reveals how Ito’s works are traces of a global tragedy still imprinted in the memories of Americans more than two decades later.

ADVENTURE PAINTING

(Left to right) Johnny Defeo and Will Bruno near Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico, January 2021 (courtesy the artists)

Adventure Painters of the Southwest

Susannah Abbey spotlights the Guild of Adventure Painters and how they test the rules of outdoor artmaking.

The impossible charge of a plein air painter is to distill this sensory and intuitive knowledge into a single snapshot.

“I love it because it’s a game you can’t win,” says DeFeo. “You get locked on a perfect shadow. A few minutes later you turn your brain into recorder mode and [because the light has changed] paint right through that shadow. It’s right on the edge of glory and annihilation.”

MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC

Janet Boudreau’s 1987 sticker design (image courtesy GPA Photo Archive via Flickr)

A Brief History of the “I Voted” Sticker

Who designed the first sticker? And does anyone care about it anymore? Rhea Nayyar takes a deep dive.

The Couple Behind One of History’s Most Brazen Art Heists

Rachel Harris-Huffman explores how a new film unravels the speculative history of the presumed thieves of Willem de Kooning’s “Woman-Ochre.”

Who Holds the Power in Art?

"If art is power, as Farah Nayeri’s Takedown consistently shows, then how can galleries and museums successfully negotiate relationships of power?" — David Carrier

Did a Children’s Cartoon Predict the Upside-Down Mondrian Blooper?

Sarah Rose Sharp highlights a 1997 episode of Arthur that shows a character correcting the orientation of a Piet Mondrian painting.

Required Reading

This week, voter surveys, the ideology of “longtermism,” Arthur gives Hyperallergic a shout-out, and more.

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COMICS

The History of American Landscape Painting Is Not Pretty 

Steven Weinberg asks: "Is there a better way to inspire people with landscape painting today?"

IN OUR STORE

American Gothic Socks

Introduce a favorite painting to your wardrobe with the socks in our store, like this wearable adaptation of the classic Grant Wood painting “American Gothic,” reinterpreted for a knitted canvas.

Shop more art-inspired socks!