Michelangelo, Artists ’ Signatures, a Message from a Florida Drag Queen

April 2, 2023

We published a number of very memorable stories this week, so let's get started.

First, we reported that a Florida parent complained that an art teacher had shown an image of Michelangelo's "David" to her sixth graders. Ignorance knows no bounds apparently, though the current state government in Tallahassee seems intent on crossing whatever those borders are again and again.

Still in Florida — oh, Florida — drag queen Beneva Fruitville wrote a powerful opinion about her own experience in a place that continues to criminalize her life and career in more and more restrictive ways. Some good news, though — after the article's publication, the author let us know that a number of organizations have reached out to her with invitations to speak. We hope it's the beginning of good things for Fruitville.

Then, in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art apologized for kicking a Black artist out of the institution's Black Power Naps installation.

And finally, we released our special edition devoted to Artists' Signatures, and among the cache of articles were essays about the signing of ancient art, Michelangelo's only signed work, how many contemporary artists choose not to sign works, and, finally, art historian David Low's story of uncovering the identity of the photographer behind Arshile Gorky's renowned The Artist and His Mother series.

What did you think of yesterday's April Fools' edition? We pride ourselves on keeping our readers on their toes when it comes to humor. Did we fool you?

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief

Special Edition: 🖌️Artists’ Signatures ✍️

In this special edition, we investigate what artists’ signatures actually mean, and the fascinating results reveal the multifaceted history of this curious phenomenon.

David Low uncovers the identity of the photographer behind Arshile Gorky's The Artist and His Mother series, an incredible contribution to 20th-century American art history.

Sarah Bond writes about the signatures of artisans in the ancient world, and how they represented the pride of the maker as much as they denoted a type of mastery.

Anthony Majanlahti considers the only signed work by Michelangelo and how artists were using their names to differentiate themselves from more common artisans during the Renaissance.

In Detroit, Sarah Rose Sharp visits the Scarab Club, which has been accumulating signatures from famous artists, writers, and performers for over a century.

Anoushka Bhalla talks to various contemporary artists about how and why they choose to sign or not sign their artworks.

Eileen Skyers probes what a signature is in the internet age when digital artists are selling work that doesn’t lend itself to the traditional notion.

Elaine Velie visits a curious sidewalk on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that has inscribed the names of well-known women artists.

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IN THE NEWS

A Florida principal is pressured to resign after parents complained that an art teacher had shown Michelangelo’s “David” to their sixth graders. (Which the Simpsons might've predicted.)

The Met will repatriate 15 antiquities to India, all of which at one point were sold by disgraced art dealer Subhash Kapoor.

MoMA apologizes for kicking out a Black artist from the Black Power Naps installation after a White visitor called her "aggressive."

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova is placed on Russia’s Wanted List after news circulated of her latest Vladimir Putin-related performance.

A curator at London’s National Gallery believes Quinten Massys’s 1513 painting may have been portraying a man all along.

SPONSORED

McKnight Visual Artist Fellows Discussion Series at the Minneapolis Institute of Art

The series features 2021 Fellows David Bowen, Mara Duvra, Rotem Tamir, Ben Moren, and Dyani White Hawk in conversation with renowned curators and critics. Learn more.

ARTISTS UP CLOSE

A Ride With Liz Cohen

Nothing in the artist’s personal biography could predict that she’d one day become a car builder and bikini model. | Sarah Rose Sharp

Memories So Fair and Bright

Kimetha Vanderveen’s paintings are about the interaction of materiality and light, the bond between the palpable and ephemeral world in which we live. | John Yau

What’s Iconoclastic About a Blackface Madonna?

Artist Tony Rave’s work comes to remind us that piety is not strictly White. | Tamar Boyadjian

SPONSORED

ICA Philadelphia Presents Artist and Filmmaker Terence Nance’s First Solo Museum Exhibition

Co-organized by BlackStar Projects, “Swarm” features six major multimedia installations specifically reimagined for the occasion. Learn more.

UNEXPECTED MATERIALS

An Artist’s Hopeful Vision of the Ocean

Indonesian artist Mulyana crafts a tactile, mystical world in which fish, whales, and coral reefs coexist with sea monsters. | Renée Reizman

Ai Weiwei Recreates Monet’s “Water Lilies” Using 650,000 LEGOS

It’s the artist’s largest LEGO artwork to date. | Sarah Rose Sharp

An Introduction to “Afrogallonism”

Serge Attukwei Clottey explores Ghanaian culture and identity through discarded jerrycans and other found materials. | Aida Amoako

SPONSORED

ANNOUNCEMENTS

MCA Chicago Presents On Stage: Frictions

Miami’s Fountainhead Residency Presents The Yearbook: 2022

The Public Theater Explores the Hurricane Katrina Diaspora in shadow/land

The Rubin Museum Presents Death Is Not the End

When I Am Empty Please Dispose of Me Properly

Pratt’s 2023 Fine Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition Is On View in Brooklyn

The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation Presents The Feminine in Abstract Painting

NYU Steinhardt Opens 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibitions

Miniature Worlds: Joseph Cornell, Ray Johnson, Yayoi Kusama

The Public Theater in NYC Presents Plays for the Plague Year

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I’m a Florida Drag Queen and I’m Scared

I’m truly at a loss for what to do for work and what kind of life I can expect to live. | Beneva Fruitville

Quieter Artworks Stand Out At a New York Photo Fair

At this year’s Association of International Photography Art Dealers show, the best works offer glimpses into the personal lives of photographers and their subjects. | Elaine Velie

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