August 10, 2021 • View in browser

Today's must-read is Valentina Di Liscia's report on a protest against the Purdue Pharma settlement in White Plains, New York on Monday. Activists, including artist Nan Goldin, transformed the courthouse landscape into a graveyard. “It’s an egregious case of injustice,” Goldin tells Hyperallergic, pointing out that the Sacklers are "walking away with most of their money."

Plus, a Yayoi Kusama piece is swept away by a typhoon, Jennifer Packer's 2020 paintings, and much more.

— Elisa Wouk Almino, Senior Editor

A Protest Against Purdue Settlement Transforms Courthouse Landscape Into a Graveyard

Activists from advocacy groups PAIN Sackler and Truth Pharm denounced Judge Robert D. Drain's "bankruptcy scam.” | Valentina Di Liscia

WHAT'S HAPPENING

Artist Yayoi Kusama's yellow and black dotted pumpkin sculpture in Naoshima, Japan

• A typhoon on the island of Naoshima in southeastern Japan washed away and severely damaged an iconic dotted pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama.

• The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has repatriated a Prairie Chicken Society headdress and a Weather Dance robe to the Siksika Nation.

Jennifer Packer Portrays Friends Through the Haze of Memory

Packer processes the horror of 2020 into elegiac mood studies that wrestle with exhaustion, fear, and longing. | Allison Conner

MOST POPULAR

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2. This Sculpture Museum Is 32 Feet Below Water

3. We Need to Reform the September 11 Museum

4. After Decades of Repression, Bill Gunn’s Work Finally Breaks Free

5. The Nuances of Loneliness

ON SALE IN OUR STORE

"Sky Sun" Plate x Judy Chicago

This luminous fine bone china plate features “Sky Sun” (1971) by Judy Chicago. The work is part of the artist's Flesh Gardens series, which she created using a technique she developed after learning how to spray paint at auto body school.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

Storytelling and textile art practices have often intersected, redefining the means by which history is preserved and passed down. The following posts highlight the narrative power of quilting and embroidery — from stitching symbols of family histories to documenting the course of a brutal dictatorship.

What Sewing Samplers Tell Us About Women’s Lives from the 17th to 19th Centuries

A sewing sampler can be the only trace of a 17th- to 19th-century woman's existence, and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge is recovering this lost history through over 100 examples. | Allison Meier