Welcome to the first, new column of Art World Buzz! It’s a bit of news from past week and looking forward to the forthcoming week. Anything but academic .
Just as yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which celebrates the birthday of the civil rights leader who shook the world with his “I have a dream” speech, and artists were out celebrating with protest paintings, like this one shot of King covering the mouth of Trump Tweeting.
This weekend marks the one year anniversary of the Women’s March in Washington, which took storm on January 21 to rise up against Trump’s inauguration. The march returns this weekend with the main event in Las Vegas. It is called the Women’s March Anniversary: Power To The Polls. Yeah!
Fashion photographers Mario Testino and Bruce Weber have been accused of sexual misconduct by 13 male models who have worked with them over the past 20 years, and in response, Vogue editor and Condé Nast director Anna Wintour decried them in a public letter released Saturday, which read “We at Condé Nast have decided to put our working relationship with both photographers on hold for the foreseeable future.”
Did you hear Justin Bieber has his own museum exhibition, which is curated by his grandparents? Diane and Bruce Dale, or grams and gramps, guest curate the Biebermania exhibition opening at the Stratford Perth Museum Feb. 18, where Bieber’s old drum kits and 100 other artefacts will be on view, from old photos to running shoes and a letter from Michelle Obama. They call it “Steps to Stardom” but it was more like leaps, let’s be honest.
A narcissist-themed art exhibition , you ask? Only in a shopping mall. Visitors at New York’s Westfield World Trade Center will see Madonna’s bestie Marilyn Minter, who opened a sprawling backlit photo mural called “I’m Not Much but I’m All I Think About,” which is presented in partnership with the Art Production Fund.
The co-founders of Toilet Paper Magazine Maurizio Cattelan, known recently for his gold toilet at the Guggenheim, and graphic designer Pierpaolo Ferrari, were hired by OKCupid to create the dating app’s first-ever ad campaign. With their natural vintage touch, they threw around dating taboos from ‘DTF,’ the acronym for ‘down to fuck,’ from talking politics to going Dutch when it comes to “foot the bill.”
