Pioneering cartoon artist Aline Kominsky-Crumb, whose self-deprecating drawings about frustrations and sexual longing made her a feminist hero, died from pancreatic cancer at 74 years old at her home in France on Tuesday. News of her death began spreading on social media and was later confirmed by David Zwirner, which represents her husband, R. Crumb.

Kominsky-Crumb came up in the underground comics scene that grew out of the 1960s counterculture. While the scene was not particularly supportive of women, Kominsky-Crumb broke through with her frank and unapologetic autobiographical comics, which often depicted women with hairy armpits, large noses, and big butts in black-and-white.

In 2016, she became one of twelve female cartoonists listed by the Comics Alliance as deserving of a lifetime achievement recognition.

Born Aline Goldsmith in 1948, Kominsky-Crumb grew up in Long Island, New York. It wasn’t until she attended the University of Arizona in Tucson in the late 1960s that she first got into underground comics. In 1972, she moved to San Francisco to pursue her artistic career. There, she met artist Robert Crumb, who is now better known by the name R. Crumb, after mutual friends noticed a resemblance between their work. They married in 1978 and had a daughter named Sophie in 1981.

While living in San Francisco, Kominsky-Crumb served as a founding member of the all-female collective that produced the long-running anthology Wimmin’s Comix (1972–85), which addressed such topics as queer life, abortion, and rape. In 1975, she cofounded with Diane Noomin the women’s comic Twisted Sisters, which tackled political issues around female empowerment, criticized of the patriarchy, took up sexual politics and lesbianism, and more.

London’s National Gallery canceled a plan with Moscow’s Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, to jointly organize an exhibition around modern art. The collaboration was nixed by the British institution in early March following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, The Art Newspaper reports.

National Gallery director Gabriele Finaldi is now working with its curators to replace 15 loans originally set to be supplied by the Pushkin museum for the show, titled “After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art”. The Pushkin’s director, Marina Loshak, was overseeing the loan. (Loshak could not be reached for comment.)

The exhibition, which is set to go on view in London in March 2023, will focus on the defining modern art movements, from Post-Impressionism to Fauvism, Cubism, and abstraction. Artists in the show include Gauguin, Van Gogh, Rodin, Degas, Munch, Klimt, Derain, Maillol and Mondrian. The show planned to explore the nascent avant-garde scene in Moscow before relations with Russia soured.

The Russian city was dropped from the exhibition’s plan amid the fallout from Ukraine invasion. The moves comes amid a period of isolation for the Russian arts sector from the rest of the museum world, which began in early March: Kremlin-affiliated trustees at international museums were asked to step down, while major exhibitions involving Russian art and preparations for Russia’s participation in the Venice Biennale pavilions were halted. Meanwhile, Russian art loans from Italy to South Korea were frozen in transit.

Since taking up the director position in 2013, Loshak has focused on developing the Moscow museum’s ties with institutions abroad in an effort to bolster its international reputation. (Her colleague, Vladimir Opredelenov, the former deputy director of the Pushkin Museum, resigned in March following the Russian invasion.)

A vast funerary building dating to Ptolemaic Egypt and decorated with portraits of the long deceased was uncovered in the Garza archeological site.

Heritage Daily reports that the structure was discovered at the Garza archeological site which has been under examination since 2016. Located about 50 miles south of Cairo, it was established in the third century BCE as part of an agricultural reclamation project launched by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BCE).

The funerary building was constructed from stone blocks and descends several floors into the ground. A ring of arched doorways lead to burial chambers, some of which contained intricately decorated wooden coffins carved with ancient Egyptian and Greek glyphs.

The most notable find, however, is a collection of well-preserved Fayum portraits. Also called mummy portraits, these detailed portrayals of the dead were painted directly on the wooden coffins beginning in Egypt’s Roman period (100 BCE). The striking images ranged in style from realistic to highly stylized and have become icons of the period, with many housed in museums across the world.

This is the first significant discovery of Fayum portraits in over a century, since excavations by British archaeologist Flinders Petrie in Hawara in 1887, and German archaeologist, Von Kaufmann in 1910.

