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The Headlines
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. Have you had enough of AI-generated art? Well, so have some artists. Business Insider took a deep dive into the case of artists who claim that their work is being copied by AI image generators. “I feel like something’s happening that I can’t control,” said artist Greg Rutkowski. He’s not alone. IGN reports that AT, a popular artist on Twitch, recently went viral after some on Twitter noted that a user named Musaishh had copied AT’s work, with plans to rework it using the platform Novel AI. According to IGN, “Musaishh has since deactivated their Twitter account after receiving backlash from social media users and artists alike.”
DECLINING BUSINESS. Several of Australia and New Zealand’s banks are in the process of selling off large chunks of their sizable art collections. Bloomberg investigated the unusual situation, and reported that the Melbourne-based Construction and Building Unions Superannuation Fund is the latest such group to auction off art. Headed to sale are 300 pieces, including ones by Australian artists like Emily Kngwarreye and Margaret Preston . The trend, some say, is indicative of the effects wrought by Australia’s crackdown on pension funds. “The market,” said Charles Ninow, director of the Auckland-based Webb’s Auction House, “is going through something that’s quite amazing.”
The Digest
Workers at the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington have announced plans to unionize. Leadership at the museum hasn’t said yet whether it will voluntarily recognize the potential union. [The Seattle Times]
Collecting couple Ronald and Julie Shelp, who amassed a significant collection of self-taught art, are set to sell their 5,000-square-foot New York duplex for around $6.25 million. [Bloomberg]
Erin Thompson, an art historian who organized a show of Guantánamo inmates’ art several years ago, said it was “shamefully cruel” that the U.S. government continues to own the art detainees produce there. Several former prisoners and one currently held there have called on President Joe Biden to reverse that policy. [Artnet News]
Artist Matt Copson co-directed the latest music video by his girlfriend, the singer Caroline Polachek. [Pitchfork]
The researcher Janelle Shane had the AI generator DALL-E churn out images of Halloween candy, and the results are not the kind of thing you’d want while trick-or-treating. [CNET]
The Kicker
TO PROTECT AND SERVE. How difficult is it to keep a painting from having soup thrown at it? Very, according to the museum-security expert Steve Keller, who told the Atlantic’s Caroline Mimbs Nyce that institutions would have to seriously up their game in order to, say, prevent a climate activist from hurling the contents of a Heinz can at a van Gogh painting. “They’ll have to have guards who actually intervene, or other methods, like searching parcels when people bring them into the building to make sure that there’s nothing in there that could damage the art,” Keller said. For now, it’s on visitors themselves to not bring soup into museums. [The Atlantic]
