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D.C. Mayor Commissions Mural

Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., commissioned eight artists to paint a mural of fiftyfoot-high letters spelling out “Black Lives Matter”. The project spans two blocks of 16th Street, a central axis that leads southward straight to the White House. All 16 bold yellow letters span the width of the two-lane street, making it easy to spot by aerial cameras and virtually anyone within a few blocks.

The Washington, D.C., chapter of Black Lives Matter condemned the mural project and stated: “This is a performative distraction from real policy changes. Bowser has consistently been on the wrong side of BLMDC history. This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands. Black Lives Matter means defund the police.”

The mural has inspired other artists, community activists, and local officials across the nation who are looking for ways to express themselves in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Similar murals have been painted in big public spaces in Raleigh, N.C. and Oakland, Calif.”

Mary Bauermeister Awarded Germany’s Highest Honor

Mary Bauermeister has been awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a German individual. The award is in recognition of achievements in the political, economic, humanitarian, and cultural realms.

Bauermeister’s practices span drawing, installation, sculpture,

A team of eight artists and a band of ad-hoc volunteers joined to create the Black Lives Matter street mural in Washington, D.C.Photograph by Khalid Naji-Allah / Executive Office of the Mayor / AP.

and music. Specifically, she was selected for her significant contributions to Germany’s postwar art scene. “Her work as a determining and sustainable initiator in the art world and her great commitment to young artists deserve special recognition,” said NordrheinWestfalen’s Minister of Culture and Science, Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen in a statement. Previous recipients in the cultural field include Anselm Kiefer, Josef Albers, and Wolfgang Tillmans.

David Kordansky Gallery Takes on Deana Lawson

David Kordansky Gallery basd in Los Angeles has taken on photographer Deana Lawson. Lawson will continue to be represented by her New York gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Co., and Fox will be co-represented with Canada gallery in New York.

New York-based Lawson creates portraits of Black people who look directly at the camera without the hint of a flinch. Her subjects are people she meets while walking around the streets of the various countries she’s visited, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Jamaica, and Ghana, as well as the United States. Although Lawson’s images include a layer of fiction they offer a level of intimacy that makes them feel real. Gallerist David Kordansky said that it was Lawson’s 2018 exhibition at L.A.’s Underground Museum that brought to light the breadth of her photography. “Lawson constantly reorients the viewer: seemingly straightforward documentation of the Black experience gives way to constructions and abstractions— of Blackness as a global idea,” Kordansky said in an email. “It’s no surprise the brilliance and importance of her work is rapidly being recognized. Deana is depicting Black lives and Black spaces—not only domestic arrangements, but also psychology, spirituality, and the cosmos.”

Lawson is currently the subject of a major solo show at the Kunsthalle Basel in Switzerland. The exhibition was curated by the institution’s director Elena Filipovic and co-produced with with the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo as part of the 2020 Bienal de São Paulo, in which Lawson is a participant. Featuring photographs taken in Salvador, in

Brazil’s Bahia state, that are part of a new commission, the exhibition was originally set to open in March and then to travel to Brazil in July, but was delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Brazilian presentation will now be incorporated into the main biennial exhibition.

Venice Biennale Pushed Back to 2022

The Venice Biennale is pushing the 59th international art exhibition to 2022 in order to accommodate the delayed 17th international architecture exhibition, “How Will We Live Together?,” which was originally scheduled to open this month. Therefore, the next Venice Biennale art exhibition will coincide with the next documenta, held every five years in Kassel, Germany and due to open in the summer of 2022. The Lyon Biennale has also rescheduled for 2022.

Biennale initially announced in March that it would push the architecture exhibition’s opening from May 23 to August 29, but keep the original closing date of November 29. Rescheduling was necessary due to “the persistence of a series of objective difficulties due to the ongoing international health emergency,” wrote the biennale in their announcement of the postponement.

“I am deeply moved by the perseverance of all the participants during the last three months,” architecture biennale curator Hashim Sarkis said in a statement. “I hope that the new opening date will allow them first to catch their breath, and then to complete their work with the time and vigor it truly deserves. We did not plan it this way. Neither the question I asked ‘how will we live together?’

The Arsenale, venue for the Venice Biennale. Photo by Andrea Avezzù, courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.

nor the wealth of ways in response to it, were meant to address the crisis they are living, but here we are.”

“In the past few weeks it has become apparent that holding the Architecture Biennale this year would have dramatically compromised the event, leaving countless of nations without the representations of their pavilions and preventing hundreds of architects and thousands of viewers to participate in the exhibition,” Cecilia Alemani, the artistic director of the next Venice Biennale and curator of the High Line in New York told said in an interview.

With the extra year to prepare, “I look forward to having more time with the artists to develop ambitious new projects,” she added. “In 2022, the Art Biennale will open two days before the day in which Italy traditionally celebrates the end of World War II: I hope that the occasion will mark a new celebration of togetherness, a new sense of participation and communion that we are all very much looking forward to.” At least ten countries have already announced their national artist representatives for the exhibition.

Since its founding in 1895, the biannual art exhibition has been cancelled four times, twice during each World War. The 2021 postponement marks a return to even years for the Biennale, which delayed its 1992 edition to 1993 to ensure the 1995 biennial would align with the exhibition’s centenary. It also held editions in both 1909 and 1910 to avoid overlapping with a major exhibition dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Italian unification in 1911.