Letter from the editor:
Many thanks to everyone who’s signed up for our membership program, which lends invaluable support as we continue to navigate these trying times. (If you haven’t joined yet and have the means, I hope you’ll consider signing up.)
As many of us continue to work, learn, and engage from home, artists and nonprofits are helping us stay connected with the arts. This week, a group of dancers and performers will lead a webinar focused on how to navigate the cancelled shows, contract snags, and more caused by the pandemic. In other dance-related news, NYPL’s Performing Arts branch has acquired the archives of legendary choreographer Martha Graham. Sarah Rose Sharp explores some of the collection’s most fascinating objects.
Visual AIDS has also introduced “Not Over,” a new platform and fundraising initiative. Our staff writer Valentina Di Liscia chronicles featured works by artists like Jack Smith, Pamela Sneed, and Devin Morris here. Valentina recently sat down with Frieze Artistic Director Loring Randolph to discuss the fair’s online debut and its decision to make prices publicly available for the first time. Read more about the current and future state of one of the art world’s largest fairs here.
Last but certainly not least, our staff writer Hakim Bishara shares harrowing news of the arrest of journalist and writer Jill Nelson for — I kid you not — writing “Trump=Virus” on a boarded-up storefront in washable chalk. “I frankly feel, as an African American woman and a person of color, that it’s open season on us in every way,” said Nelson, a 67-year-old who was kept in a cell for more than five hours. Additionally, Hakim chronicles the latest allegations revealed in the wake of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide. Among many things, a petition currently circulating online accuses New York Academy of Art board chair Eileen Guggenheim of abetting Epstein’s behavior towards young art students like Maria Farmer, and calls for Guggenheim’s removal.
Stay safe, and vigilant of the powers that be.