August 12, 2022 • View in browser
Good morning. 🌤️ Today, a ranking of the best museum bathrooms in the US, including SFMOMA's controversial all-red restrooms, Canadian politicians push for resale royalties for artists, the maddening epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women, and more.
Also, Manijeh Moradian writes about the too-narrow, too-domestic outlook of the 2022 Whitney Biennial, which seems to be completely unconcerned about American imperialism. And in this week's Required Reading, learn what "Secular Puritanism" means and discover how it already annoys the living hell out of you.
— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor
The Whitney Biennial Is Dangerously Quiet About US Imperialism
The absence of an explicit framing of American art, in all of its diversity, as a visual culture of empire distorts and hampers our ability to understand — and reimagine — our social world. | Manijeh Moradian
SPONSORED
The Newark Museum of Art Presents Jazz Greats: Classic Photographs from the Bank of America Collection
Photographers Antony Armstrong Jones, Milt Hinton, Chuck Stewart, Barbara Morgan, and more capture a breadth of legendary and local musicians and performance artists. On view through August 21. Learn more.
THE LATEST
Artist Cynthia Consentino’s The Women’s Room (2005) at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin (courtesy the John Michael Kohler Arts Center)
The American Alliance of Museums reveals the results of a recent poll ranking the nation’s best museum bathrooms.
Artists in Canada might soon receive resale royalties, giving them a cut of the profits when their work rises in value.
Support Hyperallergic's independent journalism
Become a member today to help keep our reporting and criticism free and accessible to all.
LATEST IN ART
Two Artists Address the Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
David Rios Ferreira and Denae Shanidiin join forces to bring awareness to the plight of Indigenous women and girls, and LGBTQ+ individuals. | Scotti Hill
Naotaka Hiro and Embodying the Act of Painting
The gap between the material body and the psychological one, which we all too often take for granted, is one of the underlying themes of Hiro's exhibition. | John Yau
MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC
The Two Brothers Who Shaped US Indie Cinema
Metrograph’s series The Process features films that were either directed by Robert M. Young or made with the help of Irving Young’s postproduction facility. | Dan Schindel
Required Reading
This week, the Getty Museum is returning ancient terracottas to Italy, parsing an antisemitic mural at Documenta, an ancient gold find in Denmark, a new puritanism, slavery in early Christianity, and much more. | Hrag Vartanian
IN OUR STORE
Cats of The Met Notecards
Cats have beguiled artists since the dawn of time. For proof, look no further than this set of 36 cards celebrating the glorious felines portrayed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.
TRANSITIONS
The Bowdoin College Museum of Art named Casey Mesick Braun full curator and Sean Kramer post-doctoral curatorial fellow.
Caroline Campbell was appointed director of the National Gallery of Ireland, becoming the first woman in the role.
Alteronce Gumby is now represented by Nicola Vassell Gallery.
Elizabeth L. Hillman was appointed president and chief executive of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
Zoe Kahr was named executive director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.
At the Walters Art Museum, Gina Borromeo was named senior director of collections and curatorial affairs and senior curator of ancient art, and Earl Martin was named the inaugural Deborah and Philip English curator of decorative arts, design, and material culture.
Alan van Capelle was appointed executive director of the High Line.
The North Carolina Museum of Art and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary appointed Jared Ledesma curator of 20th-century art and contemporary art and Maya Brooks assistant curator of contemporary art.
John Vanausdall will step down as Eiteljorg Museum president and CEO in June of 2023 after 26 years in the role.
AWARDS & ACCOLADES
Lubaina Himid was awarded the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize.
Larry Bissonnette, Jarvis Green, Christal Brown, Eugene Uman, Robert Resnik, and Judy Dow received the 2022 Vermont Arts Awards from the Vermont Arts Council.
The winners of the 2022 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards were announced. See the full list of recipients here.