Apr
03

ICYMI: Highlights from the week that was March 25 – March 31, 2018

No one can keep up with everything, so let us do it for you. We’ll gather the top Smithsonian stories from across the country and around the world each week so you’ll never be at a loss for conversation around the water cooler.

On our way to the Playa to explore our inner artiste this week , we dodged a falling space station, congratulated a new mom-to-be, and breathed a sigh of relief that a collection of 150-year-old mice are safe…for now.

 


Clip art banner with ICYMI in black speech bibble


Decades after ’80s Art Stardom, Painter Mark Kostabi Is Still Hustling

Artsy, March 25

Artists standing in trash can in gallery

Mark Kostabi in New York City, 1994. Photo by Michael Brennan/Getty Images

he 1980s art stars of New York City are chiseled in the historical canon like lines on a tombstone, from Jean-Michel Basquiat (heroin overdose) to Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luis Frangella, and Martin Wong (AIDS).

Not everyone died. Some East Village artists survived all the Club 57 bacchanals and Avenue B smack dealers. Most notably Jeff Koons, whose 12-foot balloon dog sculptures are priced like Lake Como real estate. Eric Fischl, David Salle, and Kenny Scharf, the elder statesman trinity, are still mounting exhibitions. Even more impressive, the careers of some women from this fertile post-abstraction period—Kiki Smith, Judy Glantzman, Marilyn Minter—have actually flourished. Read more from Rene Chun fro Artsy.


Trump wanted to cut arts funding. Instead, the spending bill he signed gives it a boost.

The Washington Post, March 23

Aircraft hanging from ceiling of Air and Space Museum

Congress increased funding for arts and culture, including $198 million for the renovation of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post )

Rejecting the Trump administration’s call to eliminate federal cultural agencies, Congress instead increased funding to three of the four agencies in the $1.3 trillion spending plan it approved early Friday.

The National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities will receive $152.8 million each, an increase of $3 million. The Institute of Museum and Library Services will get $240 million, up from $231 million, while the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will remain at $465 million.

The president signed the measure Friday. Read more from Peggy McGlone for The Washington Post.


Have museums been too generous with naming rights? (Opinion)

The culture sector is increasingly reliant on private philanthropic giving. But what does it mean to put a wealthy donor’s name on a museum’s door – and should public institutions exercise more careful judgement when accepting donations?

Apollo, March 26

Green and black graphic cartoon

Simon Landrein/Dutch Uncle

With art institutions under intense pressure due to cuts in public funding, philanthropic giving from the private sector has become an essential lifeline. But, as ever more aggressive fundraising strategies are employed, norms are being questioned and power is constantly shifting. Are we getting the balance right between increasing demands for transparency and commercial reality?

The furore around the Sackler family, a name that has become synonymous with philanthropic activity, neatly encapsulates the dilemma and highlights the risks that are faced by institutions reliant on a single, private-sector donor. Critics have called on recipients to stop accepting donations from those branches of the family (specifically, the families of the late Mortimer and Raymond Sackler) that control a large stake in Purdue Pharma, a company that has been implicated in the opioid crisis in the US. Some are even urging them to return previous funding.Read more from Tanya Tikhnenko for Apollo.


The Smithsonian American Art Museum: A Q & A With Museum Director Stephanie Stebich

The Connect Magazine, Spring 2018

Collage of images from American Art Museum

IN THE FRENETIC hub of downtown Washington, D.C., less than a mile from the White House, where politicians pass by with their briefcases and cups of coffee, and tourists pass by with their curiosities, there reverberates the heartbeat of American art.  Stretching across two city blocks, it stands a dignified playground where the ghosts of American imaginations, past and present, are not buried, but live on without reservation. The craftsmanship of more than 7,000 pioneers are venerated inside – from Italian Renaissance contender Leonardo da Vinci, to abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler to fashion and portrait photographer (and popular culture favorite)
Irving Penn. Where visitors can be lit up by a neon map of America, lean into the Wright Brothers’ inaugural daringness for flight, relive the Civil Rights Era, and gaze at the nation’s first flag with its modest 15 stars and 15 stripes.

Better known as the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), the nation’s first collection of American art, it houses emancipated offerings of architecture, film, paintings, photography, sculpture and sketch, including evidence from Hollywood classics to video games, all displayed in unabashed liberty. Read the interview: QA With SAAM Director Stephanie Stebich


At Burning Man, Art Is Now More Permanent Than Perishable

The gathering has become an art event, with works and large installations that have a long shelf life

The Wall Street Journal, March 24

The robots, monsters and other harum-scarum works of art at Burning Man aren’t all destined for a pyre at the annual conclave in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Some are heading to public parks, music festivals and museum exhibitions.

