- Space is the place: here’s a thorough overview of afrofuturism’s influence on cities and spaces. My mind is currently blown on post-colonial African architecture, coincidentally being surveyed in a Vitra Design Museum-curated retrospective at Chicago’s Graham Foundation. [Curbed]
- The National Museum of American History has an exhibition on right now solely devoted to historic bird poop. Turns out buying and selling bird guano was a booming trade in the 19th century, thanks to it being the predominant agricultural fertilizer for its era. [National Museum of American History]
- A London exhibition of Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s drawings for film and theatre reveal his debts to Shakespearean theatre and the books of D.H. Lawrence and Arthur Conan Doyle. [Apollo Magazine]
- Lawrence Weiner, Richard Serra and Fred Tomaselli have signed an open PEN American Center letter in support of Apple’s battle with the FBI over allowing them backdoor access to iPhone encryption. [Artforum]
- Swiss collector Uli Sigg reveals how he built one of the biggest collections of contemporary Chinese art: he bought in a “systematic way, from the late 1970s onwards, mirroring Chinese art production in its width and depth from its very beginning.” He also benefitted in buying the works directly from the artists — there weren’t any galleries or dealers at the time. [CNN Style]
- Twenty years after the obscenity trial over its Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition, Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center revisits the historic event with a group show featuring five local artists reflecting on the legacy of the controversy. [Hyperallergic]
- Digging this interview Mexico City-based curator Gaby Cepeda conducted with Argentinian artist Ad Minoliti: “What’s the purpose and function of a painting? How would an aphrodisiac painting look? Could a triangle be arousing? How to create desire without the predispositions of the human body or the sexual ideals of the pornographic industry? How could kinetic geometry work as post-porn?” [Rhizome]
- On the so-called color industrial complex upheld by Pantone’s 2016 Color of the Year campaign; basically, rose quartz and serenity owe a lot to Seapunk and Vaporwave. [LOKI]
- Renato Bialetti, son of the inventor of the Moka coffee pot, had his ashes buried in an oversized version of the octagonal pot. [UPI]
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