The-world-is-falling-apart edition. MoMA protests Trump’s refugee ban, Dore Ashton has died, AFC offers to�help to artists affected by Trump’s executive orders, movies about politics, NEA budget, Stock Club update, Welish on Dan Walsh, Tatiana Berg�and�Mexico City, and more.
NYTimes reports that MoMA is protesting Trump’s entry ban by rehanging work by artists from Muslim nations. “Seven works by artists such as the Sudanese painter Ibrahim el-Salahi, the Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid, and the Los Angeles-based Iranian video artist Tala Madani, were installed Thursday night in MoMA�s fifth-floor galleries, replacing seven works by Picasso, Matisse and Picabia, among other Western artists.” �Read more.
ArtForum reports that art historian and critic�Dore Ashton died last week. �The first effort of the critic should be to see the unique quality inherent in a work, the quality that immediately attracts the receiver and moves him,” Ashton said.�”But the critic must also remember that other action of a work: its expansiveness. If it moves us, it can move us emotionally, morally, psychologically, intellectually, historically, depending on a host of subtle considerations. It seems to me that twentieth-century art must be considered in a double perspective�. Like a big city, twentieth-century art has many quartiers.” Read more.
Art F City has started an initiative to help artists affected by the Trump team’s stupid executive orders by commissioning art, posts, and other projects. “Please send all commission pitches to submissions@artfcity.com, with the subject heading ‘Fuck Donald Trump.’ Pitches should include an explanation of how you have been affected and what you would like to produce for AFC. Pitches�should reflect the urgency of the times and your situation. Our first month�s submission deadline will be Wednesday February 15th.” Read more.
ICYMI: The Year in Film: Ten Old Movies that Explain WTF Just Happened in 2016 via Brooklyn Magazine. “What�art isn�t ‘more relevant than ever’ right now? When the world presses in, too oppressively to ignore, one comfort is that art is already there to meet it….” Two Coats�film reviewer�Jonathan Stevenson suggests revisiting�Being There.�Read more.
“NYC�s security estimate for the Trumps is more than double the NEA�s budget.�The current NEA budget is $148 million. A report estimates that one year�s worth of security for the Trumps in NYC will cost $365 million. That�s a 146.6% increase.” Via Hyperallergic, who is killing it on the art-and-politics beat. Read more.
50-Dollar Stock Club for Artists: The gains�our stocks made over the past six months are beginning to slip away. At the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s�financial blog MarketWatch�Tim Mullaney writes that�the stock market’s honeymoon with Trump�is over. “The market this week is dealing with the realization that President Donald Trump means all the things he says. He really is a protectionist, really does think America needs to be protected from the world both economically and physically. He really does make policy without much care or thought to get details right, he really has recruited an honest-to-God terrible team, and it actually is kind of dangerous.” Read more.
At artcritical, Marjorie Welish reviews Dan Walsh’s excellent�solo, on view�at Paula Cooper�through tomorrow.�”Can technical doggedness produce compelling art? In his current show of new work, Dan Walsh has found a way to do just that.�The paintings, especially, feel like they have arrived, achieving equilibrium of plan and craft. The visual image is the hook for all this, as Walsh has relaxed his previously familiar pictorial strictures to allow for a variety of approaches to a basic scheme: vertically oriented, broad bands diminishing in width as they increase in number. A unit so generic, the band does not illustrate anything but itself.” Read more.
Note:�Welish’s exhibition�is on view through this weekend at Art3 in Bushwick.
At�artnet�News, painter Tatiana Berg suggests some exhibitions in�Mexico City to take our minds off the news. “Not a lot of things make sense these days. I don�t know about you, but I�m having a hard time concentrating on much besides the news. That being said, art is one of the few things that still feels important, somehow? If you�re in Mexico City and want to immerse yourself for the sake of clarity, resistance, or distraction, I get you.”�Read more.
The Trump travel ban is impacting LA arts institutions and artists.�Carolina Miranda reports in the LATimes:��”The Trump administration�s executive order on travel,�barring entry into the U.S. for those arriving�from seven predominately Muslim�nations, is reverberating�throughout the arts community.” Miranda has compiled lots of personal stories.�Read more.
Thanks to everyone who came out to DUMBO�last night to meet the Two Coats 2015-16 resident artists and see their show, Infrastructure: Land, Mind, Country. Check out the snaps on Facebook here.
Related posts:
Good painting: Tatiana Berg and Sarah Faux
Marjorie Welish: Procedural difference, conceptual consequence
Dan Walsh: �I have a major commitment to my brushes�
