Today, artists and activists continue to hold institutions accountable, including the Whitney Museum;
| Today, artists and activists continue to hold institutions accountable, including the Whitney Museum; archives and the stories they tell; and a consideration of the work of late artist Emma Amos.– Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief | |
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| | Steven Montinar’s digital drawing “Koupe Tet, Boule Kay” (2020) was among the works selected for the Whitney Museum’s exhibition Collective Actions: Artist Interventions In a Time of Change (image courtesy of Steven Montinar) |
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| On Monday art writer Antwaun Sargent started tweeting about the Whitney Museum’s new exhibition Collective Actions: Artist Interventions in a Time of Change, which was to include digital prints, files, posters, and other material related to the recent protests. He noticed the unusual way in which the works were “acquired” by the museum, many for as little as $100 a piece, setting off online criticism. Fast-forward less than 24 hours and the museum cancelled the show. Such quick activist successes like that are unusual. Dan Schindel’s points to two online screenings by the National Museum of the American Indian that tell the story of how decades of Native American activism led a DC football team to change its mascot name. Let us celebrate these moments when people come together and help to make the world better for all of us.Of course, activism comes in many forms (and art forms). UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s new online project presents a newly digitized collection of hundreds of hours of raw footage by TVTV, a collective of “video freaks” active throughout the 1970s, including footage of the 1972 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. As you can imagine,TVTV had the same problems supporting their work that creatives have had throughout history:Despite the acclaim their work received, [Megan] Williams explained how it was a challenge to secure distribution for their programs, which ultimately led to TVTV’s dissolution: “Options were few, and by the end of the ’70s, we had not been able to monetize our work at a level that enabled us to survive and support our growing families.”What’s new, right? |
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| You may remember my podcast conversation with scholar Ariella Azoulay, whose new book Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism, is already being lauded as a must-read for those interested in photography, history, colonialism, and related topics. Now our review by scholar Stephen Sheehi builds on the ongoing conversation. He writes:Photography’s collaboration with the historian’s “craft,” the museum’s value, and the imperial archive serves to regulate the ways in which stories of multiple (and ongoing) 1492s are told, how lives are (under)valued, voices are suppressed, and resistance is quashed. Azoulay’s book stays close to the materiality of objects and images, providing us with readings that show both their liberatory and violent possibilities. The archive of celebrated architect Paul Revere Williams is now at “home” at the University of Southern California School of Architecture and the Getty Research Institute. How great is that? If you don’t know his work, I bet you’ll recognize some of his buildings. |
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| | Emma Amos, “Targets” (1992) (Courtesy of the estate of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York) |
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| Colony Little has a lovely article about the great American artist Emma Amos and the role of memory in her work. She writes:Maps define the spatial relationships between places and objects. They guide our journeys and direct our course. They chart landmarks as we center ourselves, plotting our routes and destinations, and without them we would be lost and directionless. Yet for those suffering with Alzheimer’s disease, accessing memory becomes a devastating challenge as the cognitive maps of the brain become compromised. However, for some sufferers, photographic images can become visual catalysts to rediscovering lost memories. |
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