The art: Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972.
The news: “New Racism Museum Reveals the Ugly Truth Behind Aunt Jemima,” by Jennie Rothenberg Gritz for TheAtlantic.com.
The source: Collection of the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, Calif.
The art: Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972.
The news: “New Racism Museum Reveals the Ugly Truth Behind Aunt Jemima,” by Jennie Rothenberg Gritz for TheAtlantic.com.
The source: Collection of the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, Calif.
On Modern Art Notes: In 2009 the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro rolled out this concept for an event space at the Hirshhorn. Critics pounced: The museum doesn’t need it because it already has a recently modernized event space. The museum is pursuing the director’s fascination with fancy conferences at the expense of its core mission: Art. Now, almost two years after the museum initiated the project, MAN has learned that the project, expected to cost at least $7.5 million and possibly double that, has slowed to a crawl. Only one donor has come forward and the museum is distancing itself from its original “opening” date. MAN has the details.
Friday on Modern Art Notes: Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego curator Robin Clark and photographer Philipp Scholz Rittermann sat for one hour at the MCASD to protest the Chinese government’s detention of Ai Weiwei, yesterday. They participated in the museum’s “Sit for Solidarity,” a 24-hour sit-in that both protests China’s treatment of Ai and raises awareness about it. Click here to read Modern Art Notes’ post to learn more about the protest — and to see how what MCASD did is different from what the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is doing.
So what in the name of Coldwell Banker is going in with New York’s art museums?
In the last week, MoMA has added space on West 53rd Street by buying the American Folk Art Museum’s building. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has added space by taking over the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Upper East Side building. That just-announced arrangement takes effect in 2015. The Whitney will add space by building a new Renzo Piano design in New York’s Meatpacking District. And who could forget that the Guggenheim previously announced that it wants to add space… in Finland?
Most of of these deals have been announced in just the last week. Why? Modern Art Notes explains.