by Whitney Kimball on March 1, 2012
Still think the Art Workers Coalition were the first to object publicly to the art market? Nay. Way back in the 1920s, the New Yorker’s first art critic, Murdock Pemberton, was a vocal opponent of the starving artist ideal. Many of his writings echo those of contemporary critics and, more recently, Occupy Wall Street groups. His granddaughter, Sally Pemberton, has spent the past two years mining his archives and recently published a scrapbook portrait of Pemberton and his peers. The following are pieces from the New Yorker and lecture notes which Ms. Pemberton found in her grandfather’s suitcase in 2009.
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by Whitney Kimball on February 27, 2012
This morning, Artinfo reports two protests staged against the Whitney Biennial, which opens to the public on Thursday. Firstly, the OWS Arts and Labor group has sent a letter calling for the end of the Biennial in 2014, indicating that it “upholds a system that benefits collectors, trustees, and corporations at the expense of art workers.” Then a credible press release was sent out under the museum’s name and logo, announcing a break with two of its sponsors — Sotheby’s and Deutsche Bank — the morning of the press preview.
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