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The Headlines
FRIEZE LA PLOUGHS AHEAD. Frieze Los Angeles will go ahead with its sixth edition from February 20 to 23, despite the devastating wildfires and continued warnings of “extreme fire weather,” reports Daniel Cassady for ARTnews. The Friday announcement came as locals increasingly made the case for supporting the city’s art scene in good times, as in bad, and was followed by an open letter from the Gallery Association Los Angeles (GALA) calling for solidarity in the art world, reports Harrison Jacobs for ARTnews. “In moments like these, the art world’s unique strength as a close-knit and interconnected community becomes especially clear,” read the letter, which added that local art workers “will be back to work. Most already are.” It was signed by leading local galleries and institutions. While visitors to the February week of art events in and around the fair may not find business as usual, they may very well experience something far more meaningful.
GOLDEN GATES OPEN FOR ART WEEK/FOG FAIR. Those seeking some respite from the smoke in southern California can head to the fog in San Francisco. Its appropriately named FOG Design+Art fair opens this week, along with art events around the Bay Area. Northern California’s cultural vibrancy is the star of SF Art Week, celebrated in major shows from the likes of SFMOMA, to hidden gems in galleries around the bay. Several publications are offering their picks of must-see exhibits, from Cultured Magazine’s to-do list starting with the ICA San Francisco’s “The Poetics of Dimensions,” located in their brand-new downtown venue, to Forbes’ ode to the city and its “unparalleled” cultural offerings this week. That article by Chadd Scott defends the city’s reputation, “jaundiced by right wing media slandering San Francisco,” as does another selection of local exhibits by Natasha Boas for Hyperallergic. KQED shares its pick of recommendations, including several that go well beyond the SF city center, including a show of work by the late Viola Frey at Oakland’s acclaimed pt.2 Gallery, and as far as UC Davis’ Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, where Ruby Neri is featured in an exhibit titled, “Taking the Deep Dive.”
The Digest
Waking on this day after Trump’s inauguration, how can galleries and artists respond to presidency? Some practical solutions, particularly in terms of raised tariffs and changes in spending, were offered at ArtLogic’s Connect ’24 conference in November, titled “Beyond Election Day: Macro Challenges Facing the Art Market in 2025.” [The Art Newspaper]
Simone de Beauvoir is a 20th-century feminist icon, novelist, and philosopher, but few know of her talented younger sister, Hélène de Beauvoir, an equally radical feminist and a fascinating painter. A new, forthcoming show in London’s Amar Gallery sheds belated light on the artist’s practice and life (1910-2001), held from January 23 to March 2. [The Guardian]
The people of Davos voted against investing some $4.4 million in an extension for the local Kirchner Museum, which would allow it to accommodate the prestigious Ulmberg collection, comprising some 100 works by the likes of Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Francis Bacon, and Louise Bourgeoise. As a result, the collection worth many millions may go to the city of Chur. [The Art Newspaper]
A Taiwanese court has sentenced artist Sakuliu Pavavaljung to four years and six months in prison for sexual assault, following several other rape and assault accusations made against him. The Indigenous Paiwan artist was dropped from several projects in the ensuing months, including his presentation at the Taiwan Pavilion for the 59th Venice Biennale. [ArtAsiaPacific]
The Kicker
PORTRAYING THE OTHER. A debate is raging around the acclaimed works of the world-famous documentary photographer and defender of preserving the rain forest, Sebastião Salgado, and how he portrays Indigenous Amazonians, reports The Guardian. The Brazilian photographer is exhibiting his photographs of the Amazon rainforest in Barcelona’s royal dockyard museum, at an exhibit titled “Amazônia.” But while Salgado’s imagery tends to wow viewers with its striking aesthetic, a wave of Indigenous critics are increasingly angry about his perspective, which they feel is romanticized and only shows a small part of Amazon life, effectively perpetuating negative stereotypes. “I couldn’t stand it,” said João Paulo Barreto, an anthropologist from Brazil’s Yé’pá Mahsã (Tukano) ethnic group, who walked out of the Barcelona exhibit in distress. “For me, it feels such a violent depiction of Indigenous bodies. I mean, would Europeans ever deign to exhibit the bodies of their mothers, of their children in this way?” While Salgado’s photos portray communities he encountered in the rain forest, critics say his is an edited, exoticized lens, bolstering a colonial-era notion of “primitivism” that does not reflect the modern reality of these regions. “Picturing women, children, grandmothers naked and then presenting them as somehow exotic can have huge collateral damage because it feeds historic stereotypes that have caused huge harm to Indigenous communities in the past,” argued Rember Yahuarcani, one of 50 Amazonian artists featured in a nearby exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) titled“Amazons: The Ancestral Future.”