The Three-Body Problem was a success despite China's historic sci-fi censorship

March 2 – 31, 2024

March 2 – 31, 2024

Patrick Moore, director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will step down from his position on May 31. He said the reason was he planned to relocate to Spain with his husband.

Moore has been director of the Warhol Museum since 2017. He first joined the organization as its director of development before quickly being promoted to deputy director in September 2012. Prior to the Warhol Museum, Moore spent 10 years with the Alliance for the Arts in New York, where he was the creator and project director of the Estate Project.

During Moore’s time as director, the institution proposed a $45 million expansion plan last year that would increase the institution’s footprint by more than 60 percent, as well as its $60 million “Pop District” initiative.

The 10-year Pop District initiative would span five blocks around the museum in Pittsburgh’s North Shore and would include a “public art initiative, a youth-focused, creative economy workforce program, flagship live event & performance venue.”

The Pop District in particular has proven particularly controversial among staff at the museum, according to WESA, Pittsburgh’s local NPR station. “The museum has been taken over by the alien that is the Pop District,” one unnamed employee told WESA in a report that ran this past December.

A US district judge for the Southern District of New York denied a request for MetaBirkins to be displayed at a museum in Stockholm, citing a lack of details about how the exhibition would describe the NFTs to the public.

Last February, Hermès won a lawsuit against Mason Rothschild (aka Sonny Estival) concerning Rothschild’s NFT collection “MetaBirkins,” 3D renderings of the company’s iconic Birkin bag covered in fur in a variety of patterns.

A jury ruled that Rothschild’s NFTs failed a test that would allow them to be considered art. The luxury handbag company was set to be awarded $133,000 in damages. Hermès also sought a permanent injunction against Rothschild, which was granted in June.

Documents filed on March 13 detail how Rothschild inquired about whether the injunction would prohibit him from providing permission to the Spritmuseum to display the MetaBirkins. The works were to appear on a screen in an Andy Warhol exhibition and his practice of Business Art.

According to Rothschild, the contemporary art and spirits museum had contacted him just before Christmas last year about displaying the MetaBirkins on a screen, “just as the images are available on the Internet.”

The remains of a Roman harbor were found by a research team from the University of Ljubljana’s Institute of Underwater Archaeology (ZAPA) off the coast of Portorož, Slovenia.

There, more than 3,000 ceramic fragments were unearthed by divers from the university’s faculty of maritime studies and transport team. They also found two ancient ship masts, several wooden stakes, and rigging and sails parts.

The wooden stakes may have formed a type of a barrier to protect the coastline. Measuring more than three feet long, the two masts made from fir and spruce trees are “unique examples on a global scale,” the researchers told Artnet News.

Most of the identified pottery is sigallata, which was a popular kind of red pottery mass-produced during the 1st century CE. Often, it featured raised decorative designs. Much of the amphorae, kitchenware, and fine tableware shards would have been imported.

The wood artifacts will be preserved with melamine resin and, along with the other objects, stored at the Sergei Mašera Maritime Museum in Piran.

Attendance at national museums and galleries in the UK has dropped massively since the pandemic, even despite a lack of restrictions, according to a new report published by the UK government this month.

The report centers on data from a 15-museum network that includes institutions such as the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the V&A, and the Tate museums. Per the report, the amount of people that visited those museums during the first quarter of 2023 was more than a quarter fewer than a similar period before the pandemic.

Between 2022 and 2023, there were a total of 35.1 million visits to state-backed museums and galleries in the agency’s network, the report found. That’s about 14 million fewer visitors than the amount recorded from 2018 to 2019.

The report also found that, between 2022 and 2023, foot traffic from international visitors saw a sharp drop. Compared to pre-pandemic figures recorded in 2019, attendance at DCMS-sponsored museums and galleries plummeted by a striking 49.5 percent in 2023.

The report also showed that the museum network saw loans to other other museums in surrounding regions in the country decline. Institutions sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport loaned items to over 1,000 other UK cultural institutions, marking an 18 percent decrease compared to 2019.

An exhibition at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is set to reopen after having been closed to the public following a protest in which artists called for a ceasefire in Gaza and altered their artworks.

The conflict was sparked by the October 7 attack by Hamas, the militant group that killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped roughly 240 people. Since then, Israel’s bombing campaigns have killed 31,000 Gazans, according to the local health ministry.

During a protest in February, artists within the show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, titled “Bay Area Now 9,” altered their artworks as they called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Video of the artist Paz G spray-painting phrases to that effect onto one of their sculptures was widely shared on social media.

The museum subsequently closed the show and said it would store the works; the exhibition has remained shuttered ever since. But, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, the show has now reopened, and does include all the altered works. It is slated to run through early May.

In a statement posted to the YBCA website, the institution’s board of directors said the reopening, and the decision to include the works that were altered, “reflects our commitment to supporting artists’ voices and creating a space where diverse perspectives are welcomed, celebrated, and thoughtfully explored.” The statement added that “while the altered artwork remains unchanged since February 15, new signage will provide context regarding the alterations made by the artists. The opinions expressed by each artist are their own, and are not those of YBCA.”

