apropos of nothing, in 2022 haley stevens booted andy levin from the house, eliminating one of the most steadfast supporters of libraries in congress. anyway, big night in michigan :)
ian says DC statehood now
@wareian.com
professional library enjoyer, union member, former @UVAlibrary n other stuff / all opinions mine pls don’t take em / pfp obviousplant, banner dan flavin DC if that wasn't clear art blog: https://202arts.org
i like reading this as drug dealer not art dealer. kinda works there too!
ian says DC statehood now@wareian.com · 2d agoi think it was larry g that said big windows in a client's house are a dealer's greatest enemy. museum architects heard that as a challenge.
this whole back and forth feels like multiple rorschach tests happening at once.
![[Ruba] Katrib: I feel like if we’re going to talk about a sculpture from the present, Kara Walker’s “A Subtlety” is the work we should probably include, right?
[Arlene] Shechet: Yes, indeed.
[MH] Miller: I think “A Subtlety” is one of those things that we’ll be talking about 100 years from now. But Charles, you picked a different Kara Walker.
Charles Gaines: “Unmanned Drone” (2023) [for which the artist broke apart a monument to the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and rebuilt it as a kind of mythical creature]. It’s probably one of the most impactful sculptures I’ve ever seen.
[Adam] Pendleton: I would prefer not to do “A Subtlety.”
Miller: What’s the argument against it?
Pendleton: Just on a historical and a personal level, if it’s going to be the one piece of art on this list that has a figurative bent to it — for me there are more interesting ways to represent Kara Walker.
Gaines: In “Unmanned Drone,” she’s doing things she hasn’t done before, and she’s embracing certain ideas of abstract form and political discourse. She’s reaching back into the past and showing us the future.
Shechet: I’m going to argue for “A Subtlety” because I feel like … New York is a community, and every once in a while, somebody makes a gesture that makes the community come together. And “A Subtlety” did that.
Miller: It’s true that people don’t usually line up to see a work of art.
Pendleton: But I don’t think it made people come together in a very sophisticated way.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xpg46exbr444kdujl2pn3cyx/bafkreid66owpx7tzky7vao62xagwdcdjzjs7fr6hhze6a62rchxyeu7oqe)
![[Firelei] Báez: I remember living two blocks from the Domino Sugar factory and getting in line, and my roommate’s mom had gone on disability because she went crazy working in that factory. And the fact that you could go in there, into this place with such a strong history, and people were posing under the breasts trying to catch the nipples. You saw the facile way people consumed this very heavy history.
Shechet: I think she reveals a lack of sophistication in us.
Pendleton: That’s what everyone always says about her work. I think that’s the most ridiculous argument.
Shechet: She’s doing something provocative. And by provoking, there’s going to be a mixed response. Some people will get it, some people won’t.
Pendleton: But is it provocative? What’s provocative about it? I want someone to tell me this.
Shechet: I think this work is uncomfortable. And some people don’t know how to be uncomfortable.
Pendleton: I think it’s simplistic, personally. Politically simplistic. Aesthetically simplistic. All the readings of it are all so blatantly obvious to me.
Shechet: I think it’s radical.
Gaines: It’s a radical spectacle. And I’d say an extraordinary spectacle.
Pendleton: I think it’s a continuum of expectations around representation when it comes to art made by Black people. That’s what I see.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xpg46exbr444kdujl2pn3cyx/bafkreibw4mpugdcyv72e4k5lvxum43agvb5xwmb5cv2pvpbxy7r367ohl4)
oh you're making a documentary and/or drama that involves federal politics? well where's your moody, darkly lit panning shot of the protagonist walking through the Hart Senate lobby with the Calder towering over them???
very funny logic here. it's "disrespectful" to cover the huge windows the architect built for a museum full of light-sensitive objects? have we not learned from harvard and rothko, from lacma and govan, from every light-based fuck up in the past 100 years of art. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/a...
my next stupid prediction is that mitch rales does this with glenstone, building a brand new one next door after the original eventually stops being 'his' www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/07/31/b...
Collector Bernardo Paz plans new museum in Brazil next-door to Inhotim
Although no longer involved with Inhotim, Paz appears to be reviving its model of art pavilions in a botanical landscape
theartnewspaper.com
don't doomscroll: instead, Puryear-scroll, with my collection of photos of Martin Puryear works 202arts.org/2026/08/02/t...
