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Frieze New York’s 2021 edition will relocate from Randall’s Island to The Shed.
For the first time since launching in 2012, Frieze New York won’t be held at the tent on Randall’s Island. Instead, the contemporary art fair’s 2021 edition will relocate to The Shed, the multidisciplinary arts center in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards. It’ll also scale down considerably by hosting around 60 exhibitors, less than half compared to the 2019 event. Victoria Siddall, Frieze’s global director, described the move as “an exciting opportunity to hold a smaller fair” alongside an online viewing room. The announcement follows that The Armory Show, another contemporary art fair normally held every March, would relocate from Manhattan’s structurally unsound piers to the Javits Center.
A new study determines that bioplastics are just as toxic as conventional plastics.
That bioplastic straw you’ve been boastfully using? Turns out it’s just as bad for the environment as a traditional plastic one. That’s the conclusion of a research team from Germany’s Goethe University, working with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who just published a study in Environment International that determines bioplastics are no less toxic than conventional plastics. Yes, everything sucks, but perhaps now is the time to finally invest in a set of borosilicate glass Surface Straws.
Gilded actors portray Trump’s darkest moments on the National Mall before Election Day.
Donald Trump may have finally discovered a statue he wants torn down. The fourth and final installment of the Trump Statue Initiative, a satire series featuring gilded actors depicting 45’s darkest moments, has popped up on the National Mall in the eyeshot of Trump International Hotel. One scene, titled The Poser, recalls the infamous photo-op wherein he grips a bible in Lafayette Square as military officers club a Black Lives Matter protester. Another, Don’t Be Afraid, shows him triumphantly posing with a shovel and rake in front of a mourning healthcare worker and firefighter, symbolizing his mismanaged response to COVID-19 and bizarre obsession with forest management as the cause of West Coast wildfires. The message: “We are down to the final days. If you take anything away from this… Please. Go. Vote,” says Bryan Buckley, the filmmaker behind the project.
Following controversy, the traveling Philip Guston retrospective will now open in 2022.
After news that a Philip Guston retrospective would be delayed until 2024 sparked backlash in the art world, a spokeswoman for Washington’s National Gallery of Art confirmed that the show will now open in 2022. The National Gallery and three other major museums—the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston—announced they were delaying the traveling retrospective because 24 of the Guston works prominently feature Ku Klux Klan members and needed to be better contextualized for the current political moment of widespread racial justice protests. Critics derided the decision as self-censorship fueled by fear of controversy, but the museums defended the four-year delay as an achievable time frame well beyond the pandemic. “We never would have identified 2024 as a possible timeline if we weren’t serious about doing the show,” says Anabeth Guthrie of the National Gallery.
The Chicago furniture trade show NeoCon will occur in October 2021 instead of June.
NeoCon, the world’s foremost event for the commercial interiors industry, is moving dates for the 2021 edition from June 14–16 to October 4–6, 2021. “After ongoing discussions with key industry constituencies, as well as careful consideration of CDC forecasts and other reporting, it was determined that the change to fall dates for 2021 would be more favorable for a safe and successful in-person show,” event organizers said in a statement. Show management will continue to monitor the ever-changing environment and evaluate additional measures, such as adjusting the show hours and event length to manage attendance flow. The trade show plans to resume its June dates for the 2022 edition.
Today’s attractive distractions:
Settings from The Simpsons receive a Wes Anderson–style makeover.
Watch a giant building get miraculously moved by robots in Shanghai.
Meet cottagegoth, a spooky alternative to the ubiquitous cottagecore.
New York Sunshine’s latest short film features a hoop-fitted rowboat.