Johanna Hedva, an artist based in Los Angeles and Berlin, said their attempt to call Israel’s actions in Palestine an “undeniable genocide” ended up leading to the cancelation of a solo show planned to open at Germany’s Kunstverein Braunschweig tomorrow.

In a lengthy statement posted to Instagram, Hedva claimed that they had tried to insert that phrase into a press release for their show and that the institution’s leader had rolled it back to refer to “ongoing genocide.” Hedva claimed the phrase was then further re-edited, with the latter word changed to now read “wars.”

Hedva also claimed that the director, Jule Hillgärtner, had her last day at the museum today as a result of the situation. Hillgärtner is still listed on the Kunstverein Braunschweig’s website as the museum’s director; the museum did not respond to an inquiry from ARTnews as to whether her employment status has changed.

According to Hedva, the museum claimed that the show, titled “Are You Willing to Break It,” was officially canceled because the museum was “understaffed.” On its website, the Kunstverein Braunschweig indicates that the show is “suspended for capacity reasons,” but does not mention Hedva’s claims that they disputed the language in the press release. The description of the exhibition is no longer available on the website.

A Kunstverein Braunschweig spokesperson said that Hillgärtner had departed the museum, and that Benedikt Johannes Seerieder, the curator of the Hedva show, had left the institution at the end of his contract a month ago. Regarding Hedva’s allegations about the show’s press release, the spokesperson said, “I was not involved in the editorial process, so I can not provide any further information at this time.”

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THE HEADLINES

TIKTOK ART BAN. The latest US bill to ban TikTok is worrying some artists who rely on the platform for income. The animator “Rigatoni” Garrido told Hyperallergic her TikTok posts redirect viewers to her merchandise shop, helping build a fanbase more effectively than Instagram. The app has also been “pivotal in the growth and success” of Amanda Kelly’s miniature art career, said the creator who goes by PandaMiniatures, and is part of TikTok’s Creator Program. “What I love the most about sharing my art on TikTok is hearing from followers who resonate with my work,” she said. Still, artists also say that with or without the app, they won’t stop creating. 

HIDDEN MESSAGE. Not everyone saw it, including the Whitney Biennial curators. But Demian DinéYazhi’s neon sign sculpture at the New York exhibition which opened to previews yesterday, did refer directly to the war in Gaza, in what may be a telling example of how artists are creatively addressing the subject in today’s divisive climate, and within an exhibition described by some critics as veering away from overt political messaging on the whole. Patient observers of the DinéYazhi piece caught some of the neon lights slowly flicker to spell out “Free Palestine.” Later confirmed by the institution, curators told the New York Times they hadn’t been aware of the phrase, and had initially offered a broader reading of the work.

THE DIGEST

A version of this essay originally appeared in Reframed, the Art in America newsletter about art that surprises us and works that get us worked up. Sign up here to receive it every Thursday.

The drawings in Marian Zazeela’s exhibition at Artists Space in New York look like words being born. Most of them are not even words, exactly, but accumulations of marks making their way through transformative stages somewhere between the embryonic and the etymological.

Zazeela’s ornate style of drawing and calligraphy has been synonymous for decades with the work of her partner, the minimalist musical composer La Monte Young. The few musically aligned drawings in “Dream Lines,” an exhibition of nearly 50 works made between 1962 and 2003, include an early poster advertising a series of performances by Young and fellow drone devotee Angus MacLise, as well as sketches for what would come to be album covers.

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But most of the drawings now on view in Tribeca look like searching gestures that fluctuate between differing states of legibility. One brain-scrambling sketch of curlicue forms from 1962 (it’s untitled, like all but a few works in the show) seems to bear the strange phrase “frow word” before rearranging itself to look more like “word” spelled both backward and forward—and then, after that, “draw word.” Another from 1963 features extremely tiny lines of blurred black flourishes suggestive of writing over top an index page from the back of a book—intimating a store of information that has been obscured and hidden well away.

Zazeela’s style is rooted in calligraphy but also grows and sprouts in different ways. And looking at her drawings—most of them in ink or pencil, and for the most part in black and white—is a curious exercise in an age when writing itself has so fundamentally changed. When is the last time you wrote something in cursive? Or had to decipher something written by hand? As it were, on my way to see “Dream Lines,” I realized I had forgotten a pen to jot down notes and wandered around looking for somewhere—anywhere—to buy one. The little drug stores and the 7-Eleven I checked no longer stock even simple Bics.

In the decade before her death, in 1999 at age 32, artist Belkis Ayón stumbled upon the mythological story of Sikán in a book about Abakuá, a secret Afro-Cuban fraternal organization exclusive to men. At the time, she had been painting with vivid colors, but as she delved deeper into the story of Sikán, her palette would shift to blacks and whites, with an emphasis on light and shadow.

“Sikán is the woman sacrificed by men in an attempt to obtain her sacred voice,” Ayón once said in a 1993 interview.

