September 30, 2021 • View in browser

Good morning. 🌤️ Today, a lock of Beethoven’s hair is among the treasures being showcased by the New York Public Library, two mermaid museums emerge in the US, and John Yau writes about the current Philip Guston exhibition in New York.

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief

Philip Guston’s Unblinking Eye

I cannot think of another American artist who went as far as Guston did without a safety net. | John Yau

SPONSORED

Field Recordings

Geary presents an exhibition of paintings by Alan Prazniak, in Manhattan and Millerton, New York.

I’m after a critical pointlessness, the odd way through a composition without a center. To understand how the quietest part of the painting is as vital as the loudest, and the small ways that they’re held together.

WHAT'S HAPPENING

New danger to underwater life as medical waste used during the pandemic reaches the seas.
(© Sebnem Coskun/TNC Photo Contest 2021)

Şebnem Coşkun is among the winners of the Nature Conservancy's 2021 photo contest, featuring images of landscape, wildlife, people, and water.

Both self-funded women-led projects, two mermaid museums emerge at opposite ends of the United States.

LATEST IN ART

Neglected 20th-Century Women Photographers Begin to Get Their Due

The exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum aims to move beyond Euro-American historical narrative. | Julia Curl

SPONSORED

At Haverford College, an Exhibition Inspired by a 19th-century Uyghur Poem

In The Contest of the Fruits, the art collective Slavs and Tatars investigates language, politics, religion, humor, resilience, and resistance in a pluralistic world. Learn more.

Adventure and Spirituality Collide in Joseph E. Yoakum’s Visionary Art

Yoakum had said repeatedly that the drawings were “spiritual unfoldments,” meaning that faith guided his patterns and passages. | Debra Brehmer

Pulling the Caribbean into Conceptual Focus

The exhibition, The Other Side of the Pentaprism, looks at the ways that Bahamians and the greater Caribbean culture sees itself. | Seph Rodney

ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC

A New Documentary Explores the Life of Unheralded Civil Rights Activist Pauli Murray

Filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen talk to Hyperallergic about Murray’s archives and holding themselves accountable as white women biographing a Black figure. | Bedatri D. Choudhury

SPONSORED

New Arts Faculty at SMFA at Tufts Boost the Curriculum’s Social Justice Perspectives

A group of 10 renowned interdisciplinary artists and educators have joined the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University as full-time faculty. Learn more.

A Lock of Beethoven’s Hair and Maya Angelou’s Papers Are Among NYPL’s Treasures

The exhibition, on view for the next 75 years, features 250 rare items from the library's collection. | Valentina Di Liscia

How the Art Writing Program at SVA Thrived for 16 Years

It took five years to build the program I envisioned. My only real model for such an endeavor was something called the Poetics Program in San Francisco. | David Levi Strauss

IN OUR STORE

Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa

In this compelling biography, author Marilyn Chase brings Ruth Asawa's story to life, drawing on her extensive archives and weaving together many voices — family, friends, teachers, and critics — to offer a complex and fascinating portrait of the sculptor.
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IN MEMORIAM

Shan Gray (1956-2021)
An Osage artist who lived in Edmond, Oklahoma (Tulsa World)

Sarah Belchetz-Swenson (1938–2021)
A painter, printmaker, and portraitist (Legacy.com)

Melvin Van Peebles (1932–2021)
An actor and filmmaker most known for his 1971 film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Indiewire)

Alemayehu Eshete (1941–2021)
An Ethiopian singer who was nicknamed the “Abyssinian Elvis” (New York Times)

Pee Wee Ellis (1941–2021)
A saxophonist who collaborated with James Brown in the late 1960s and was praised as the “architect of funk music” (Washington Post)

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