What We're Reading: 2/10/22

Six Chicago-area artists awarded $50,000 grants

Six Chicago-area creatives have each been awarded a $50,000 grant by the Chicago-based arts funding organization United States Artists (USA), it was announced Wednesday.

Each winner can use the unrestricted award as they choose, whether to pay rent or kickstart a new project.

Via Chicago Suntimes

Review: ‘Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott’ is now at Chicago Cultural Center, a rogue artist perfect for these times

Is there an artist better suited than Robert Colescott to test the limits of our current moment, when calls for social justice have led to demands for cultural censorship and art institutions have become loathe to offend? The man who depicted a busty Aunt Jemima flipping pancakes for some white cowboy, a nearly naked beauty queen against a backdrop of her forced sexual escapades, and a spoof of Van Gogh’s “Potato Eaters” featuring grinning minstrel figures might be exactly what we need: an artist seemingly determined to upset just about everyone, coming from a place of unstinting and complex political awareness, and who painted any which way he needed to, art world trends be damned.

Via Chicago Tribune

Wonder women: curator Cecilia Alemani on what we can expect at the female-dominated Venice Biennale this year

A podcast from The Art Newspaper

The Abrupt Removal of the U.N.’s 25-Foot Tapestry of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ Caused an Uproar. Now, the Mystery Has Been Solved

One year ago this month, a 25-foot-long tapestry of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica was unceremoniously removed from the United Nations, where it had lived for the better part of the last 38 years, symbolizing the intergovernmental organization’s anti-war efforts.

The abrupt disappearance of the textile angered and confused many U.N. staffers last year, including secretary-general Antonio Guterres. “It’s horrible, horrible that it is gone,” he told CBS News at the time. “We tried so hard to keep it here, we tried and tried, but we did not succeed.” 

But now, the artwork is back—and U.N. employees finally have some clarity about why the piece left in the first place.

Via Artnet