Art Viewer

Well, that’s a pretty clear statement

book cover for "In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space" by Irvin Weathersby Jr. Over Titus Kaphar painting of an 18th c. gentleman in a landscape. His black face and hands are not pictured, but obscured in impasto thick paint.

Grabbed it at the library because I spotted the Titus Kaphar painting on the cover, wound up loving this experiment in personal art writing.

Purdue student detained by ICE and taken to troubled Louisiana holding facility Yeonsoo Go, 20, was detained after her immigration hearing in Manhattan and taken away by ICE agents.

Go, a college student, has a dependent visa (her mother, an Episcopal minister, is here on a religious worker visa), which doesn't expire until Dec. But when she tried to renew it early, ICE nabbed her and sent her halfway across the US to a detention center.
www.wthr.com/article/news...

Y'all... discovering former students are out in the blooming world inflating their credentials, claiming degrees I know they don't have, listing *my name* on websites as verification of these false claims, y'all...

Now that's making it

ma'am, you might want to know what the eugenicist-in-chief has to say about the ad:

say it again:

4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities

demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

... ... 🤨. Sorry, the ad indeed reads that badly.

Smithsonian will again include Trump in impeachment exhibit in 'coming weeks' The museum's decision to remove a placard referencing President Donald Trump from an impeachment exhibit sparked concerns over Trump's influence on the cultural institution.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will once again mention Trump in an exhibit on presidential impeachments after the removal of a placard noting his two Senate trials sparked concerns this week over the White House's influence on the institution.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...

A Fish Falls From the Sky and Sparks a Brush Fire in British Columbia

For a medieval monastic chronicler, a headline to die for

Post from "The Rundown" July 18 at 5:30 PM · DuckDuckGo has introduced a new feature allowing users to filter out AI-generated images from search results, addressing growing concerns over synthetic content overwhelming authentic visuals online. The filter can be activated through a dropdown in the Images tab, search settings, or by using a dedicated AI-free domain: noai.duckduckgo.com. The system relies on curated blocklists, including uBlockOrigin’s Huge AI Blocklist, to detect and suppress AI-generated imagery. While not perfect, it significantly reduces synthetic content visibility. This move sets DuckDuckGo apart from competitors like Google and Bing by giving users direct control over their exposure to AI-generated material. Source: TechCrunch

DuckDuckGo has added a feature to filter out AI images from search results.

Mellon Foundation The Mellon Foundation makes grants to actively unlock the power in the arts and humanities that helps connect us all.

“American Academy of Arts&Sciences reports 96.3% of humanities grads age 23-32 fully employed. Earnings in humanitiess comparable to social/life sciences, job satisfaction levels too. A serious mismatch bw actual employment for hum grads +general perception."
www.mellon.org/voices/human...

More attention here please.

I had earned two master's degrees by the time I applied for a position, the latter of which was in creative writing, so I assumed I was interviewing for a vacancy in the English depart-ment. But the dean of one of the Williamsburg campuses was desperate and needed an art teacher a few days before the se-mester, and before I knew it, I was assigned an art history course. "You see this master's of fine arts," he said, pointing to my resume, "this is all that matters. Here's the textbook," and he handed me the revised sixth edition of the History of Art, edited by H. W. Janson and his son. "Keep it light. Show lots of im-ages. Don't lecture too much »

This is in no way Irvin Weathersby Jr.’s fault (and he used that MFA to write a beautiful book: “In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space”) but ARGH. What will it take to make people (deans) accept art history should be taught by art historians?

Aerial view of a red crocheted tomato hat with green stem on a black cat. Her ears poke out dedicated ear holes. It is cute.

Wild Friday night putting a tomato hat on the surprisingly tolerant cat

‘Heart SF’ sculpture turns heads after cutting through red tape in new S.F. permit program A new sculpture at a San Francisco cable car turnaround near the Embarcadero invites people to immortalize their entrance to the city by posing for photos in a giant heart-shaped frame.

Will public sculpture of the 21st c., designed for social media selfies, be viewed with as much disdain as the frippery of Rococo silliness? Otoh, permitting speeds improving is a huge win for SF. Bring on the silly sculpture.

Marin Birkenstock campus to become a museum celebrating these midcentury designers A Bay Area nonprofit dedicated to two legendary designers is buying the former Birkenstock campus in Marin County — and plans to redevelop the property as a global art and design museum.

Congratulations to Novato! [gift link]

screenshot: Exclamation point in orange triangle: "How Student Loans Affect Your Credit. Visit our Credit Reporting (hyperlinked) page for details."

Recession vibes. My student loan servicer has put a special credit report advisory on its main page. Cool, cool.

I'm mostly fantasizing about an end to excessive regimes and their varying, but consistent tackiness.

The construction of Versailles definitely required technical knowledge and artistry. I love that they had to import Venetians with their proprietary knowledge from Murano to create the mirrors in France since they'd made an only-in-France pledge 😄

I'd argue Versailles is pretty tacky too.

It's an appropriate monument to an absolute monarchy brought down by its own excess and overreach where the last queen perfumed sheep where she cosplayed shepherdess.

90,000-square-foot ballroom to be constructed in White House's East Wing The approximately $200 million project will be funded by President Trump and other private donors, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said.

Shades of Napoleon destroying the church of San Geminiano on Piazza San Marco in Venice to build a ballroom (now the Museo Correr). What's with the guys and the ballroom obsession?

Sebastiano del Piombo (The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection) Sebastiano del Piombo (Italian)

Getty bio reference:

Photo of an entirely frescoed room. Underneath mythological ceiling frescoes in faux architecture, Sebastiano's Polyphemus large giant single figure in landscape and Raphael's glorious triangular and circular moving beautiful composition of Galatea escaping on a dolphin-pulled shell. Frescoed architecture around those sections and faux frescoed curtains below. RENAISSANCE.

Pour one out for Sebastiano del Piombo, painter of the Polyphemus fresco on the right eternally compared to Raphael's gorgeous Triumph of Galatea, whom the Getty now eulogizes with "After Raphael's death in 1520, Sebastiano was considered the best painter in Rome." Ouch.

A silver lining to being laid off from my tenured job: an email from @acmrs.bsky.social titled "Tomorrow is August, is your syllabus ready?" did not elicit a shriek and cowering under my desk as waves of panic reverberated like tsunamis following a Russian earthquake.

Liberation?

Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Blochbauer (aka "The Woman in Gold"), 1907. Gold leaf, oil on canvas. In 2006, Blochbauer's descendants finally won their legal battle to regain the painting stolen by Nazis in 1941. It now resides in the New York Neue Galerie.

Trump administration is launching a new private health tracking system with Big Tech's help The Trump administration is pushing for Americans to upload personal health data to new apps run by private tech companies.

"More than 60 companies, including major tech companies like Google, Amazon and Apple as well as health care giants like UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health, have agreed to share patient data in the system."

It will use AI and "monitor wellness": apnews.com/article/trum...

Just read the Brown University agreement and this really jumped out.

"The University will not perform gender reassignment surgery or prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to any minor child for the purpose of aligning the child's appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex."

What the hell is Brown thinking agreeing to this??

“Student course evaluations that are collected on an anonymous basis at the end of each semester will be regularly reviewed to identify any reports of antisemitism, which will be promptly referred to OECR for appropriate action”