The big story in the news this week was the Paris Olympics — and one of the biggest Olympics stories was the Opening Ceremony drag performance. In her thoughtful opinion piece, scholar Emma Cieslik takes us through the performance, based on the ancient Greek roots of the Olympic Games, and traditional representations of Bacchus as androgynous. Responding to the mistaken belief that the show enacted the Last Supper, Cieslik also discusses the pagan roots of Christianity, many of which include some form of drag, while Maya Pontone reports on this wild misreading of the opening ceremony show. Speaking of Bacchus, we report on a woman in Florence who was caught on camera kissing and rubbing against a statue of the god. Though city officials have condemned the “lewd” act, it beats JD Vance’s fun with couches — and hey, maybe she was hoping he’d come to life! Of course, there’s plenty more to read about the Olympics, including the giant heads from famous artworks floating in the Seine, an 18-foot sculpture commemorating breakdancing’s debut in the games, and the athletic diversity captured in photos by Olympic fencer Enzo Lefort. In museum news, New York City’s American Museum of Natural History is repatriating the remains of more than 100 Native individuals, and Native cultural items, while the Stanley Museum of Art returns looted objects to the Benin Royal Court. Also, don’t miss our list of art novels to read and our coverage of women and queer artists, including Alexis Clement’s review of two shows at Wave Hill in the Bronx, Debra Brehmer’s piece on Nicole Eisenman, and an exhibition tracing James Baldwin’s legacy. And we’ve got some great LA, Upstate, and New York City shows for you to see this weekend! So get out and enjoy! Finally, we’d like to know more about you and get your feedback on our work. Please take a moment to fill out our Reader Survey, and have a great weekend! — Natalie Haddad, Reviews Editor | |
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| | | Critics of the opening ceremony betrayed their ignorance of Christianity’s pagan roots — and the real reason behind their ire toward the show. | Emma Cieslik
The performance that drew ire from conservative critics continues another centuries-old art historical theme: the feast of the gods on Mount Olympus. | Maya Pontone |
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SPONSORED | | | Landmark Media Art from the Caribbean and Americas Streaming on PAMMTV | New from Pérez Art Museum Miami, the free streaming platform for video art fills gaps in moving-image scholarship. Presenting 35 video works throughout summer 2024, PAMMTV examines the evolution of media art from Miami, Mexico, Colombia, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Chile, Brazil, Guadeloupe, St. Maarten, Guatemala, Cuba, and beyond. Learn more Image credit: Patssi Valdez, Hot Pink (1980-83), video, transferred from hand dyed black and white 8mm film, with sound, 5 min, 45 sec. (© Patssi Valdez, courtesy of the artist) |
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MORE OLYMPICS COVERAGE | | | | Some of the Louvre’s most famous works inspired a series of half-submerged installations for the Olympic games. | Rhea Nayyar
“Rappin’ Max Robot” will spend a year in the South Bronx before going on permanent view at the Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad in Paris. | ET Rodriguez
Enzo Lefort’s stylized portraits of his teammates are now on view alongside works by other Olympian artists in Paris. | Rhea Nayyar |
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SPONSORED | | | | Celebrate the 30th anniversary of New York's Art Fair. The Armory Show returns to the Javits Center on September 6-8, with a VIP Preview on September 5. The upcoming edition will feature over 235 leading international galleries from 35 countries.
Tickets are available at thearmoryshow.com. |
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IN NEW YORK CITY | | | | Make sure not to miss shows featuring Jenny Holzer, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Huong Dodinh, and others, plus a lot of dogs. | Natalie Haddad, Valentina Di Liscia, Hrag Vartanian, Hakim Bishara, Rhea Nayyar, and Zoë Hopkins
Pauline Decarmo’s triumphant canvases, Mary Lucier’s sun-seeking video installation, Edward Merritt’s recycled botanics, Dani Klebe’s country cabin installation, and more. | Taliesin Thomas
Two shows cast a critical eye on our fantasy of nature as it crashes up against the realities of the world we humans have created. |
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FROM OUR CRITICS | | | | En masse, Eisenman’s paintings feel weighty and overwrought, as if too many ideas had become tangled and sucked up all the air, like a one-way conversation. | Debra Brehmer
In Not Cool but Compelling, the artist’s works churn with the turmoil of life, like emotions sketched in real time. | Natalie Haddad
Styling Identities pushes the boundaries of museum display to incorporate local communities and global art through the theme of hair. | Alexandra M. Thomas |
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ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC | | | | The exhibition This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance documents the writer and activist’s life through archival media, photographs, and artwork. | Maya Pontone
In his “Self Portrait #5,” headed to auction in August, the artist forcibly inserts himself and his culture into areas that didn’t intend to include him. | Rhea Nayyar
Delve into the tales of a queer book conservator at The Met, an actress in the West Bank, a painter with a secret, and other characters whose lives intersect with art. | Hrag Vartanian, Hakim Bishara, Natalie Haddad, Lakshmi Rivera Amin, and Lisa Yin Zhang
Lila de Magalhaes’s fornicating insects, Kyungmi Shin’s excavation of the so-called “Orient,” the late Steve Roden’s genre-bending work, and so much more. | Matt Stromberg
This week: Street art memorializes Sonya Massey, the history of women’s athletic clothing, an Olympic cheese sponsorship, women rule BookTok, plucky astronauts, and more. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
Residencies, grants, and open calls from Princeton University, the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, and more in our monthly list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers. |
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You’re currently a free subscriber to Hyperallergic. To support our independent arts journalism, please consider joining us as a paid member. | | Become a Member |
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