How Hollywood’s ‘Alien’ and ‘Predator’ movies reinforce anti-Black racism
What makes Black people more likely than others to be killed, beaten, tortured and raped by white police officers and vigilantes? Although Black men are killed by the police more than any other group, Black women are regular targets of…
The value of a banana: understanding absurd and ephemeral artwork
In September, the Guggenheim Museum in New York acquired Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian by anonymous donation. The work – a banana duct-taped to a wall — was first shown and sold at the Art Basel fair in Miami Beach in the…
‘Homeless Jesus’ sculpture goes viral after 911 call
Recently, a life-size bronze sculpture of Jesus, called Homeless Jesus, went viral after someone made a 911 call about a homeless man on a bench. The bronze sculpture by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz depicts Jesus, identifiable by the wounds on…
Remembrance Day: How a Canadian painter broke boundaries on the First World War battlefields
“I cannot talk, I can only paint.” This is how Canadian battlefield painter Mary Riter Hamilton (1867-1954) summarized her urgent response to witnessing the large-scale destruction of the First World War. The 51-year-old artist began painting the devastated regions of…
‘Melly Shum Hates Her Job’ but Europeans love this work by Canadian artist Ken Lum
Sure, she’s smiling. But the tired eyes, cramped desk and limp hand on dated office gear tell another story: Melly Shum hates her job. Perhaps she works in what anthropologist David Graeber has in mind in his book Bullshit Jobs?…
Mary Wollstonecraft statue: a provocative tribute for a radical woman
A small naked female figure in silvered bronze emerges out of a swirling mass of organic matter. There is something excitingly unexpected about it all. Although not everyone shares this opinion of the recently unveiled memorial in north London to…
Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh fear their medieval churches will be destroyed
A six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region in the South Caucasus, ended on Nov. 9 after Russia brokered a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Under the deal, several ethnically Armenian provinces in Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenians call Artsakh, were…
Black Lives Matter has brought a global reckoning with history. This is why the Uluru Statement is so crucial
History has been brought to the forefront in 2020. We have witnessed not only a once-in-a-century pandemic, but also a global protest movement for racial justice following the death of a Black man, George Floyd. Such protests have happened before,…
Grayson Perry: exploring what it is to be human with humour, irreverence and excess
Smash Hits, the new Grayson Perry retrospective at Edinburgh’s National Galleries, spans the 40-year career of the recently knighted artist. It’s an exhibition packed with scrutiny of the entanglements of self and society, as Perry casts up snippets of the…
Galleries continue to erase women artists in their blockbuster exhibitions
The National Gallery recently announced its summer 2023 exhibition, After Impressionism, claiming the show will celebrate the “towering achievements of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gaugin and Rodin” among others. The response on social media to this announcement was largely, “where are…
