Charles Blackman, “Women Lovers.”
- More Facebook censorship news: Australian auction house Mossgreen wasn’t allowed to post an image of Charles Blackman’s oil painting “Women Lovers”. Mossgreen executive Paul Summer says “It’s like going back to the 1950s. It’s ridiculous to censor this sort of thing.” [BBC News]
- Mexican-Canadian artist Miriam Aroeste is taking considerable flak thanks to her work at Vancouver’s Trump Tower. The developers commissioned 180 pieces from Aroeste before the Trump name became quite so politically loaded. But those developers aren’t actually the Trumps—the Canadian Holborn Group built the thing. They (rather stupidly, in hindsight) just licensed the Trump name. In a strange way, I guess the relationship Trump has had to most real estate for the past decade or so isn’t so different from those “street artists” who gets paid to make some luxury condos look like they’re “revolutionizing edgy urban living” or whatever. The difference is the Trump brand makes buyers look like a whole other brand of new money douchebag. [The Art Newspaper]
- Related: the Trump administration has put out an RFP for “design and build of several prototype wall structures in the vicinity of the United States border with Mexico.” I would imagine any architect who submits a non-ironic proposal will likely never find work in the culture field again. [Dezeen]
- Thomas P. Campbell, head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has announced his resignation. Rumors are swirling that his departure wasn’t quite by choice—despite monumental success with exhibitions and visitors under Campbell, the Met has experienced problems with budget, layoffs, postponed capital projects, and of course that pesky new logo. [The Washington Post]
- This is probably one of the cutest gentrification battles we’ve read about. A luxury apartment developer is suing a longtime neighborhood resident for feeding birds. Those birds poop all over the development’s balconies and rooftop amenities. Apparently the poop is scaring away potential tenants. Is this a good resistance strategy? Or at least a good subplot in a John Waters film? [The Baltimore Sun]
- We (mostly) like the Second Avenue Subway’s public art. Alexandra Lange does too, but points out a problem with so much contemporary American architecture: the art feels a bit lost in spaces designed to be have as little identity as possible. [Curbed]
- The Armory Show’s “Focus” section this year, What Is to Be Done? curated by Jarrett Gregory, frames sociopolitical issues through the lens of economics. That sounds a little dry, but the work here looks pretty good (and apparently smells terrible, in the case of Ibrahim Mahama’s dead fish blankets). Somehow, though, the topic of Trump is completely avoided. Gregory explains: “I’m sure people will do great things with that material, but this is more delicate, in terms of the approach, for the most part.” Eyeroll. Even in other commercial art fairs, gallerists have had the balls to show overtly political work that was often much more nuanced and original than this quote from Gregory: “I think that in the art world, we too often have a single perspective—the European white male, for example.” [ARTnews]
- Ok, we have resisted the urge to comment on Doug Aitken’s Desert X installation because literally every other art and/or design blog has already told the world that it’s “unbelievable” or “breathtaking” or “mind-boggling” or “dangerous for birds” but this link has some actually useful information in case you want to decide for yourself. Here are directions to go see it in person (you need a car). [Time Out LA]
