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The Headlines
MONUMENTS MAN.Four of Richmond’s Confederate monuments areofficially comingto theMuseum of Contemporary Art Los Angelesfor a 2023 exhibition called “Monuments,” which is being spearheaded by curatorHamza Walker. According to theRichmond Times-Dispatch, one of those removed statues is a monument to Jefferson Davis that wasspray paintedahead of the 2020 murder of George Floyd and thenremoved altogetherfollowing the uprisings that ensued. It’s a victory for Walker, who in 2021 toldArtnet Newsthat he was having a difficult timenavigating the bureaucratic boundariesthat kept the monuments in the cities where they’d once stood. He’s now at work on the show with MOCA senior curatorBennett Simpsonand artistKara Walker.
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THE CALIFORNIA BIENNIAL IS BACK.After a five-year interval, theOrange County Museum of Artin Santa Ana isreviving the recurring exhibition, theLos Angeles Timesreports. The show has been through various iterations, including ones where it had a geographic focus and ones where, confusingly enough, it was a triennial and not a biennial. Now, however, it is a biennial again, and this forthcoming edition will be curated byElizabeth Armstrong,Gilberto Vicario, andEssence Harden. It’s also got an all-star line-up that includes artists such asCandice Lin,Simphiwe Ndzube, andClare Rojas. The biennial will be one of the first shows mounted when the OCMAreopensin a newly expanded building this October.
The Digest
The Ukrainian government is lobbyingUNESCO to add the city of Odessa to its World Heritage List of protected sites. Doing so could keep the city from being damage and could trigger certain consequences, should Russia choose to attack it, as some analysts expect. [The Kyiv Post]
In spite of allegations of abuse and multiple arrests, actorEzra Millerwill not be cut from the filmDalíland, in which they play a young version of the Surrealist painter. Ben Kingsley stars as the older Salvador Dalí.[Indiewire]
Some San Francisco dealers rebutted aNew York Timesarticleearlier this week that suggested that the city’s gallery scene was on the decline afterPaceandGagosian’s departures. “This community continues to thrive despite those galleries leaving,” said galleristJessica Silverman.[The San Francisco Dispatch]
Artist and filmmakerJa’Tovia Garyhas signed with the talent agencyWME. Versions of her filmThe Giverny Documenthave been seen theatrically and in museums, including most recently at CCS Bard’sHessel Museum of Artin Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.[Deadline]
Israeli artist and curatorI. S. Kampahas opened a protest-minded exhibition in an AirBnB in Kassel, Germany, whereDocumenta 15is currently taking place. He said the show was meant to highlight the lack of Israeli artists in Documenta, which has faced allegations of anti-Semitism.[Artnet News]
The Kicker
A STATE FAIR IS IN A HORRIBLE STATEafter one of its first-place prizes went to an AI-generated artwork. TheColorado State Fairgave its top honors in the digital art category toJason Allen, president of the gaming companyTabletop Games, and many are displeased because they say heisn’t the work’s true creator,Vicereports. His winning work, an image of a theater that’s titledThéâtre D’opéra Spatial, was made using a software calledMidjourney. Because of that, it has gone viral on Twitter, where many have bemoaned the piece as a sign of art’s uncertain future. “We’re watching the death of artistry unfold before our eyes,” wrote one user in a comment that accrued more than 2,000 likes. Allen called the concerns over his piece “hypocritical.”[Vice]