It is these Sikán-related works that would garner acclaim for Ayón, who was born in Havana in 1967. Her art would be included in the 1993 Venice Biennale, the 1994 Havana Biennial, and the 1997 Gwangju Biennale. More recently, her 2016 retrospective would travel to five US cities, including Los Angeles, New York, and Houston, as well as the 2022 Venice Biennale, surrounding a sculpture by Simone Leigh. And now, it is the subject of an exhibition (through April 25) at Miami gallery David Castillo, the artist’s first commercial showing since her death 25 years ago.

At the gallery, each work is a door into the artist’s imagination. Organized chronologically and presenting pieces made between 1989 to 1999, the exhibition begins with Ayón’s first representation of Sikán in Sálvanos Abasi (Abasi Save Us), from 1989, where a genderless figure with dark, fathomless eyes, no mouth, and a small sacred fish hanging from her necklace stares intensely back at the viewer. In the myth, Sikán, a princess, accidentally catches a sacred fish, considered the reincarnation of a king, that jumps into her bucket while she fetches water from a nearby river. This fish contained the secret voice that would lead whoever cares for it to prosperity. When the Abakuá men learn of this, they send serpents to scare Sikán and then sacrifice her, believing the fish’s secret voice to have entered Sikán’s skin.

Belkis Ayón, Vamos (Let‘s Go), 1993. 

Ayón continues with her own version of this story, looking for openings and closures in the myth. In 1993’s Vamos (Let’s Go), a genderless figure that appears to be Sikán has fish scales now encrusted on their body as they present the sacred fish to the other phantasmagoric figures. In Siempre Vuelvo (I Always Return),  also from 1993, Sikán is depicted as risen and resurrected into a dark cosmos. Her mouth remains covered, her hands crossed. Beneath her spirit, three bodies appear to be those that sacrificed her, gesturing upward.

The Vatican has tapped Italian provocateur Maurizio Cattelan for its Venice Pavilion.

The Vatican revealed on March 11 that Cattelan will create an outdoor installation that incorporates works by eight artists; it will be located at the Giudecca Women’s Prison. Inmates at the prison will help create several of the artworks.

Cattelan is best known for sculptures and installations that invite controversy, making him a somewhat surprising representation for the seat of the Catholic Church. His headline-grabbing works include a kneeling Hitler and the sculpture The Ninth Hour (La Nona Ora), a life-size wax sculpture of Pope John Paul II on his side, seconds after being struck by a meteorite. The Ninth Hour was exhibited at multiple institutions, including the 2001 Venice Biennale. 

His art became a viral sensation in 2019, when, at Art Basel Miami Beach, Perrotin gallery premiered Comedian, a banana duct-taped to a wall. It sold for $120,000, and was ultimately eaten by artist David Datuna. The second iteration of Comedian, on display at Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art in 2023, was similarly ingested, this time by a South Korean student.

Cattelan’s Venice commission will consist of a 12-minute video installation directed by actor Zoe Saldaña and her husband, Italian director and producer Marco Perego. Inmates will play characters in the film, and some have also contributed photographs of themselves as children for a piece by the French artist Claire Tabouret. The Lebanese American artist Simone Fattal was also invited to create an installation that used poems written by the inmates.

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Who was the First Female Councillor in Oxford?

International Women’s Day (8 March) is a time to reflect on and promote women’s political participation. In Oxford, the City Council bucks the national trend with equal numbers of female and male councillors, in a wider context in England where only 36% of local councillors are female compared to 64% male.[1] But we know that has not always been the case, and there was a time when there were not only structural and social barriers but legal barriers preventing women’s democratic participation in local government. So who was the first female councillor in Oxford and what do we know about her?

Women were only legally allowed to stand in local elections after the Qualification of Women (County and Borough Councils) Act received Royal Assent on 28 August 1907.[2] The Act removed the disqualification of women from sitting on public bodies for which they were entitled to vote.[3] It provided that a woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for election as a councillor or alderman of a county council or borough council (including metropolitan boroughs).[4] It meant that women could finally stand for election of town and city councils including in Oxford.

In November 1907 elections were to be held three months after the Bill was passed. Outside London seventeen candidates stood for election including Miss Mary Sophia Merivale in Oxford.[5]

Miss Merivale held a campaign meeting at SS Philip and James’ infant schools shortly before the election. On her candidacy she said she was standing because “quite simply a woman was wanted and other better qualified women were not able to come forward and so she had accepted the invitation”. She added that “…there were among the business of the city council… matters more intimately connected with women and children which had to be dealt with, and a woman’s knowledge and practical detail ought to be helpful in dealing with them”. She stressed that she “had come forward as a representative of no political party” and noted that she “had never taken part in the agitation for women’s suffrage and always had consistently denied to sign any petition either for or against it”.[6]

Speakers at the event supported Miss Merivale’s bid for election. One stated it “as a means to promote efficiency…there was great gain in having women brought into places for which they had both knowledge and experience.” Another speaker described Merviale’s candidacy as “a new experiment” and she was “a most excellent and competent candidate”. A third observed that while she was the “women’s candidate” he preferred to think of her as the “children’s candidate” because if children’s interests were to be represented, they must be represented by people who cared for them”.[7]