March 21, 2022 • View in browser

Good morning. ☀️ Today, New York City has a new cultural commissioner who has made some unfortunate anti-immigrant comments in her past, Erin Thompson reviews Hugh Hayden’s Madison Park art installation, and the new Met Gala theme is announced and we’re all a little confused.

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief 

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Surrounded by Wealth, an Artist’s Comment on Education Loses its Edge

Within the well-patrolled boundaries of Madison Square Park, it’s hard not to see Hugh Hayden's Brier Patch as just another amenity, offering a pleasant opportunity for virtue signaling. | Erin L. Thompson

WHAT'S HAPPENING

Former Councilmember Laurie Cumbo in an interview with Ronnie Eldridge for CUNY TV in 2016 (via CUNY TV)

• Laurie Cumbo, who’s been criticized for her anti-immigrant stance, is appointed the next commissioner of NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs.

• Russian forces have bombed an art school in Mariupol, Ukraine, where more than 400 civilians had taken shelter. 

• Ukraine urges journalists and activists against disseminating information about cultural heritage properties out of fear of exposing them as targets.

• A Brazilian Modernist building receives a Getty Preservation Grant to restore its surviving objects pertaining to the country's architectural history.

• The Met Gala returns on the first Monday of May, announcing this year's new theme.

• ARCAthens publishes its first open call for residency applications.

   

LATEST IN ART

Southwestern Association for Indian Arts Launches New Art Fair

Art Indigenous Santa Fe aims to increase representation for contemporary Native American and First Nations artists. | Steve Jansen

Losing Ourselves in Liz Larner's Shapeshifting Sculpture

By approaching sculpture as an open-ended experience of embodiment, Larner provokes us to repeatedly lose and locate ourselves in her work. | Cassie Packard

MORE FROM HYPERALLERGIC

The Backlash Against Oil Sponsorship Can Push for Broader Change in Museums

The British Museum’s complicity in BP’s artwashing ranks alongside the museum’s continual refusal to engage with its own colonial history. | Alice Procter

What We Have to Say About the 2022 Academy Award Nominees

A must-read list of director interviews and critic reviews of this year’s Oscar nominees.

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