weekend links: Emma Sulkowicz, Roxane Gay, Mary Ellen Mark
Installation view from Stephen Petronio and Janine Antoni's incubator. Image appears courtesy of testsite and The Contemporary Austin.
Columbia University’s Emma Sulkowicz spent her last nine months on campus carrying around a mattress as part of her senior thesis art piece, Mattress Project (Carry That Weight). Sulkowicz made national news for the controversial piece, which centered on her alleged rape and Columbia’s subsequent inaction. Now that she’s graduated—and the performance has concluded—should her mattress wind up in a museum? (I think yes.) [Vulture]
Of course, the question of whether Sulkowicz’s work will wind up in a museum differs from the question of whether it should. In this month’s issue of ARTnews—dedicated entirely to women in the art world—Maura Reilly brings us a bracing essay, full of statistics and graphs, on the reach of sexism in museums, the press, and the art market. [ARTnews]
Are you tired of talking about diversity in the arts? Too bad! Roxane Gay is, too, but she’s going to keep talking about it because it’s important. This week: what’s the deal with all-white reading lists? Gay makes a great point about why national news brands should strive for diversity, and what message they send when they don’t. [NPR]
Legendary photographer Mary Ellen Mark died this week. Her most famous photo essay, Streets of the Lost, documented Seattle’s homeless youth and spawned the Academy Award-nominated documentary Streetwise. Originally published in the now-defunct LIFE magazine, the essay is available online. Check it out! [TIME]
Arts & Culture Texas has reviews up on two art shows that we’ve previously plugged, Stephen Petronio and Janine Antoni’s incubator (showing now through July 26 at testsite), and Mark Johnson’s APOLOGYTOTIME, at Co-Lab Projects’ N Space (on display through June 24). Still ample time to check them out.
If you missed the poetry reading at Blackbox gallery last night, celebrating Yuliya Lanina’s Once Upon A Time exhibit, then your ship has sailed on that one. But you can still listen to Lanina discuss her exhibit on KOOP on Monday’s episode of the Austin Artists show. The exhibit will be up this Saturday and next, from 11-4. [KOOP]
It’s Friday! Get a drink and see some art at the Yellow Jacket Social Club. The wonderfully titled William Gaynor: Walking Down the Road Feeling Really Fucking Bad is on display through June 7. [Austin Chronicle]
—Alyssa G. Ramirez