November 21, 2022
Good morning. 🌤️ Oh, Twitter. You are a place I love, but you're also a mess, particularly now. And for your enjoyment, we've gathered some of the newest memes about the continuing dumpster fire that is our favorite bird-branded social network.
Art historian Erin Thompson reviews a Berlin exhibition about an anti-Nazi resistance group now known as the Rote Kapelle (“Red Orchestra”) during World War II. She explains:
During the Cold War, East Germans celebrated the group as early Communist heroes, while West Germany excoriated them as traitors who merely wanted to replace Hitler with Stalin. Both sides accepted the picture drawn by the counter-espionage branch of the SS, which had given the group their derogatory code name during their investigation: “red,” for their alleged Communism, and “orchestra” because they operated secret wireless transmitters that were known as “pianos.” Many survivors defiantly adopted this name after the war when for the first time they learned the identities of other members of what had been a decentralized, loosely linked network. But … Red Orchestra members did not all agree about Communism. Their visions of the political future differed. They agreed only that the Nazi present was intolerable.
In other stories, Paddy Johnson offers some advice for those dealing with a gallerist's emotional blackmail, Detroit launches an interactive map of its street art, and Verity Babbs asks how AI is changing art history.
— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief
How Is Artificial Intelligence Changing Art History?
AI image-generators have got art historians in a twist, as more artists make use of these tools to inform their practice. | Verity Babbs
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WHAT'S HAPPENING
A cartoon by Bruno Lanza satirizes Elon Musk as Twitter hangs in the balance. (artwork courtesy Bruno Lanza)
Twitter users are coping with the platform's dumpster-fire downfall with an incredible outpour of memes.
Michelle Weitzman was removed from the Asheville Art Museum’s board after speaking publicly on workers’ allegations of a toxic workplace.
Works from two artists were stolen from the Green Hall Gallery at Yale’s School of Art, shaking the students’ trust in the school.
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Art Is Activated by the Body in INTERPLAY at SITE Santa Fe
This immersive exhibition features new media and digital works by Neil Mendoza, Iván Navarro, Camille Utterback, and Robert Rauschenberg. Learn more.
LATEST IN ART
Artists’ Doomed, Inspiring Resistance to Hitler
The stories of the Red Orchestra show the power of joy, creativity, and love in the fight against the compliance, fear, and silence upon which fascism still depends. | Erin L. Thompson
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Earn Your MFA in Visual Art at Herron School of Art and Design
With 10 core faculty members committed to a small cohort of up to 10 candidates, this program in Indianapolis fosters close mentorship and a strong sense of community. Learn more.
Two Artists’ Quest to Free Their Ancestors
Artists Heesoo Kwon and Trina Michelle Robinson make worlds in which their distant relatives can fill the fractures of memory. | Emily Wilson
Explore Detroit’s Street Art With This Interactive Map
The city’s new initiative comes after years of penalizing and white-washing independent and unauthorized street art. | Sarah Rose Sharp
MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC
When Does Representation Stop Mattering?
After a decade of working across different nonprofits, all too often I saw countless projects and frameworks deteriorate due to a lack of radical imagination. | Amy Fung
Art Problems: Difficult Dealers, Difficult Art
It’s hard to leave a gallery, and it can be even harder to stay and deal with your dealer. | Paddy Johnson
IN OUR STORE
“Song of the Towers” Enamel Pin
Painted in 1934 for a WPA program, Aaron Douglas’s mural belongs to a series reflecting on the African American experience. In the final panel, a saxophone-bearing traveler arrives to New York City in a reference to the Great Migration.
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