Previews

What We're Reading: 9/10/23

Armory Show Director Nicole Berry on Hiring Women Curators to ‘Challenge the Canon,’ and What’s in Store for the Fair Now That It’s Owned by Frieze

The unexpected news that the international art fair conglomerate Frieze would acquire the Armory Show and Expo Chicago in July set the art world wondering what changes might be afoot for the upcoming New York fair, which has been an art world mainstay since its founding in 1994.

“It will be business as usual,” fair director Nicole Berry told Artnet News, noting that when the sale went through, “everything was already well in place” for the fair’s 2023 edition, which opens this week at the Javits Center on Manhattan’s West Side.

Via Artnet

 

Credit: The Obama FoundationObama Presidential Center construction

Inside and around the Obama Presidential Center as it rises in Jackson Park

It’s still far too early to tell whether it indeed will be a transformative project, one that will raise Chicago’s profile and change the direction of a big chunk of the South Side for better — or, according to a few critics, for worse.

But after years of planning and raising well over $1 billion, the Obama Presidential Center finally has emerged from the ground as a physical presence in Jackson Park, just across the street from Hyde Park Academy High School and a quick walk from the University of Chicago campus.

Via Crain's

 

A Weak Cataloguing System Made It Easy to Steal From the British Museum. Institutions Around the Globe Are Reckoning With the Same Vulnerabilities

Greece’s culture minister Lina Mendoni wrote a blistering commentary in response to the ongoing scandal at the British Museum, where it has come to light that more than 1,500 items from the collection were stolen by a staff member.

“The thefts by the responsible curator, but also the proud silence of the leaders who neither take care of their collections nor implement the appropriate security measures, proves that the ‘hospitality’ provided to the Parthenon marbles at the British Museum has always been flawed, incomplete, and problematic,” she stated in opinion piece for Ta Nea.

Via Artnet