May 26, 2021 • View in browser

Good morning. 🌤

Today, the art world’s “motherhood penalty,” and reviews of a solo show by Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro and two group shows, one in LA “from a mid-pandemic point of view,” and the other in New York that looks at imperial power, public relations, and social control.

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief

The Very Real “Motherhood Penalty” in the Art World

Cultural institutions are constantly draining their talent pool and dismissing this retention problem as a woman’s issue, when it is a structural failure.

Kealey Boyd

What's Happening

The 1948 Palestinian exodus from Lydda and Ramle, also known as the Lydda Death March (via Wikimedia Commons)

Workers at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City are moving to unionize.
Thousands of cultural figures, including scholars Judith Butler and Angela Davis, have signed a statement in solidarity with the Palestinian city of Lydda in the wake of mounting racist violence.

Outdoors vs. Indoors

Cathartic Public Art, Including an Ode to All the Missed Parties

We Rise, an initiative of the LA County Department of Health, has taken over Los Angeles with altars, canopies, and dance rituals.

Samanta Helou Hernandez

Navigating Home, the Way Children Might See It

Stuck at home as we have been, Busy Work at Home invites us to rediscover our sense of wonder.

Caroline Ellen Liou

Latest Reviews

Lingering in the Crossroads Between the Human and the Divine

In her US debut, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro charts the boundless potential of the spiritual in-between.

Daniella Brito

Revealing the Prickly Side of Imperial “Soft Power”

A collaboration between Carriage Trade and Rectangle, Hearts and Minds analyzes the deceptive repackaging of Western imperialism.

Billy Anania

Streaming Now

Excavating Rare and Suppressed Footage of the Soviet Era

MUBI gets Back in the USSR with a streaming series featuring archival documentaries by Sergei Loznitsa.

Dan Schindel