The transfer of the building to Sotheby’s is also a symbolic transformation. Museums certainly depend on agglomerations of wealth to build collections and support their mission, and artists are no strangers to greed. But museum culture has largely been colonized by people outside of this kind of wealth: scholars, curators, artists and art lovers. Too often, public institutions have to woo the wealthy, but smart public institutions speak the language of their wider audience. Sotheby’s, on the other hand, associates words like “art” and “luxury goods” as if there were no distinction between them.
The aim of Le Jardin du Parfumeur is to unravel the mysteries and meaning of the fragrant flowers of the 17th century French court – but also to remind us that it is no coincidence that the Palace of Versailles was the very place where the profession of perfumer was invented during that century.
The gardens extend into four sections, reinventing the vision of the Sun King, Louis XIV, who wanted his park to overflow with the scents of orange blossom, hyacinth, tuberose and jasmine. The king had a practical reason for his obsessions: following the plague that killed tens of millions of people in medieval Europe, people feared that hot water would spread infection. Courtiers instead washed with alcohol and used perfumes to mask body odor.
But there was also a diplomatic explanation for these floral obsessions: the king’s collection of flowers served as a means of force projection as France emerged as the world’s greatest power in that century.
Historian Danielle McGuire, examining the epidemics of sexual violence and lynching used to preserve a slave society after the end of Reconstruction, posed a question that has stuck with me since I first spoke to her there. six years. It’s a question that concerns Turner’s life and that of many modern black women seeking liberation: “If you have a slave culture for hundreds of years, what happens when slavery ends ? Does the culture change? …and the answer was, of course, no.
What remains, in part, is indifference, a blindness to the suffering of black women, their ability to feel pain, to be raped, to be seen as something other than profit centers. Turner, of course, was too captivating to ignore. She had the greatest games ever seen on a human being, a voice to match, a style for days on end, and an indomitable stage presence. At first glance, she was the epitome of American courage, someone many saw as a proof of concept for the nation’s obsession with rugged individualism and the boot.
- In the New York Times this week, journalist Lola Fadulu covers the city’s lawsuit against Queens Library over accessibility issues at its Hunters Point location:
When opened, it was hailed as a design feat. The library has huge windows that carve whimsical puzzle shapes into the concrete facade and offer spectacular views of Manhattan.
But concerns mounted soon after the building opened.
In October 2019, the US Department of Justice opened an investigation into whether the building complied with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The city is the subject of this investigation, as well as another opened by the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
In November 2019, Tanya Jackson, a woman with a disability, and the Center for Independence of the Disabled filed a lawsuit in federal court in Brooklyn against the library, its board, and the city.
“They built a monument at the stairs,” said Sharon McLennon-Wier, executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled.
- For Dirtwriter Becca Schuh reflects on lessons learned from working in the restaurant industry and takes on the thinly veiled elitism in literary circles:
I think being a waitress did a great thing about writing: it made me understand deeply and fundamentally how many writers are full of shit. It changed my view of privilege and money and the way people complain, which obscures the fact that in their world they would never have to do work that amounts to basic manual labor, because their intelligence is worth more than waiting for others. (Noticed : bittersweet was an overrated waitress book, love me back is underestimated.)
Maybe by accident, maybe on purpose, I stumbled into a social group in New York with a lot of people who consider themselves intellectuals. I’ve been privy to countless conversations about how knowledge work is workabout the way which someone needs to sit down and think and theorize, with the thought behind that being: and it certainly wouldn’t be the people who carry things around for a living.
Why don’t websites hire service staff to write about food? How do “restaurant journalists” exist, when waiters who are also artists just hang around here? A book reviewer once told me, “a website could never have service staff, the quality of writing would be too low,” and I felt like laughing. I suspect it’s easier to teach a waitress to be a writer than an intellectual to be a waiter.
- After a CUNY law school student criticized the Israeli state’s occupation of Palestine during her graduation speech, she was swiftly attacked online and denounced for ‘hate speech’ in a statement from the school’s board of trustees. Ali Harb writes in AlJazeera:
Activists say the campaign against Muhammad is the latest episode in attacks on pro-Palestine advocates. Supporters of Palestinian rights in the United States are often accused of anti-Semitism and campaign to cancel their events and demonstrations.
Professors critical of Israel have lost their jobs as a result of pressure campaigns. Political candidates for human rights and diplomatic positions in government have been withdrawn following past criticism of Israel in recent years.
But this week, as pro-Israel groups and politicians put Mohammed in their sights, many Arab, Muslim and Palestinian rights advocates came to his defense.
- TikToker Khalil Greene fails the famous “Mexican filter” of the film industry, which New York mirrors quite closely at the moment!
Compulsory reading is published every Thursday afternoon and includes a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts or photo essays worth checking out.
