Monday Links: Pop Art for Republicans

Uh, is this from The Onion? Brace yourselves, art world, for “Pop Art, Politics & Jeb”—a fundraiser the Jeb Bush campaign is planning during Art Basel Miami Beach. To the event organizers: if you need a metaphor to tie Pop Art to the Bush Dynasty, we recommend Warhol’s “Car Crash” series. [Slate via ARTnews]

The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce is concerned that the borough “suffers” from a lack of suburban “amenities” such as gas stations and big-box stores like Target. While we understand that man cannot survive on artisanal gluten-free cupcakes alone, encouraging the construction of space-intensive national chains and gas stations sounds like a terrible land-use strategy for a city already grappling with crises of real estate scarcity, small businesses being priced-out, and countless environmental problems. [Crain’s New York Business via Planetizen]

“Instead, what the Zweigs wanted—and what it seems like many of their new Hastings-neighbors, also all ‘escapees’ from Brooklyn wanted—was to live in a place where their wealth and whiteness protected and elevated them in the way that those qualities historically have, but don’t anymore in an expensive and gentrifying borough.” On how the “Goodbye to All That” personal essay reads as White Flight, Round Two. [Brooklyn Magazine]

Increasingly, wealthy collector/philanthropists are opting to donate artworks to hospitals, as opposed to museums. Part of the rationale: pieces end up being buried in the expansive collections of major museums and spend most of their lives in storage. [The Wall Street Journal]

Only in the art world can a Chelsea gallerist with a history of being sued by her artists and buyers re-emerge as a Lower East Side “cultural platform”. [BLOUIN ARTINFO]

The Detroit Institute for the Arts has received a $150,000 grant to digitize prints, drawings and photographs from the Museum’s collection. [Artforum]

Is our collective appreciation for “subtlety” a form of esoteric snobbery? Forrest Wickman argues that literature and art are more accessible and effective when the allusions are direct and the metaphors thinly-veiled. But aren’t “message movies” just so damn patronizing? Besides, if everything were obvious, art critics would be out of a job. [Slate]

Speaking of bluntness, ambiguity, and what we hope is cryptic misdirection: Gilbert and George discuss their new series of placards with messages like “Fuck the Planet”, their love of gentrification and David Cameron, and a lot of other weird shit. To be fair, some of the reasoning behind a few of their text pieces sounds legit, but it’s impossible to tell what’s sincere and what’s a “bad boy” act. [The Guardian]

After nearly four years of debate, the city council of Chicago has granted planning permission for George Lucas to build his new Museum of Narrative Art. The museums will hold Lucas’s own collection that includes everything from film memorabilia to Norman Rockwell paintings in one very ugly, very weird building. [Wired]