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The Headlines
IT’S THE PITTS—the artworks by actor Brad Pitt, that is. Some of them are on display in Tampere, Finland, at the Sara Hildén Art Museum, TMZ reports. In a new show there, Pitt is showing recent work alongside sculptures by his friend Thomas Houseago, whom Pitt reportedly counts as a close friend. According to TMZ, Pitt never made it to the opening of the exhibition, which also includes works by the composer Nick Cave. But for those interested in traveling to see the exhibition, Tampere is only a short train ride from Helsinki.
PHOTOGRAPHY DISPATCH. The curator Clément Chéroux, a star of the Museum of Modern Art, will leave his post as chief curator of photography, the New York Times reports. He’s set to head back to France, where he will now serve as director of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation; he’d only been at MoMA for two years. Ars Technica reports that some artists have begun submitting AI-generated art to stock photography sites like Shutterstock in an attempt to “monetize” these works. That may seem fairly strange, but Shutterstock’s terms of use technically do allow for AI-generated art to appear there for potential licensing by others. The Guardian took a deep dive into a picture by the photographer William Klein, who died last week. The shot, taken in Rome on commission for French Vogue, nails the “right mix of monochrome cool and traffic chaos that he wanted.”
The Digest
A 1,300-year-old statue of a prancing horse from China’s Tang Dynasty underwent scientific analysis, and experts with the Cincinnati Art Museum in Ohio, which owns it, were shocked by what they discovered. The restored statue will go on view at the museum in October. [The Washington Post]
Ahead of her first New York show in over a decade, at Pace Gallery, artist Beatriz Milhazes discussed her latest body of abstractions, which see her embracing diagonals instead of circles. “I needed this kind of provocation,” she said. [The New York Times]
During the pandemic, painter Frank Auerbach turned inward and began making a series of self-portraits. The results, which will appear in an updated version of a book on Auerbach by William Feaver, are as formally audacious as anything else he’s done. [The Guardian]
Alabama’s Birmingham Museum of Art received two gifts worth a total of $3 million. One of the gifts will support the director of learning and engagement, the other will fund the role of chief financial officer. [AL.com]
Meanwhile, Arizona’s Phoenix Art Museum received $1 million from the Men’s Arts Council. The gift, which is intended to help the institution bulk up its public programming, is the largest single financial one it’s ever received. [AZFamily]
A small MoMA show is spotlighting the organization YAI Arts, which is dedicated to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “I think art is therapeutic,” said Jimmy Tucker, a participant in the show. [CBS New York]
The Kicker
NAMING RIGHTS. Museums across the world, from the Met to the Tate, have begun stripping their galleries of the Sackler name. One institution that still has it, however, is the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On Twitter this past weekend, the activist David Hogg, who often focuses on gun violence, asked why this was the case, saying that no institution would name itself after El Chapo or Pablo Escobar. He’s not the first to raise the question—Nan Goldin and her P.A.I.N. group once protested there, and the Cambridge city council even called on Harvard to take away the Sackler name. Hogg’s tweet has so far amassed more than 7,000 likes. [Twitter]
