Weekly
November 19, 2022 

Good morning 🌤️ This week, the latest climate protest at Vienna's Leopold Museum was the most visually captivating incident yet. The reactions to this and all the incidents have been very diverse. The ones that most interest me are the extremely emotional reactions to the art — which was not damaged — being used in this way. 

Many of us grew up forming identities in museums and other cultural spaces. For me, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto was a formative space that first exposed me to works by artists I had only read about on screens or in print publications up until that point. It was there that I was exposed to new ideas and aesthetic worlds, and I have a deep affection for that institution, along with a few others in the region, but I don't see the institution (or art in general) as untouchable and perfect either.

This is a new phase of the public's relationship with art institutions, one that is less determined by a few so-called elites, and instead informed by a public who is smarter, more media savvy, and absolutely refuses to stay quiet when they witness something they see as unjust. I have confidence we'll find a way to navigate this new terrain. 

In New York, almost 100 Maya masterpieces went on view at the Met Museum, while in Florence, conservators at the Getty are restoring an Artemisia Gentileschi painting that was covered up in the 17th-century because of modesty concerns, and Seph Rodney writes about his experience at the "Loophole of Retreat" gathering that centered Black women at the Venice Biennale.

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief

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Throne back (600-909 CE), limestone (image courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Nearly 100 Maya Masterpieces Are Now on View in New York City

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Lives of the Gods exhibition is the first major US show of Maya art in the last decade. | Rhea Nayyar

The Met’s new show, organized in collaboration with Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum, features dozens of large- and small-scale sculptures documenting the histories and life stages of various Maya deities during the Classic period (250–900 CE). With both the natural decay and intentional destruction of almost all Maya texts, ancient Maya spirituality is deciphered and analyzed primarily through these precious objects.

NEWS THIS WEEK

Leopold Museum guard apprehends Letzte Generation activists who splattered black liquid on and glued themselves to Klimt's "Death and Life" (1915). (photo courtesy Letzte Generation)

• Climate activists from Letzte Generation splash Gustav Klimt’s “Death and Life” with an oily black liquid.

• A relative of Hilma af Klint says an upcoming sale of NFTs on Pharrell Williams’s GODA platform “goes against the will” of the artist.

• 48,000 graduate student workers across the University of California system went on strike, demanding higher wages, lower rents, and more.

• Part-time faculty at the New School in NYC go on strike, demanding better wages and expanded healthcare.

• Conservators are working to restore an Artemisia Gentileschi painting whose nude figure was censored in the interest of modesty.

• Some have questioned whether Shirin Neshat’s famous images of women wearing the hijab represent the struggles of Iranian women today.

MATERIAL & IMMATERIAL

Florence Miller Pierce, “Blue Forms” (1942), oil on canvas, 29 3/4 x 34 inches (collection of Georgia and Michael de Havenon, New York, courtesy Crocker Art Museum)

The Painters Who Sought Refuge in a Higher Transcendental Power

The Transcendental Painting Group lived through a global pandemic, great economic disruption, the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl, and the dangers of rising fascism and war. | Clayton Schuster 

Expressionism Turned Inside Out

Kyung-Me’s disciplined focus on minute details is inseparable from a vast grotto of feelings that she has channeled and kept in check. | John Yau

Paintings Born of LA’s Grit and Grime

Collaging debris culled during urban excursions, Michael Alvarez portrays the liminal spaces of his city, from freeway underpasses to public parks. | Matt Stromberg

STRENGTH IN SOLIDARITY

Dona Ann McAdams, Procession for Peace march with Artists Call Against US Intervention in Central America banner, New York, 1984, silver gelatin print (courtesy the artist)

What Does Solidarity by Artists Look Like? 

Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities portrays how Artists Call swiftly created a transnational network working toward a single purpose. | Rachel Harris-Huffman 

The Collective Ethos at the Heart of Asian-American Activism

Voice a Wild Dream dismantles the idea that activism is driven by individual charismatic figures; in reality, social change is possible because many hands come together. | An Xiao Mina

Discovering How Black Women Might Forge a Path to Freedom

The “Loophole of Retreat” symposium at the Venice Biennale demonstrated that the personal is not only political; it’s also where most of humanity lives. | Seph Rodney

INSIDE THE STUDIO

Dermot Hallahan, Dublin, Ireland

A View From the Easel

In this edition, artists invite collaborators into their studios, watch morning light filter through their windows, contemplate cubicles, and more.

Want to take part? Check out our submission guidelines and share a bit about your studio with us!

LATEST IN DOCUMENTARY

The film includes animation by Molly Schwartz in collaboration with Jesse Krimes.

New Documentary Looks at Artmaking Behind Bars

Artist Jesse Krimes served six years in federal prison, creating artworks while incarcerated using the bare-bones materials at his disposal. | Jasmine Liu

Revisiting Chicago’s Ida B. Wells Housing Project

Frederick Wiseman’s Public Housing shows how Clinton-era politics shaped the experiences of low-income Black communities in deindustrialized urban areas. | Shawn Glinis 

All That Breathes Redefines the “Nature Doc”

Shaunak Sen’s second feature sits somewhere between a nature doc, political drama, and touching family portrait. | Eileen G'Sell

MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC

A full-body tattoo by Tiaret Mitchell (courtesy the artist)

Meet the Tattoo Artists Who Champion Body Positivity 

Young, queer, and non-White tattoo artists are exploring how the artform can complement the body’s natural curves and colors. | Billy Anania

When Asian-American Artists Are Unburdened by Identity

Stanford’s Asian American Art Initiative allows for a range of expression not usually granted to Asian-American artists — something especially refreshing in this rare moment of visibility. | Alex Paik 

Alain George’s Detailed View of Art, Faith, and Empire in Syria

Borrowing the model of the palimpsest, George’s The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus: Art, Faith and Empire in Early Islam takes the reader on a vivid tour of the renowned mosque’s history, meaning, and significance. | Stephennie Mulder

Museum Directors, Do You Need a Hug?

Prominent museum directors declaring that they are “deeply shaken” by climate activists is a resounding failure of leadership. | Hakim Bishara

Required Reading

Digital colonialism, America’s favorite wines, tech layoffs, Brutalist Taco Bells, and do people still write thank-you notes? | Hrag Vartanian and Lakshmi Rivera Amin

IN OUR STORE

“A Little Taste Outside of Love” Silk Scarf x Mickalene Thomas

Bring a little art into your home with this delicate silk scarf based on “A Little Taste Outside of Love” (2007) by Mickalene Thomas. It’s one of our favorite pieces!

Shop more art-inspired accessories!

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