Tour de Puryear
Wood you could you?
202arts.org
guy who confidently misunderstood cloverfield: "yeah and a lot of people don't catch it, but the monster is actually a stand-in for the attack on pearl harbor"
![hat embroidered with “employee of the month at the [competent] bitch factory”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xpg46exbr444kdujl2pn3cyx/bafkreibamey2ypti27tm4e6x532o5bkbihe3drsjsesf6l42qnuhzzoaiu)
speaking of buff gay guy painters, the crowd at the opening for the tom of finland extended universe exhib at kordansky in LA looked *exactly* how you think it'd look
this is now the 5th time a lady in my building has (presumably drunkenly) ordered taco bell delivery at like 3am and then not gone outside to get it. i keep almost stepping on rock hard crunchwrap supremes and kicking over flat baja blasts when i leave to get coffee.
scored again: found another newspaper from the late 20th century that regularly covered and photographed contemporary artists but forgot to add a notice to their physical paper or register within five years. their IP loss is our historical gain <3
waking up and immediately getting mad that there’s no sam gilliam full retrospective on the calendar yet
Simone Forti's hologram dance self-portrait, 'Harmonics (1)' (1975-78)
keeping my mouth shut because this is quickly becoming the “libraries put books in DUMPSTERS” of the ai era. (digitization often requires destruction/damage to the physical material. and it’s your right to destroy a book you paid for! you want this to be illegal? then you want to kneecap archives.)
Eli Valley@elivalley.bsky.social · last wk.Dystopia www.news.com.au/technology/o...
speed scrolling through a "best art museums in america" listicle to make sure glenstone didn't make the cut, i am a hater
oh your day is hard? well i have to go to the Hill, so mine is worse.
what a cool country we live in. love what we've created here.
Catherina Gioino@catgioino.bsky.social · last wk.I wrote about how much Americans wagered on sports betting in 2025 and how it’s more than they spent on movies, art, museums and music combined. Read my article @fortunemagazine.bsky.social fortune.com/2026/07/26/g...
Stephen Miller said just the other day that all asylum claims are "fake." A couple deported from the U.S. to Guatemala were gagged, bound, and shot dead. Their 14-month old found crying next to their mother's body. People like Miller don't care though because this is the point: ethnic cleansing.
Overland couple shot dead in Guatemala after local ICE stop led to deportations
The couple’s 14-month-old daughter was found crying beside her mother’s body in a sugarcane field last week, according to Guatemalan authorities and media.
stlpr.org
if you squint hard enough you can ignore the forced and coerced labor that got this project over the line
ArtReview@artreview.bsky.social · last wk.The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will open on 11 December 2026 in spite of ongoing war in the region, the Abu Dhabi department of culture and tourism has announced.
since when did pop base publish film criticism lol
Pop Base@popbase.tv · last wk.Tom Holland delivers his strongest performance yet as Peter Parker in a film elevated by stellar direction and exhilarating action, but held back by a thin story and an underused Spider-Man mythos. Read our ‘SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY’ review: newsletter.popbase.tv/p/spider-man...
the u.s. is bullying other countries into withdrawing from the i.c.c.
Wagatwe Wanjuki@wagatwe.bsky.social · last wk.oh my god
so Richard Prince obviously is in the clear with the cowboy photos (statute of limitations on copyright infringement has long since passed). but are The Strokes opening themselves up to liability by using one of those pics in a completely new, specifically commercial context? kinda seems like it lol
UPDATE: after posting about this shitshow, I heard from several people familiar with, or impacted by this Banks Violette sculpture-jacking. I have now added details and corrected myself for giving the flaky heiress gallerist and the landlord any benefit of the doubt. greg.org/archive/2026...
gregorg@greg.org · 2w agoShoutout @wareian.com for the chance to watch this mess unravel live on ig. Now I too have a work that is not a Banks Violette sculpture that Caroline Snow may not sell greg.org/archive/2026...
the backrooms but it's just congressional office buildings
why ask AI to find, format, categorize, and describe sources for your next modern/contemporary art research project when you can just ask me to spend a few hours in Wacky Mode and I'll find everything you need PLUS I won't even hallucinate once