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by SARAH TELESCA
Spring has sprung! Temperatures should be perking up aaaaany day now… If you’ve been too busy soaking up the last bits of winter before the heat strikes again, go ahead and catch up on the latest art world happenings here.
Graffiti artist Revok’s recent clash with fast-fashion giant H&M came unsettlingly close to changing copyright law. How? H&M filmed an ad with Revok’s graffiti in the background, which ultimately called into question who can claim rights on an art form that is, by nature, on someone else’s property without permission.
Alex Garland’s “Annihilation” opened with a pretty small bang, with its release limited to audiences in the US, Canada, and China. After other Paramount movies like “Blade Runner 2049” and “mother!” grossed lower than Paramount needed, the studio decided to open “Annihilation” to a smaller market and debut the film on Netflix in the rest of the world, therefore minimizing their amount of risk and potential monetary loss. If you’re upset about this, maybe consider going to see films of “Annihilation’s” ilk in theaters. A larger moviegoer turnout is essential to reassuring studios like Paramount that these films aren’t “risks” to be considered, but rather yearned for and important.
Various national and international museums have seen a rash of firings of female museum directors. Helen Molesworth of LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art and Maria Inés Rodriguez of Bordeaux’s Contemporary Art Museum were fired within a week of each other; Laura Raicovich resigned from the Queens Museum in late January. Raicovich clashed with the more conservative members of in regard to her progressive tendencies, such as her championing of immigrants. Molesworth and Rodriguez’s firings seem differently motivated, but the proximity to each other and the lack of clear reasoning do come across a little…fishy.
Banksy has seemingly made his return to New York with his 14th Street clock rat; the piece is on a building currently slated for demolition. One wonders if he purposefully placed the new piece here to try to interfere with the building’s destruction?
Florida art collector Beth Rudin DeWoody is set to show a variety of some of her long-stored pieces at her new space the Bunker in West Palm Beach. Artists include heavy-hitters like Cindy Sherman, Nicole Eisenman, and Robert Longo, and somewhat surprisingly (or not), John Waters, as well as huge variety of lesser-known artists. There’s a catch, though—the Bunker will only be open once a year, and only by invitation. The decision to go public will eventually land in the hands of DeWoody’s children, Kyle and Carlton DeWoody.
Honorable mention: On a dark note, famous physicist and author Stephen Hawking died recently at age 76, two weeks after he predicted that the universe would at some point, run out of energy and fade into darkness.
