September 27, 2022 • View in browser

Good morning. 🌤️ In today's news, workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art announce an indefinite strike while their peers at the Whitney Museum in New York report morale-crushing wages and mistreatment. In both museums, unionized workers are involved in tense contract negotiations with their management. This goes to show that forming a union is just the first step in an often fraught, long process. I suspect we will be seeing more strikes at other museums as workers refuse to return to business as usual.

Also today, artists use humor to protest the pollution caused by the airline industry, the fallacies of Michael Heizer's land art, fighting loneliness in Santa Fe, and much more.

— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor

Philadelphia Museum of Art Workers Go on Strike Indefinitely

The museum and union have yet to agree on wages and healthcare. | Elaine Velie

WHAT'S HAPPENING

A "Ruinair" billboard by artist Hogre calling out RyanAir for their contribution to global climate crisis (courtesy Brandalism)

• Satirical guerilla billboard ads across Europe criticize the role of airlines in promoting a high-carbon lifestyle.

• The Prado Museum investigates the origins of 25 artworks that were likely seized during the Spanish Civil War. 

• A new report finds that Latinos are systematically underrepresented in film and television roles, ranging from acting to producing. 

• Menial work combined with low hourly pay, no benefits, anda lack of support has reportedly led to severe staff shortages at the Whitney Museum.

LATEST IN ART

Poeticizing and Politicizing Black and Asian American Abstraction 

Columbia University exhibition thwarts the de-politicization of postwar abstract art with a series of provocative questions. | Jasmine Liu

In Santa Fe, Artists and Retirees Join Hands to Combat Loneliness

Eliza Naranjo Morse and Jamison Chas Banks envisioned Giving Growth as a response to the forced isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. | Chelsea Weathers

MORE FROM HYPERALLERGIC

Michael Heizer’s Empty Empire

Despite his reportedly encyclopedic knowledge of the region’s geologic and mineral makeup, Heizer has displayed a baffling incuriousness about the larger story of the land he digs, cuts, and plows. | Chris Fernald

Queer Coming-of-Age Graphic Novel Under the Shadow of Church

Using the pressures of adolescence and indoctrination of the church as a framework, Campbell captures the stress endured by young women and their bodies. | Coco Picard

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