Daily Newsletter
Aruna D’Souza on the iconic monument as a tool of political expression and Ed Simon on the allure and anxiety of the Hudson River School.
This Fourth of July weekend, we’re sticking to the essentials: water, sunscreen, and art. Amid an avalanche of propaganda on the United States’s 250th anniversary, critic Aruna D’Souza offers an illuminating art history of the Statue of Liberty. Artists from Faith Ringgold to Claes Oldenburg, she explains, have long wielded the monument as a tool of protest and creative expression — a particularly potent reminder as Trump strives to stifle them completely.
Also today, Ed Simon revisits the mythologies and ideals baked into the work of the Hudson River School painters, regarded as quintessential American artists. Two centuries later, what can we learn from their scenes of both settler colonial fantasies and marvels of the natural world?
Plus, a glimpse at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston’s newly reinstalled Art of the Americas galleries, art fundraisers to support Venezuela, and our beloved community columns.
—Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editor
What Does the Statue of Liberty Stand For?
Last July, Amy Sherald announced that she was canceling the National Portrait Gallery stop of her solo exhibition American Sublime because of concerns that the Smithsonian Institution had attempted to censor her painting of a Black trans woman, Arewà Basit, posing as the Statue of Liberty.
As artists like Sherald, Marta Minujín, and Faith Ringgold remind us, the monument is far from a neutral symbol of so-called American values. | Aruna D’Souza
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News
- A Mohawk artist’s bust of George Washington, a matrilineal home altar, and a Dunkin’ cup are among the 400 objects in a new major reinstallation in the Art of the Americas Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
- Art Movements: NYC’s Swiss Institute heads to the Bowery, Raymond Pettibon and Abdelkader Benchamma team up on a massive mural, Seattle Art Museum’s new chief curator, and more.
- Art sales featuring everything from paintings and prints to photographs, artist books, and zines are benefiting urgently needed aid efforts in Venezuela.
- After 11 years in business, the contemporary art gallery Lyles & King announced its closure.
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Opinion
- Required Reading: James Turrell in Denmark, a new album by Raven Chacon, a Black radical history of the Declaration of Independence, World Cup songs across time, and more.
I am new to Steve DiBenedetto’s work and it is very impressive. I like what Mr. Yau says about “indecipherable, mystical diagrams, maps of forgotten kingdoms.”
—Charles Pompilius on “Steve DiBenedetto’s Cosmic Sense of the Absurd”
From the Archive
Opportunities This Month
Residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls from the Paul & Daisy Soros Foundation, Ucross, AICA International, and more in our monthly list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers.
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