Over the next few weeks, Burning Man installations will go up in a San Francisco park and at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

Burning Man has evolved from a bacchanal into a major art event, says Laura Kimpton, an artist who has participated in the Nevada gathering since 2003. “You don’t see many naked people anymore,” she says. “It’s a five-mile-by-five-mile, no money, no schmoozing, crazy party. It just used to be ‘Mad Max,’ and now it’s a rave.” Read more: At Burning Man Art Is Now More Permanent Than Perishable – WSJ 03-24-18.._


Can Teenagers Save America? They’ve Done It Before (Opinion)

The New York Times, March 26

While millions of Americans found this weekend’s nationwide marches for gun
control inspiring, many others are giving them a skeptical eye — and not just Second
Amendment advocates. How could a bunch of teenagers have the wherewithal to
make change in America’s deadlocked politics? After all, they’re just kids.

Older people have long grumbled about the young in politics, dismissing them
as “baby politicians” or “beardless boys” in the early years of this country. But when
American politics were at their darkest, in the late 19th century, it was young people
who broke a partisan divide and helped save democracy. Maybe they can do it again.Read more from Jon Grinspan for The New York Times: Can Teenagers Save America_ Theyve Done It Before – The New York Times .._


A Space Station Is About to Fall From the Sky—But Where Will It Hit?

The Tiangong-1 space station is expected to break apart in Earth’s atmosphere sometime between March 30 and April 2.

National Geographic, March 27

Rocket on launch pad

A Long March 2F rocket ferried the Tiangong-1 space station into orbit in September 2011.
PHOTOGRAPH BY LINTAO ZHANG, GETTY

A Chinese space station is on a collision course with Earth, and the latest predictions say it could come crashing down almost anywhere on the planet sometime between March 30 and April 2.

Named Tiangong-1, which translates to “Heavenly Palace,” the craft was placed in orbit in September 2011. The station was designed to be a testbed for robotic technologies, and it has seen multiple vehicle rendezvous, dockings, and taikonaut visits during its operational lifetime. This activity lays the groundwork for a more permanent space station the Chinese plan to launch in the near future. Read more from Andrew Fazekas for National Geographic.


National Portrait Gallery: Titus Kaphar and Ken Gonzales-Day Explore ‘UnSeen’ Narratives in Historic Portraiture

Culture Type, March 28

Dual portrait of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings

“Beyond the Myth of Benevolence” (2014) bt Titus Kaphar

Hanging half loose from its stretcher, a portrait of Thomas Jefferson reveals an image of a black woman behind it. It’s a provocative juxtaposition that raises a question about the relationship between the two subjects. Her hair is covered while her partially shown shoulder and leg are bare. She is brown-skinned with an indeterminable gaze. She evokes both assertion and alarm.

Titled “Beyond the Myth of Benevolence” (2014), the painting by Titus Kaphar was inspired by a Rembrandt Peale portrait of Jefferson made in 1800.

“This painting is about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and yet it is not,” Kaphar said. “The reason I say, ‘And yet it is not,’ is because we know from the actual history that Sally Hemings was very fair. Very, very fair. The woman who sits here is not just simply a representation of Sally Hemings, she’s more of a symbol of many of the black women whose stories have been shrouded by the narratives of our deified founding fathers.” Read more from Victoria L. Valentine for Culture Type.


Arts Industries Add $764 Billion Per Year to the US Economy, Says a Landmark New Study

The arts add twice as much to the US economy than the agriculture industry.

Artnet News, March 27

Ambiguous graph

The arts economy is on the rise. Image courtesy of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The arts contribute more than you might expect to the US economy, says a new joint report from the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for the Arts. The arts generate $763.6 billion per year, or 4.2 percent of the GDP, according to the study, which presents statistics gathered between 1998 and 2015.

The US also exported $20 billion more in art than it imported, providing a positive trade balance. All told, the 4.9 million people employed in America’s creative industries earned $372 billion in total compensation for 2015. Read more from Sarah Cascone for ArtNet News.


