“You can’t fire me — I quit”?
| “You can’t fire me — I quit”? Kim Sajet, who directed the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery for over a decade, resigned Friday, June 13, weeks after President Trump claimed to have fired her for being a “strong supporter of DEI,” among other things. Staff Reporter Isa Farfan’s got the story. If another hotspot of the Trump administration — the US-Mexico border — could talk, what would it say of all this? Mariana Fernández reviews a book, or “aural essay,” as one of its authors puts it, that captures the landscape’s echoes as they come back to haunt, and to shame. The latter feels deserved, particularly in light of LA’s powerful large museums turning their backs against undocumented immigrants — who make up almost a tenth of the county’s population, Erika Hirugami writes in an opinion piece.
It’s a vision of calamity not unlike that which greeted Seph Rodney at an exhibition by Ali Banisadr at the Katonah Museum. “He paints as if bedlam is elemental, foundational to the world,” Rodney writes. But chaos being the base state of the world doesn’t preclude the forging of order, continuity, and beauty — if you need a little bit of that right now, check out Andrew Nachemson’s feature on preserving the art of Malaysian shadow puppetry. — Lisa Yin Zhang, Associate Editor | | |
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| | “This was not an easy decision, but I believe it is the right one,” Kim Sajet said. | Isa Farfan
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SPONSORED | | | | | The artist’s first North American survey explores the legacy of colonial histories and the African diaspora in the Caribbean and beyond. Learn more |
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| | In a county of over one million undoc+ individuals, why is “undocumented” a bad word in the arts sector? | Erika Hirugami |
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| | | Echoes from the Borderlands, which transcribes a sound installation tracing the border, insists on the land’s inextricability from the history to which it bears witness. | Mariana Fernández |
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| | | Banisadr makes images that are relentless in their toiling motion — he paints as if bedlam is foundational to the world. | Seph Rodney |
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| | | In the north of the country, Wayang kulit Kelantan is being revitalized through contemporary storytelling and the long-overdue inclusion of women. | Andrew Nachemson |
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| You’re currently a free subscriber to Hyperallergic. To support our independent arts journalism, please consider joining us as a member. | | Become a Member |
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