Solange Releases Her First Performance Art Book, and Other News

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Solange Releases Her First Performance Art Book

Solange has captivated the art world many times over, but when she closed out the 2019 Venice Biennale with In Past Pupils & Smiles—that was on another level entirely. A newly released monograph (Anteism, 2022) of the same name has reignited the conversation around the performance, which saw a group of musicians, singers, and dancers come together to perform the self-composed and directed work Solange has described as “a moment to express how much grief comes from loss.” The 188-page tome documents yes, the performance, but also the collaborative work and creative research that went into it.

The result is a book that feels like a frame-by-frame account of In Past Pupils & Smiles, which was publicly performed only once. “Documentation with still photography has always been really important,” Solange told Vogue. “For this work to be able to live on, to be archived, and shared throughout history, I actually had us redo this performance without an audience to capture how the energy force of the performance shifted. The sense of protection that we had while blocking out the gaze of the audience became more of a celebration of us when it was just performed for us. We could very, very, very visibly feel that energy shift.” —Jenna Adrian-Diaz

Tadao Ando will receive this year’s Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Prolific, self-taught, and Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando has been announced today as the recipient of the Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement award. The recognition is presented by the Créateurs Design Awards, a program that highlights extraordinary work in architecture, interior design, product design, photography, journalism, and curation. Previous recipients of the honor include architect Robert A.M. Stern, interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon, and fashion icon Iris Apfel. Ando will officially receive the award at a black-tie award ceremony on January 21, 2023.” [H/T Archinect]

Kanye West says Adidas has offered him a $1 billion buyout from his Yeezy venture.

“Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was offered a $1 billion buyout from his Yeezy brand’s venture with Adidas, the artist claimed. Ye also said the German sportswear company had been releasing products without his participation. ”The fact [Adidas] felt they could color my shoes and name them without my approval is really wild,” Ye wrote in a post on Instagram. “I really care about building something that changes the world and something I can leave to my kids. They tried to buy me out for 1 billion dollars. My royalties next year are 500 million dollars alone.” The claims were among dozens of posts published since Friday in which Ye admonished, and even threatened to “legally destroy” Adidas’ leadership, particularly its new senior vice president and general manager.” [H/T Business of Fashion]

Nirvana wins a lawsuit filed by the naked baby on the iconic Nevermind album cover.

“A U.S. judge has dismissed a man’s latest lawsuit against Nirvana over the band’s iconic 1991 album cover which showed him naked as a baby. Spencer Elden, 31, said his appearance on the front of the Nevermind record constituted child sexual abuse. But the judge said he had left it too late to claim he had been exploited. Mr. Elden’s legal avenues are now all but exhausted as he cannot re-file the case, but his legal team told U.S. media he would appeal against the ruling. The lawsuit focused on a photograph of Mr Elden, which depicted him swimming naked in a pool towards a dollar bill pierced with a fish hook. He argued that he had been unable to consent to the picture being used. He was seeking $150,000 in damages.” [H/T BBC]

Skepta will auction off his debut painting as part of a Sotheby’s auction he co-curated.

“Skepta is set to sell his debut painting as part of an auction he’s co-curated for Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated series. The painting, titled Mama Goes to Market, will be exhibited at Sotheby’s’ New Bond Street galleries later this week before being auctioned off as part of a lot featuring pieces by Omar Ba, Theaster Gates, and Ouattara Watts. Nine of the works being sold as part of this year’s Contemporary Curated lot were handpicked by Skepta; the London rapper chose each piece because ‘they all had an African feeling about them.’ Notable pieces chosen by Skepta include Simon Helps, a 1986 painting by Sir Frank Bowling, and Addicktion, a portrait by British-Ghanaian painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.” [H/T The Guardian]

The Jackie Robinson Museum opens in New York after more than 14 years of planning.

“Labor Day means there’s just one month left in the Major League Baseball regular season. This year, the holiday also marks the opening of New York City’s new Jackie Robinson Museum, dedicated to the historic player who broke baseball’s racial barrier—14 years after it was first planned. The Jackie Robinson Museum, which the New York Times reported is the city’s “first museum dedicated largely to the civil rights movement,” tells his story through 4,500 artifacts. Most come from the personal collection of his wife, Rachel Robinson, as well as from other private collectors and institutions like the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, and the Library of Congress.” [H/T Artnet News]

Marvin Gaye inspires the Rubell Museum’s inaugural exhibition in Washington, D.C.

The forthcoming Rubell Museum will inaugurate its long-awaited outpost in the U.S. capital next month with a sprawling exhibition focused on topical political and sociopolitical discourse. The exhibition “What’s Going On” includes nearly 200 works by an eclectic mix of around 40 well-known contemporary artists from the collection of the Miami-based art collectors Don and Mera Rubell, from Carrie Mae Weems and Hank Willis Thomas to Maurizio Cattelan and Richard Prince. The title of the show references Marvin Gaye’s seminal 1971 album of the same name and its anthemic titular single, which decried injustice and other social ills. Gaye was a student at the long-closed Randall Junior High School, which has been converted by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects to house the new museum.” [H/T The Art Newspaper]

A gale-force dust storm nearly derails the marquee “burning” event at Burning Man.

“With just hours to go until Burning Man’s namesake event—igniting the wooden “man” effigy—a dust storm hit the Black Rock Desert in Nevada and threatened to derail the nine-day-long festival. Around 4 p.m. on Saturday, Burning Man’s official handle tweeted that the playa, the affectionate nickname for the desert area where the festival takes place, was experiencing ‘whiteout conditions.’ The account informed would-be travelers that the main gate had been closed and declared bluntly, ‘do not drive.’” [H/T SFGate]

Today’s attractive distractions:

Mezli, a new restaurant in San Francisco, is operated entirely by robots.

Woolmark’s latest campaign highlights the negative impact of synthetics.

An adrift bald eagle makes his way into Charlotte Douglas International.

You can win a drug lord’s former Mexico City mansion for as little as $10.