Dec 18, 2020 • View in browser

Good morning. ⛅ Today, the Vatican’s sci-fi Nativity is creating a stir, Mimi Wong considers how receiving a grant as an art writer impacted her work, and artist Pablo Helguera explains Tania Bruguera’s continuing fight for freedom of expression in Cuba.

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Pablo Helguera on Tania Bruguera

The artist and activist Tania Bruguera (photo via Tania Bruguera's Facebook, used with permission)

For the first time, Pablo Helguera publishes his 2015 essay on Tania Bruguera’s attempt to stage a public performance on free speech.

In an introduction to the essay, Helguera writes:

While Bruguera is not the only artist being attacked by the Cuban authorities during this moment, I think the issues described here might be helpful to shed light on the larger debates around art and freedom of expression in Cuba today.

In Other News

A new report published last week by the Center for an Urban Future reveals that the city’s immigrant artists and immigrant-serving arts organizations were hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic.
Sixty artists from around the world are participating in an auction raising humanitarian aid for thousands of war-stricken Armenian families who had been displaced from the region of Artsakh.
This year Vatican Nativity is being mocked for its sci-fi aesthetics and inclusion of a Darth Vader-like character.
M+, a massive museum slated to open in Hong Kong in fall 2021, has received a gift of 90 contemporary artworks, nearly half of which are by Hong Kong artists.

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