- Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or a windowless detention cell somewhere) you’re aware that Donald Trump has dismissed FBI director James Comey, who has been investigating the president’s ties to Russia. Basically everyone is freaking out, because this is dictatorship 101. [The Internet, Screaming in the Street, Texts From Loved Ones]
- David Wallace reviews the Jewish Museum’s The Arcades: Contemporary Art and Walter Benjamin, which appropriately seems to meander like the writers’ texts. [The New Yorker]
- The first trailer is out for the upcoming Blade Runner sequel. Will this be good? Terrible? One immediate thought: movies need to stop putting those CGI “hologram” billboards in the background of every scene (it distracted from otherwise really lovely art direction in Ghost in the Shell). The original Blade Runner looked so great and so real because it was all show with practical special effects. Countless imitators have failed to make a believable future city in the decades since. [YouTube]
- Speaking of Sci-Fi masterpieces, it’s crazy to believe Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element is now 20 years old. Ben Child looks back at the film’s depictions of gender and sexuality and tries to decided if they were regressive (straight white male protagonist surrounded by hyper-feminized service industry workers) or visionary (Ruby Rhod, female Jesus, etc.) As a weird queer kid, Ruby Rhod was basically my hero! [The Guardian]
- Anish Kapoor dominates the discussion on Dezeen this week. Commenters are debating whether Kapoor’s calls for artists and designers to oppose Trump are hypocritical, given the apparent lack of political messaging in the artist’s own work. Opinion also remains divided over his vortex “Descension” that was recently unveiled in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Wasn’t the water in that thing supposed to be black? [Dezeen]
- Hernan Bas discusses Florida Living (his new show at Savannah College of Art and Design), growing up in Miami, his part-time move to Detroit, and more. Bas seems like a funny guy who resists cliches about the artist narrative. [The Miami New Times]
- This looks kind of cool. A new miniature of Manhattan, called Gulliver’s Gate, is now permanently installed in Times Square. It’s crazy intricately detailed (though geographically innacurate). [Curbed]
- Sotheby’s CEO Tad Smith thinks the art market is no longer cyclical, but structurally poised for growth. That’s because the richest people keep getting ever richer, meaning they will forever shell out more and more cash for artworks. While there’s some truth to that (obviously) we’ve seen enough boom-and-bust to know the market isn’t that simple. [CNBC]