This ancient climate catastrophe is our best clue about Earth’s future

Takes from the Vault: An occasional series

Scott Wing had spent more than a decade in the badlands of Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin, most of it thirsty, sunburned, and down on his hands and knees, digging endlessly through the dirt. But he had never found anything like the fossil he now held in his hand — an exquisitely preserved leaf embossed on beige rock. Wing let out a jubilant laugh as he uncovered a second fossil and then a third. Each leaf was different from the others. Each was entirely new to him.

And then he started to cry.

This was exactly what he’d been searching for. When these strange fossils formed 56 million years ago, the planet was warming faster and more dramatically than at any point in its history — except the present. Read more from Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post.


Burning Man Goes to Washington

In an exhibition opening March 30, the Renwick Gallery has transported some of that Burning Man spirit to its more buttoned-down environs.

Hyperallergic, March 29

Large sculpture of a bear

Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson, “Ursa Major” (2016) (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

WASHINGTON, DC — For the office-dwelling denizens of downtown Washington, DC, their next lunch break could feature a more fun than fearsome encounter with a 13-foot-tall waving bear on 19th Street NW.

Clad in a copper fur made from 170,000 pennies, the sculpture titled “Ursa Major” may seem out of place here, but it felt right at home more than 2,200 miles west of DC on a scorched white-clay lake bed in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert where 70,000 partygoers gather one week each summer at Burning Man for an unbridled celebration of art, music, and communal creativity. Read more from Brendan L. Smith for Hyperallergic.


Baby Watch: National Zoo Awaits 1st Newborn Gorilla in Nearly a Decade

Calaya, a 15-year-old western lowland gorilla, is in her birth window, according to the zoo

NBC4-Washington, March 28

female gorilla sitting on rock

Smithsonian’s National Zoo

Move over, April the giraffe! The Smithsonian’s National Zoo is on birth watch as keepers await the arrival of the zoo’s first baby gorilla in nine years.

The little one could be here very soon, according to the zoo.

Calaya, a 15-year-old western lowland gorilla, is in her birth window, according to the zoo. This will be her first baby. For expectant dad Baraka, a silverback gorilla, this would be his first surviving offspring.

Calaya arrived at the National Zoo in February 2015 from the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington. She and Baraka hit it off as soon as she arrived, according to the zoo, and the two mated last summer.

Keepers used a common human pregnancy test to confirm that she had conceived, the zoo said. Read more from Lauraine Genota for NBC4.


How Native American imagery shapes our culture

PBS Newshour, March 29

Screenshot from news program

Native imagery is embedded in the national subconscious, whether we’re paying attention or not. A new exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian is titled simply “Americans” and shows how all aspects of life have been touched by the history and symbols of native culture. Watch Jeffrey Brown’s report. 


Historic U.S. Geological Survey unit gets a reprieve from the budget ax

The Washington Post, March 29

Ludwig with mouse specimens

Craig Ludwig displays samples of silky pocket mice from 1892, part of the collection managed by the Biological Survey Unit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

The 133-year-old Biological Survey Unit, slated to be closed this year, has gotten a short reprieve from the budget ax, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The U.S. Geological Survey, which oversees the division, had planned to close it this spring. The unit, which boasts a $1.6 million annual budget and six employees, helps maintain nearly a million bird, reptile and mammal specimens and historic field notes housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural ­History. Read more from Juliet Eilperin for the Washington Post.


The Controversial Process of Redesigning the Wheelchair Symbol

It has its own emoji, but where did the new Accessible Icon come from?

Atlas Obscura, March 29

Wheelchair icon

A grid of icons shows the various incarnations of the accessibility icon. COURTESY COOPER HEWITT

JUST 50 YEARS AGO, THE International Symbol of Access did not exist. Known variously as the Wheelchair Symbol and “the little blue sign,” the icon features an individual sat on their wheelchair, apparently motionless, with their arms perched on the sides. Created by the Danish design student Susanne Koefoed in 1968, in the original version, the person on the wheelchair was missing a head.

Today, the ISA appears all throughout the built environment: bathrooms, accessibility ramps, automatic doors, parking lots. It has become part of the world’s ISO-ordained pictographic vocabulary—as instantly recognizable as signs that tell you which bathroom to use, where the elevators are, or not to smoke. For decades, it has served as a way to tell people with disabilities “you are welcome here,” in a world that doesn’t always make the arrangements for accessibility that it should.Read more from Natasha Frost for Atlas Obscura.


Posted: 3 April 2018
About the Author:

Alex di Giovanni is primarily responsible for "other duties as assigned" in the Office of Communications and External Affairs. She has been with the Smithsonian since 2006 and plans to be interred in the Smithson crypt.