July 16, 2022 • View in browser

This week's best highlight was NASA's release of breathtaking images by the James Webb telescope. I can't think of a better form of escapism.

What's to escape? Well, things like pay inequalities, plagiarism, racism, and other art world maladies that you can read about in our news stories this week.

But let's shift the tone to more positive things, like our two-part coverage of the borderless Yiddishland Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and reviews ranging from Laurie Anderson's latest exhibition to Lydia Ricci's miniature mementos. May the rest of your weekend be positive.

— Hakim Bishara, interim editor-in-chief 

Helen Frankenthaler, “Madame Butterfly” (2000) (image courtesy Dulwich Picture Gallery, © 2021 the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./ARS, NY and DACS, London/Tyler Graphic Ltd.)

The Biggest Lie About Abstract Expressionism
Max Lunn addresses the exclusion of women artists in the narrative of the artistic movement.

The scholarship has been tirelessly corrected, the books have been re-written: It’s clear that women were front and center of Abstract Expressionism. But the power of a simple narrative of a few great men still stands in the way of experiencing the richness of mid-century abstraction. It’s time to flesh the story out. 

NEWS THIS WEEK

A “stellar nursery” with young stars (image produced by NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute; via Webb Space Telescope)

• NASA released photographs taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, some capturing the ancient universe dating back 13 billion years.

• A new database is combating hiring inequality by showing exactly which museum job boards post salaries in their listings.

• The first Los Angeles Artist Census newspaper juxtaposes informational graphics about artists’ quality of life with personal reflections.

• Thousands rallied on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in support of the PMA Union’s campaign for a fair contract.

• Controversy erupts over Gala Knörr’s works that uncannily referenced images from a film by Black and queer multidisciplinary artist dayday.

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MONUMENTAL MAKERS

Installation view of Laurie Anderson, “To Carry Heart’s Tide (The Canoe)” (2020) in Laurie Anderson: The Weather at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (photo by Ron Blunt, courtesy the artist)

Laurie Anderson Takes Stock of Today’s Unpredictable Weather
Murat Cem Mengüç on Laurie Anderson: The Weather at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Anderson insists that she doesn’t consider herself a political artist, but she also admits that her artistic choices are entangled with her politics.

Discovering Rick Barton
John Yau on Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick Barton at the Morgan Library & Museum.

An Artist’s Miniature Monuments to Big Memories
Sarah Rose Sharp highlights Lydia Ricci's imperfectly perfect replicas of quotidian moments and objects.

SOUTHWESTERN VOICES

Installation view of works by Jimena Sarno (left) and Raphael Montañez Ortiz (right) in Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art, Vincent Price Art Museum, 2022 (photo by Monica Orozco)

Listening to What Latinx Artists Have to Say
Isabella Parlamis at Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art at the Vincent Price Art Museum.

Presenting a history of Latinx sound practices steeped in resistance, Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art lays clear that the phenomenology — and the efficacy — of sound comprises much more than aural experience.

Two Artists Brought Together by the Sublime Mysteries of Existence
Sommer Browning on Wonder Holy Ladder at The Valley.

Nevada Artists Mobilize to Establish a Sacred Mountain Range as National Monument 
Brent Holmes on Spirit of the Land and the power that artists can harness to generate change.

DEFYING BORDERS 

Ella Ponizovsky Bergelson and Anna Elena Torres, Pseudo-territory (2022) (courtesy the artists/Yiddishland Pavilion)

At the Venice Biennale, a Border-Defying Yiddishland Pavilion
Chelsea Haines expands how Yiddishland subtly undermines the national logic of the biennale and seeks to recover marginalized or destroyed Jewish pasts.

Mapping Out “Refugee Modernism” at the Venice Biennale
In a second article, Chelsea Haines highlights Yiddishland Pavilion artists that question the borders that continue to define the art world.

Afghan Artists Speak Out Against Oppression
Billy Anania on an online exhibition that showcases nine contemporary Afghan artists ruminating on their plight as refugees.

FILM: PAST & PRESENT

From Divinely Evil (2020), dir. Gustavo Vinagre (all images courtesy Anthology Film Archives)

Talking Sex With Two Film Curators
Dan Schindel talks with Róisín Tapponi and Jed Rapfogel about their Anthology Film Archives retrospective and formative erotic film experiences.

Jed Rapfogel: I think that cinema has always been a key source for learning about experiences — sexual and otherwise — outside of one’s own culture or background. That’s all the more true when it comes to erotic experience, at least in cultures where frank discussion about sex is discouraged.

A Series Spotlights NY’s Underground Art and Cinema in the Early 1960s
Billy Anania dives into an upcoming new, cross-institutional program presented by Film at Lincoln Center, Film Forum, and the Jewish Museum.

New HBO Series Offers People the Chance to Rehearse Big Life Changes
Charles Bramesco reviews Nathan Fielder’s new show, The Rehearsal.

ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC

Floyd D. Tunson, "Hearts and Minds" (1993-1995) (image courtesy the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College)

The Curator Archiving Gun Violence Through Art
Jasmine Liu focuses on how curator Susanne Slavick continues to archive works examining the impact and proliferation of firearms.

How Art Criticism Perpetuated Racism, According to Harold Rosenberg
Debra Bricker Balken: "He felt that it was not his mission to only describe and evaluate art, but to assess the complexity of the modern period."

Blowback Explores the Messy History of US Interventionism
Jake Cole spotlights a podcast on the ever-reverberating aftershocks of US foreign interventionism.

How Art Helps to Manipulate Minds in Severance
Billie Walker explores how the sci-fi thriller’s meticulous attention to detail offers a world not soon forgotten with carefully chosen subliminal references.

Required Reading
This week, the global population approaches eight billion, Hermès is coming to Brooklyn, how to live longer, and much more.

IN OUR STORE

"The Great Wave" Tea Towel

Surf’s up! We’re swept away by this soft cotton tea towel, which features a dynamic detail from one of the most famous images in Japanese art.

Check out these artsy tea towels!