CGN Art World Recap: 5/12

The MCA Has an Exclusive Collection Drop from Hebru Brantley

Check out the dedicated site for Hebru Brantley × MCA Store and mark your calendars for May 27, when the MCA will open their digital store featuring products designed by Chicago artist Hebru Brantley.

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Love the art, hate the artist? How a popular Chicago college class is reexamining Kanye West, Michael Jackson, Picasso and others in the era of cancel culture

Eileen Favorite has heard the word “problematic” more than any person should have to hear any word repeated, again and again. She has heard it applied to the obvious and to the unexpected. She has heard people say “problematic” so often that when she says it herself, the word doesn’t come as casually as it does for her students. It’s become an event. It bold-faces. It goes ALL CAPS. Sometimes it sounds like a chuckle. Sometimes like a death sentence. Sometimes it has an eye-roll attached. Sometimes an indictment.

The point being, when Eileen Favorite discusses the life and work of problematic artists with her students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, one size refuses to fit all.

Via Chicago Tribune

Rashid Johnson Will Give Artists a Literal Stage to Reemerge From the Pandemic as Part of a New Project With Creative Time

One year ago, Rashid Johnson was holed up in a makeshift workspace in the basement of his Long Island home, churning out a series of apocalyptic oil stick drawings the color of a fire alarm. They belonged to his ongoing “Anxious Men” project, the artist told Artnet News at the time. He sounded anxious—as we all did then, a month deep into the pandemic, uncertainty still the dominant mood.

Now, as we prepare to return to a semblance of normalcy, Johnson has once again turned to that same anxious red color—but this time, he’s doing so to a more optimistic end.

Via Artnet

Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Art Dealer Mariane Ibrahim on the Power of the Right Relationships

In the final installment of Artnet's mini-series Shattering the Glass Ceiling, Artnet News’s art and design editor Noor Brara spoke with pioneering gallerist Mariane Ibrahim, founder of her eponymous gallery. Ibrahim opened her first outpost in Seattle, later launching another outpost in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood. Now, as the last year’s turbulence begins to level off, Ibrahim is taking another giant leap—this time, overseas—to open a location in Paris.

Via Artnet