January 15, 2022 • View in browser

This week, we published a number of probing stories about US museums, including Jasmine Liu’s fascinating report about Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History, which survived bankruptcy and the pandemic and is now in a better position than ever, and Amber Cortes’s investigation into the demands by staff at the Seattle Art Museum to boycott the institution because they are “putting property over people.”

There are also reviews of Jiha Moon, Alma Thomas, Chie Fueki, Colette, Pedro Almodóvar, Andres Serrano, Alexandre Koberidze, and much more.

We hope our US readers have a nice long weekend and take time to reflect on the legacy of the great civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., who continues to inspire us all with his legacy of social justice, faith, and belief in nonviolent resistance.

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief 

We have updated to a new account system to manage your newsletter and membership subscriptions. Please take a moment to sign in to update your email preferences. When prompted, please provide the email address to which this message was sent.

Johnathan Borofsky’s “Hammering Man” (1991) at the Seattle Museum of Art (via GoToVan/Flickr)

In Seattle, Staff Call for a Boycott in Response to Museum’s Reaction to Unhoused Community
Decolonize SAM says the museum is “putting property over people” by implementing harsh measures against the unhoused community in lieu of alternative efforts.

ALSO THIS WEEK

• After years of uncertainty, Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History reemerges with a new name and an eight-figure endowment.

• New York’s Jewish Museum staff are the latest to join the wave of unionization in art institutions across the country.

• Italy’s long-term loan of a Parthenon fragment to the Acropolis Museum in Athens is seen as a nudge for the British Museum to follow suit.

• An unprecedented act will require major fashion companies to disclose the environmental impacts of their production processes in New York.

LATEST REVIEWS

Koga Harue, "Umi (The Sea)" (1929) oil on canvas, 51 3/16 by 64 inches at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (image courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Exhilarating Dreamlands of the Unconscious at the Met Museum
Mark Dery on Surrealism Beyond Borders at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 Tensions — between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation by Surrealists like Breton; between resistance to Surrealism as cultural imperialism, on anticolonial grounds, and the embrace of it as a universalist vision of freedom unfettered and desire unbound — are the live wires running through [this exhibition].

Jiha Moon’s Artistic Breakthrough
John Yau on Jiha Moon: Stranger Yellow at Derek Eller Gallery.

The Magnificent Abstractions of Alma Thomas
David Carrier on Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful at the Phillips Collection.

Chie Fueki, "finally Bridget" (2021), acrylic and mixed media on mulberry paper on wood, 60 x 48 inches (all photography by Pierre Le Hors, all images Courtesy the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York)

The Mind-Bending Portraits of Chie Fueki
John Yau on Chie Fueki: You & I at DC Moore Gallery.

Fueki’s use of paper, paint, and collage culminates in both a compressed surface and a complex spatiality, in which the ornamental and non-realistic color play significant roles. With the works’ radiating lines, patterns, and evocations of force fields, often done in what she calls “exuberant color,” the effects are dazzling.

The Punk Marie Antoinette of the 1970s New York Art Scene
Ksenia M. Soboleva on Notes on Baroque Living: Colette and Her Living Environment, 1972-1983 at Company.

Pastels Are Damned Beautiful
Bridget Quinn on Color Into Line: Pastels from the Renaissance to the Present at the Legion of Honor Museum.

FILM AND DOCUMENTARY

From What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021), dir. Alexandre Koberidze (image courtesy MUBI)

An Art Film Romance Takes a Rare Transcendentalist View
Dan Schindel reviews director Alexandre Koberidze's latest film.

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? sets up this wide-eyed survey of the fantastical in the ordinary without even a hint of pretension. It’s one of the few films that can accurately be described as unlike most others, full of little moments not quite like anything we’ve been trained to expect.

Andres Serrano’s Sensationalistic Flop About January 6
Kriston Capps examines Insurrection and the director's "blunt effort to find a sensational edge to a national tragedy."

Pedro Almodóvar Presents a Beguiling Thriller About Motherhood
Nadine Smith takes a closer look at the tension and themes in Parallel Mothers.

ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC

Installation view Tacita Dean, "The Montafon Letter, 2017; When first I raised the tempest" (2016); and "Sunset," (2015) at the Glenstone museum (© Tacita Dean, photo: Ron Amstutz courtesy the artist, Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York / Paris)

Why Context Matters in Museum Displays
Maura Callahan emphasizes the crucial role of contextualization in museum spaces.

Museums Could Help Families and Children While Saving Our Democracy
Alison Taylor: "What if every regional museum could offer free or subsidized daycare that taught secular values about participatory democracy and culture?"

Required Reading
This week, another Benin bronze is returned to Nigeria, looking at the Black Arts Movement in the US South, Senegal’s vibrant new architecture, why films are more gray, and much more.

MFA, MA, and PhD Programs to Apply for by Early 2022
Organized by geographic regions, a list of arts-related graduate programs to explore and apply to before deadlines close.

Opportunities in January 2022
From grants, open calls, and commissions to residencies, fellowships, and workshops, our monthly list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers.

COMICS

The Fearless Artist
“Are we really going in?”

Become a member today to support our independent journalism. 
Your support helps keep our reporting and criticism free and accessible to all.