The Artnet Bulletin is our new daily digest of five items that are catching their eye from around the art world, picked out by a different writer each morning.
A Major Museum Story…
This cannot go on: The Philadelphia Museum of Art ran a deficit of $10 million in the just-ended fiscal year, the Philadelphia Inquirer reveals. The coming year, the shortfall promises to be at least that and could swell to almost $16 million—all spent from emergency reserves. Museum CEO Daniel H. Weiss said he hopes to be “within shouting distance” of a balanced budget in three years, though there’s no plan as yet. “We have real work to do to get there,” he said.
An Essay to Debate…
Over at Artreview, writer Michelle Santiago Cortés decries the aestheticization of “research,” both online and in the museum. Does the glut of “knowledgemaxxxing content”—social-media infotainment masquerading as expertise—make us think differently about what we want from research-based art, which is such a dominant style? Cortés speaks of “a growing wave of suspicion around artist-led research,” pointing to critic Emily Watlington’s upcoming book Fables and Forensics, which I was delighted to learn of.
An Odd Announcement…
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art returned to San Diego Comic-Con, this time to unveil details about its soon-to-open attractions. Forget that you will be able to see original art by Frida Kahlo, Jack Kirby, and Norman Rockwell. Forget even that the museum will show off previously unseen Star Wars artifacts. The big news came from Austin Powers actor Seth Green, on the panel to reveal that an unaired “Simpsons-style” animated Star Wars parody he created with George Lucas would finally debut episodes within the L.A. museum’s galleries. I don’t really get it, but that’s what they’re going with.
A Conversation Worth Having…
The august editor and critic Nick Catucci convened culture observers to opine about where we’re at with the “vibe shift,” “cancel culture,” and the “woke/anti-woke” wars (there’s been a bunch of recent writing about this; see David Wallace-Wells in the NYT). Lots of good insights here, though too much focus on celebrities, and in the end little consensus. Various respondents say the present is defined by “Woke 2, definitely” (Katherine Dee), “dark woke” (Kat Tenbarge), ”Nouveau Despair” (Scaachi Koul), or “fragility” (Parker Molloy). “There doesn’t seem to be a coherent vibe,” writes artist-trendcaster Sean Monahan, who touched off the whole Vibe Shift conversation in the first place. “I think the full fragmentation of attention after mainstream media’s early 2020s decline precludes one.”
A Modest Act of Protest…
The saga of Baltimore nude artist Ham (a.k.a. F. Hambleton Sonnenfeld) continues, after a performance on July 4 got him arrested. This time Ham took to a vacant pedestal that once held a sculpture of Supreme Court justice Roger B. Taney (1777–1864), notorious for his association with the Dred Scott case, hoping to spark a conversation comparing Taney’s legacy to the present-day Supreme Court: “I want to remind people that, behind the like veil of superiority, anyone that sits behind a bench on a chair is just a naked animal covered in robes,” Ham said. This time, Ham wore a Speedo and so avoided arrest, the Baltimore Banner noted.