If you just so happened to look up at the Miami night sky over the last three evenings at the right moment—say, between 7 p.m. and 7:08 p.m.—you likely caught a glimpse of a swirling swarm of light. You weren’t dreaming, and it wasn’t a new UFO design. Instead, it was the work of Amsterdam-based artist duo Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn.  

Studio DRIFT, as the artists have long been known, staged a performance of Franchise Freedom, their famed drone performance, in honor of Art Basel Miami Beach’s 20th anniversary. The work premiered at the fair in 2017 and has since been staged only a few times, most recently in 2020 above Rotterdam in honor of frontline workers during the early days of the pandemic.

After opening remarks by Nauta and Gordijn in a small park across from the Miami Beach Convention Center, a mass of fairgoers grew silent as 300 Intel Shooting Star drones rose from behind the building and flew back and forth in concert with an emotive, minimalist piano score by Dutch composer Joep Beving. At times, the swarm briefly formed a double helix before flowing into more amorphous shapes and even a swirling vortex.

As the piece concluded, the drones formed the words “20 Years Art Basel Miami Beach” and then “DRIFT Supports Steam+,” referring to a program that places artists-in-residence at all Miami Beach public schools.

Studio DRIFT drones form a celebratory message above the Miami Beach Convention Center after their staging of Franchise Freedom on November 29, 2022.

Franchise Freedom is strangely meditative, and the real magic of the performance is that, as the drones twist, turn, disperse, and reform in unison, they no longer appear as machines, but rather as an organic mass. This is by design, Gordijn told ARTnews after the performance. 

LA3C, an upcoming two-day culture and creativity festival launching later this month, will feature installations by a group of celebrated artists, including Jacolby Satterwhite, For Freedoms, and Patrick Martinez.

PMC—the parent company of ARTnews and Art in America, as well as Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard, and SheKnows, among other publications—launched LA3C Culture & Creativity Festival last July, but had to postpone the event due to the pandemic. The festival is a celebration of culture in Los Angeles.

The festival will run from December 10 to 11, and will also feature performances by touted musicians such as Megan Thee Stallion, Maluma, and more.

The full lineup of artists includes Jacolby Satterwhite, Amanda Ross-Ho, Patrick Martinez, Edgar Ramirez, Tiffany Alfonseca, Abi Polinsky, Abi Polinsky, Rogan Gregory, and the collective For Freedoms. Their works at LA3C are being curated by Penske Projects. Information about each individual work is available on LA3C’s website.

In a statement, Alfonseca said, “I would say that I wanted to be a part of the LA3C project because I wanted to be a representation for people with Latinx roots. I want to be able to showcase work that’s relatable to the culture and make it accessible to people who can’t afford or are afraid to be a part of the art experience.”

Forbidden evokes, to my English-speaking ear, the biblical fruit whose consumption leads to shame and expulsion from Paradise. Eve’s story is not irrelevant to a novel like Alba de Céspedes’s Forbidden Notebook, in which a woman succumbs to a temptation: to record her thoughts and observations. Valeria Cossati’s impulse to keep a diary leads not so much to the knowledge of good and evil as it does to the self-knowledge advocated by Socrates and serving as a cornerstone of philosophical inquiry ever since. In Valeria’s case, it also leads to solitude, alienation, guilt, and painful lucidity.

The Italian title of Forbidden Notebook is Quaderno proibito—literally translated, “prohibited notebook.” Forbidden and prohibited may be interchangeable in English, but the latter lacks the romance that might soften the former (as in “forbidden love”), and connotes instead legal restrictions, interdictions, and punishment. The word prohibited comes from the Latin verb prohibere (its roots mean, essentially, “to hold away”), which was fundamental to legal terminology in Ancient Rome. It is the word de Céspedes chooses to describe Valeria’s notebook, and to interrogate, more broadly, a woman’s right, in postwar Italy, to express herself in writing, to have a voice, and to hold opinions and secrets that distinguish herself from her family.

The act of purchasing the eponymous notebook, along with the ongoing dilemma of how to conceal it, drives the tension as the novel opens. Having purchased it illegally and smuggled it home, Valeria hides it in various locations—in a sack of rags, an old trunk, an empty biscuit tin. But she always runs the risk of it being discovered by her husband and grown children, all of whom laugh at the mere idea that she might want to keep a diary.

