Won’t you please support the rights of these people to bring automatic weapons to their convention?
- Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to tell if something is authentically right-wing or just an exceptionally skilled parody. Case and point: someone started a petition to allow “open carry” at the Republican National Convention. After reading the body of text, I think this is an idea many people across the political spectrum can get behind for different reasons. [change.org]
- Ellen Salpeter is the new director of the ICA Miami, the institution that grew out of a disastrous split between the board members of MoCA North Miami and the city government. Now, she claims the museum and it’s pricey new building are going to operate entirely on private sector support, which she claims is more “sustainable”. That’s an understandable sentiment, considering the board’s past dealings with the public sector. But how does that strategy work when there’s another huge market crash in a city where so much of the wealth comes from real estate empires? [Ocean Drive]
- Julius’ Bar in the West Village, site of a 1966 “sip-in” to protest discriminatory liquor laws targeted at gay nightlife, has been named a historic site. [New York Daily News]
- The amazing, idiosyncratic Mummers Theater in Oklahoma City was demolished to make way for an office park designed by master-of-blandness Robert A.M. Stern. Now that project isn’t moving forward. This should be a cautionary tale to cities thinking of trading in irreplaceable 20th century architectural landmarks for the promise of economic development (I’m looking at you, Baltimore) Dear civic leaders, MILLENNIALS LIKE BRUTALISM! Stop demolishing it, because we’re the people who have to live with the ugly crap that replaces it (or not) when you’re all dead in a few decades. [The Architect’s Newspaper]
- Belgian artist Dries Depoorter uses publicly-available surveillance camera feeds to grant viewers a front-row seat to crimes as they happen, or the opportunity to report jaywalkers to police in municipalities across the globe. These are so good, but also, if you actually report the jaywalkers, you’re probably an asshole. [WIRED]
- Here’s a not-super-well-kept secret among writers: sometimes, towards the end of an art fair week, you kind of have a break down where most of what you write is incoherent and you kinda don’t care. This usually happens to me by day 5 or 6 of Miami Art Week after I’ve seen countless shows and lose touch with the real world and forget why I even like art in the first place and just want a drink and nap. But here’s Alex Frew McMillan’s report from Hong Kong and this is what all fair reporting would look like if Art Basel was a month-long affair and you had a deadline at the end of week three. What’s truly remarkable is this crushing art fair delirium/apathy set in after visiting just one art fair, Art Central. He hasn’t even made it to Art Basel yet. I await that piece with baited breath. And kudos for a piece in a financial magazine that is the only piece of reporting out of Hong Kong not obsessing over the markets. [Forbes]
- Renaissance perspective never seemed so relevant! Saumya Pandya Thakkar and Shakuntala Pandya of India have designed trompe l’oeil crosswalks that trick drivers into slowing down for pedestrians. [ScoopWhoop]
- In what comes as a surprise to only the extremely naive, de Blasio’s “affordable” housing plan is going to be great for developers and really, really shitty for the poorest residents of New York’s poorest neighborhoods. [Gothamist]
