Knight, Pulitzer Prize & Rabkin Lifetime Achievement Award, 11/9/21 Jeopardy! answer, is L.A. Times art critic. Pro-woke. Also
@christopher
.knight.7 on threads
“Bot Sentinel, a Twitter analytics firm, has documented a well-organized internet campaign against Meghan... 70% of hateful posts about Meghan originated from just 83 Twitter accounts with an estimated collective potential reach of 17 million users.”
Seems Manila is about to lose one of its greatest modern buildings to a developers’ wrecking ball - the Philamlife Auditorium (1961) by Carlos Arguelles. Tragic.
The great
@KnightLAT
has won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. LA and the LA Times are lucky to have such an acute and intrepid critic chronicling art in our city and in the world.
“We are devastated to report that Big Basin, as we have known it, loved it, and cherished it for generations, is gone .... We do not yet know the fate of the park’s grandest old trees.”
I hope after the Hur fiasco, even Merrick Garland's ardent defenders can see that the dude has got to go. His commitment to being "apolitical" has led to some desperately political decisions.
My breakdown of his greatest flaws in
@thenation
“We are not aiming at having more visitors or larger attendance...,” Biesenbach said in an interview. “As a civic institution, [an art museum] should be like a library, where you can just walk in.”
Dave Hickey, the critic whose best-selling book "Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy" is arguably the most influential work of art criticism of the last quarter-century, has died at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., at 82. A full obituary will follow.
What a scam. A 20% pay cut to work from home, with no change in productivity (and maybe even an increase)? What about considering work-from-home as an employee benefit, costing virtually nothing?
Incredible: For $10 million, a public university in effect “sold” part of its art museum to a rich artist of no distinction for permanent display of her paintings
“"In America today, a country we call a democracy or a republic, when there is a fork in the road between what is good for money and what is good for people, what is good for money routinely wins," Giridharadas said”
“It is ridiculous that we are in this deja news cycle where I appear on TV again and again to have the same conversation about Kushner lying on his clearance forms. They need to indict Jared Kushner, indict Ivanka Trump, and get this crime family out of the White House!"
#AMJoy
The Baltimore Museum of Art is now the leading poster child for art collection carelessness. If the sell-off to fund operations sets a precedent for other art museums, the public loss will be immense
Yes: “This is not Law we’re dealing with. This is Inquisition. This is theocratic forces using the apparatus of the state to force their religious views on everybody else.”
Damage to the Philadelphia Museum of Art's reputation will be far more expensive than the $300,000 separating union and management. Contract negotiations began two years ago. Two years. via
@phillyinquirer
@bobcesca_go
Tried to run for Michigan governor last year but was deemed by the state’s elections bureau to have filed thousands of fraudulent nominating signatures
Pointed museum question: "How can we build a different kind of art world, one in which our lives and livelihoods are not dependent on millionaire directors and billionaire donors?"
@petestrzok
Stuck in bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic the other day, it occurred to me: You know what would fix the traffic problem? More cars. Thanks Dan.
With this patronizing decision, four major museums, including our National Gallery of Art, essentially acknowledge their incompetence in presenting major art. What could be more timely than this show?
Since judges are supposed to show good judgment, what does it say when a SCOTUS nominee happily attends a mostly mask-free, not socially distanced super-spreader event?
This: "What the surge in auctions of high-priced artworks really brings home is the weakness of arguments against higher marginal income tax rates on the wealthy..."
Stopped in
@GettyMuseum
today and took a look at the newly acquired Bronzino. Wowza. (Even the over-the-top gilded frame doesn't get in the way.) Seems pretty pristine too.
@emptywheel
“Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
Donald Trump to the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy AG. December 27, 2020.
For the first time in memory, considerably more women than men had full-scale solo exhibitions, whether retrospectives or more focused surveys, in L.A. art museums this year - Los Angeles Times
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) during his debate with Democrat Beto O'Rourke claims Plan B is an appropriate alternative to abortion access for anyone pregnant due to rape or incest.
@petestrzok
“United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with gamers.”
Endowments at NY’s Metropolitan Museum have risen a whopping $800 million during the pandemic. So why is it selling collection art now claiming a need for income to pay operating bills?
"Reporters love to come to my part of the country and find three old guys in MAGA hats and pretend they're the Trump base. But the real Trump base was always New York: Wall Street, tabloid media, Rudy Giuliani, Carl Icahn, Roy Cohn, Jeff Zucker. THAT is the Trump base."
It's probably time to figure out ways for the blue states, like CA, to stop subsidizing red states, like TN, that are legislating hate, bigotry, Christian nationalism, etc.
I have seen so many variations of “How dare president Biden politicize the authoritarian assault on democracy! So partisan!” - and not a single one of these takes deserves to be taken seriously. A predictable fog of bad-faith, pseudo-“neutral” nonsense.
“The Brutish Museums,” Dan Hicks’ indispensable book, posits two looted Benin bronzes in L.A. art museums. I took a look. Turns out there are at least six — and maybe as many as 19.
BREAKING: Video of Devin Nunes defending protestors who yelled the "n-word" at US Rep John Lewis: "I think people have every right to say what they want. If they wanna smear someone, they can do it." Nunes is terrible. Dug up
@TheDemCoalition
. From 2010.
Countless artists died during the Black Death, casualties among the millions who succumbed — 25 million, 40 million, no one really knows how many. The artistic loss was huge. But what about the living? How deeply was the entire culture shaken?
The ongoing reclaiming of the
#ProudBoys
hashtag by gay men is a thing of beauty. Here’s Christian Schad’s 1929 drawing, “Boys in Love” from the great “New Objectivity” exhibition
@LACMA
“A passionate call for immediate action against the 'transnational crime syndicate' that has supplanted the U.S. government." —Kirkus. Now, that is a recommendation.
@MSNBC
@MaddowBlog
Gunn added, “I believe life begins at conception.” That is false, scientifically and medically speaking. Even the Bible disagrees (see Genesis 2:7). Why should this guy’s religious “belief,” confused or not, become secular law?
It’s a good day when an art critic wins the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, esp one who’s been at it as long and as effectively as
@KnightLAT
And in the same year he received the Rabkin Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
"I went to art when I had the maturity to be an artist, when I knew I had something to say. I talk to young artists and I say, watch out for art schools. Art is a reflection of what you gain in life — from the pains in life."
@djrothkopf
Here’s one productive way to address the issue of Biden’s age:
“Obviously you lose a step physically as you age, but the presidency doesn’t require carrying sofas up the White House stairs.” Science: “…aging brains make more connections…”
“What I can see is the deterioration of a major power on the edge of collapse. The issue is not simply the deeply rooted racism and other related issues... but rather a moral and ethical vacuum in the time of global corporate authoritarianism.”
Last night I got an invitation from
@LACMA
: "Join us one hour before the museum opens ... for a special members-only yoga session inspired by the artwork on view in 'Julie Mehretu' ... A very limited number of mats will be available..." Uh, no. And don't ever ask me that again.
“Two marquee buildings including the high-rise were designed by Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, best known as the lead designer of the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington.”
@CharlesPPierce
Yes! Linda Hirshman in The Nation: "The political leaders who did the best answering Tim Russert's questions in the last 7 years - D. Rumsfeld, D. Cheney and C. Powell - are authors of the most disastrous American foreign policy since the Vietnam War, and maybe since 1776.”