As soon as she buys the notebook, Valeria is anxious and afraid, but she is also armed—for although acquiring a diary throws her into crisis, the quaderno is both an object and a place, both a literary practice and a room of one’s own. In lieu of walls and a door, pen and paper suffice to allow Valeria, albeit furtively, to speak her mind. Thematically, I would call this book a direct descendant of Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking treatise and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. It’s just that Valeria does not consider herself an author but rather a traditional homemaker. Her writing is surreptitious, and she must lie to tell the truth.

Jules, Pete and Andy chat about a truly epic night of football! Not for Japanese policemen, mind.

Japan top the Group of Death™ against all odds while Kai Havertz at least wins the real quiz sponsored by Budweiser. Plus, a Mexican fan stabs his telly and Harry Maguire finally makes an appearance in Ghana’s parliament.

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The grumpy / sunshine trope is nothing new, but watching Wednesday and Enid becoming the best and unlikeliest of friends in the new Netflix show reminded me of just how much I love that dynamic whether in friendships or romances. There’s just something about a hardened, stoic character being soft for that one overly optimistic person in their life, and that soft character showing their hard edges in return, that makes me go all warm and fuzzy inside. And fortunately there is no shortage of grumpy / sunshine duo books that feature exactly that.

Most of us can only aspire to be as self-assured and independent as Wednesday, who said, “Sometimes I act like I don’t care if people like me. Deep down, I secretly enjoy it.” Iconic. But even Wednesday eventually learns that having friends–and family–to support you can only make you stronger. And whether that’s taking an arrow for Xavier or trusting Enid to take on the Hyde, Wednesday proves that caring doesn’t have to take away from your stoic, goth aesthetic. These ten grumpy / sunshine duo books may not be Wednesday and Enid, but maybe they’ll at least tide you over until (fingers crossed) season two.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna As one of only a few witches in Britain, Mika Moon has always known she has to keep her powers a secret. So when she’s asked to come tutor three young witches in how to control their powers, at first she’s suspicious. But the strange group of caretakers at Nowhere House seem genuine, and soon Mika finds herself falling for this tight-knit found family. Even the closed off librarian, Jamie, only wants what’s best for the children in his care. Mika and Jamie are as different as night and day, sunshine and storms, but somehow they work well together. And being so different only makes them an even better team.

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske A laid back Baronet with an optimistic outlook on life and a stuffy magician are thrown together in this incredible historical fantasy novel set in a magical version of Edwardian England. Robin Blythe never would’ve known magic existed if not for an administrative error that assigned him as the newest liaison to the magical community. Within the course of a day, he discovers magic is real, is cursed by a band of errant magicians, and meets the worlds most disagreeable coworker, Edwin Courcey. But in order to remove Robin’s curse and save the magical world from a dark conspiracy, Robin and Edwin will have to work together. Closely together. And soon Robin begins to notice that beneath Edwin’s hardened exterior is a good man who just wants to be loved.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman Grumpy / sunshine pairings don’t always have to be romantic partners either! (Though more power–and fanfic–to you if you ship Wednesday / Enid or Aziraphale / Crowley.) Like Wednesday and Enid, Azirahpale and Crowley are unlikely friends. I mean, an angel and a demon? Getting along? But that’s part of what makes this wacky end times novel work so well: it’s never quite what you expect.

A weakening journalism industry is one arm of the octopus which has allowed book bans and censorship to thrive in the current environment. It’s not just the loss of local news, though. Further contributing is the insistence of calling book censorship a matter of “culture war.”

Censorship is not, nor has it ever been, a culture war.

A “culture war” is what happens between two (or more) factions working to assert dominance for their belief system. Keeping to this part of the definition, censorship might fall under the umbrella of the term. But “culture war” describes more than a fringe movement — and to be clear, despite the power groups like Moms For Liberty, No Left Turn, and others have, they’re still fringe groups. “Culture war” happens when the issue at hand is one which there is a broad sense of disagreement on the topic socially. Book bans and censorship are fundamental principles encoded in the First Amendment rights of all Americans.

In Florida, as reported here, where parents have significant latitude in restricting access to library materials for their students, an exceedingly small percentage actually opt into those measures.