Vintage Playboy Vargas print. Credit: The Museum of Movie Posters
- Playboy magazine has announced they will drop nudity as the Internet has filled that void. Not to worry, though, they promise to still run photographs of women in provocative poses. [The New York Times]
- Today is Ada Lovelace Day, so let’s recognize her OG status as a female mathematician in the 1800s who recognized the potential of computers before they even existed. [Motherboard]
- Ben Davis weighs in on the new “trés Brooklyn” Rumney Guggenheim gallery, and as expected from a 23-year old French trustafarian, has opened with a bad street art show. “There is no way that Rumney Guggenheim gallery is anything other than a vanity project.” Ouch. [ARTnet News]
- Up until recently, the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach only permitted artists who lived and worked in Latin America to be shown. Basically, they had a “no Chicanos” policy. Stuart Ashman, who has served as MOLAA’s president and CEO since 2011, worked with the museum’s board to change this policy. Carolina Miranda has the story. [Culture: High & Low]
- We’re not in London for Frieze week, but if you are, this guide to all the happenings might come in handy. [artnet News]
- Eric Fischl is now vouching for DNA-based art authenticating. Forgery concerns regarding his legacy and estate compelled him to throw his support behind the system, which would let artists sign their works with specks of synthetic DNA. Developed by the Global Center for Innovation at the State University of New York at Albany — who recently scored a $2 million funding grant from the ARIS Title Insurance Corporation — the method has already come under fire as being invalid unless Fischl can mark every work he’s created and sold with the new technology. [New York Times, Art Market Monitor]
- This seems like an odd argument: are video games art? This seems like it was written by someone who has more experience with the world of commercial video games than contemporary art; I’ve been to plenty of galleries showing artist-made games and never given it a second thought. This is a good quote though: “Not all games deserve the title of art or high art. But, to be fair, we also sell terrible paintings and trashy books.” [Forbes]
- In the latest from the cultural institution fundraising race, the Hirshhorn set a new record in receiving a $2 million gift from a trustee, the largest gift from an individual ever made to the Smithsonian museum. The donation comes at the end of their 40th anniversary year, and a campaign focusing on private fundraising in an era of tighter federal funding. [Washington Post]
- Of everything that’s ever been written about selfies—which is really too much—this brief piece by Sam Anderson on the work of Alec Soth is probably the most pleasurable and worthwhile read. [The New York Times]
- Yet another sign that Silicon Valley’s tech bubble is going to burst? Twitter is laying off 336 employees. The layoffs come with the just-announced return of co-founder Jack Dorsey as permanent CEO, and a year of struggling to attract new users and incurring financial losses. [Fusion]
- Marc Fischer has been documenting the bland, middle-class suburban houses where hardcore punk was created using contact information from 80s zines and Google Street View. [ARTnews]
- The New York Times has discovered the Fisher Landau Center in Long Island City. It’s been open to the public since 2003, but hey, better late than never. [The New York Times]
- By far, the nerdiest YouTube we have ever seen: a Hungarian folk dance that demonstrates how a quick-sort algorithm works. [YouTube]
