Images That Can't Be Unseen

September 15, 2022 • View in browser

Good morning. 🌤️ So, MoMA seems to be planning to enter the NFT space with the support of a foundation's planned auction sale of $70 million worth of art. My advice to MoMA: Please don’t! Nobody wants to see crappy PDF art. I have a better idea: Use the money to pay decent wages to your frontline workers, whose salaries start at $36,131, or make admission free, or fund other needed structural changes to become a more equitable, welcoming museum.

In other stories today, Virginia Dwan, the art patron who shaped the land art movement in the United States in the 1960's and '70s, is no longer with us, and have you heard of the viral AI-generated "Loab" images? Warning: These images cannot be unseen.

— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor

When Will Museums Tell the Whole Truth About Their Antiquities?

Some US museums will overlook the dubious origins of acquisitions if it suits their purposes. | Elizabeth Marlowe

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WHAT'S HAPPENING

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's "Les Fraises" (ca. 1905) is one of 29 paintings and sculptures on long-term loan to the Museum of Modern Art that will head to Sotheby's this fall. (courtesy Sotheby's)

A store of 29 works valued at around $70M will go to auction this fall to support MoMA’s “ambitious goals in digital media and technology.”

The city of Paris will turn off the Eiffel Tower’s famous lights an hour earlier to conserve power as Russia tightens its grip on natural gas resources.

Workers at Dia Art Foundation join Local UAW 2110 after a landslide victory, with only six employees voting in opposition.

Gallerist and art patron Virginia Dwan died earlier this month at 90.

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LATEST IN ART

Painting Against the Tyranny of Flatness

Korea's Dansaekhwa artists eschewed the idea of art-about-art and commodity culture in favor of an abstract art imbued with traces of the struggle for liberation and cultural identity. | John Yau

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KMAC Museum Presents the 2022 KMAC Triennial: Divided We Fall

On view in Louisville, Kentucky, until November 6, the triennial’s second edition exhibits work by 11 artists responding to current socio-political issues in the United States. Learn more.

The Environmental Crisis Comes Home

Ideal Home captures the disorientation of a moment in which environmental crises have pierced the domestic sphere. | Jordan Eddy

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Smithsonian American Art Museum Invites Applications for 2023–2024 Research Fellowships

Residential fellowships at SAAM and its Renwick Gallery provide funding, collections access, and professional advancement to scholars researching the art, craft, and visual culture of the US. Learn more.

MORE FROM HYPERALLERGIC

The Enigma at the Heart of Patricia Highsmith's Story

From her personal writings, along with fragments of her work and recollections of friends and family, Loving Highsmith constructs a view of the author that is more intimate than most. | Dan Schindel

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Stanley Museum of Art Opens Homecoming, the First Show in Its New Building

This exhibition at the University of Iowa’s museum features some 500 artists, from works by household names like Pollock and Motherwell to art that has rarely, if ever, been shown. Learn more.

Loab, the Internet’s Latest Urban Legend, Is Worse Than Anything

Through “some kind of emergent statistical accident,” an AI image generator birthed a terrifying image of a woman. And she continues to haunt us, again and again. | Sarah Rose Sharp

IN MEMORIAM

Emanoel Araújo (1940-2022)
Artist and founder of Museu Afro Brasil | Artnews

Virginia Dwan (1931-2022)
LA and NYC gallerist and patron | Hyperallergic

Jean-Luc Godard (1930-2022)
Film director of the French New Wave | Hyperallergic

Roxanne Lowit (1942-2022)
Fashion photographer | Interview

Diane Noomin (1947-2022)
Underground cartoonist | New York Times

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