OMQ! Star Trek: Voyager premiered 22 years ago, as of yesterday. I feel old. [Facebook]
Shepard Fairey, Jessica Sabogal and Ernesto Yerena have created a series of protest posters that are free to download in anticipation of the #J20 strike and demonstrations. Unfortunately, there are new (draconian) restrictions on bringing signs into certain parts of the capital on inauguration day. To get around this, they’re raising funds to take out full-page ads in Washington newspapers and to distribute hard copies in the District. So far they’ve raised over $1 million. [Kickstarter]
Apparently the late, great Zaha Hadid left behind a £70.8 million fortune. Unfortunately, übercapitalist dickhead Patrik Schumacher is the executor to her will (a decision I doubt she would stand behind given his recent inflammatory comments about affordable housing). The other check-writers include her niece Rana Hadid, artist Brian Clarke, and former Serpentine Gallery chairman Peter Palumbo. The have 150 years to figure out how that money gets dispersed, via the Zaha Hadid Foundation. I hope those three vote to dole it out for innovative affordable housing. [Dezeen]
As opposed to participating in the #J20 strike, many museums are offering free admission on inauguration day, with programming such as a marathon reading of Langston Hughes’s 1935 poem “Let America Be America Again” at the Brooklyn Museum. The National Museum of Women in the Arts is closing on Friday, though, but will reopen for the Women’s March on Washington the next day, offering a “nasty women” tour of its galleries. Diversity of tactics is good for resistance. Disappointingly, the Guggenheim and MoMA, among others, have offered asinine, relatively apolitical statements about their decisions to remain open. [ARTnews]
London’s gallery-sharing event Condo 2017 sounds so smart and so successful. This is the kind of cooperation that will keep brick-and-mortar arts spaces alive. [artnet News]
Are memes the key to making the art world less elitist? Probably not, but Katie Fustich thinks they might be. How is Jaimie Warren not mentioned in this article? [Salon]
Wow. The Asheville Art Museum is beginning an $18 million, 18-month demolition/reconstruction project that will see the facade of its historic home seemingly half-swallowed/penetrated by a transparent glass box. It’s hard to tell from the renderings if this can be pulled-off effectively. [abc 13 WLOS]
Two Brooklyn artists are selling their historic 11 bedroom, 5,000 square-foot-home (with wraparound deck and killer waterfront views) for the relatively low price of $1.25M. Here’s the catch: it’s an old ferry with an insane history. 11 very smart artists should form a coop and buy this immediately. It’s one way to survive gentrification and/or sea level rise in Red Hook. [Curbed]
Potsdam, just outside Berlin, is getting a private museum from billionaire Hasso Plattner. The star attraction at the new Museum Barberini is will be Edvard Munch’s “Girls on the Bridge,” which recently sold for $54.5m at Sotheby’s. It’s believed Plattner was the buyer. If you’re a Munch fan, you can see it starting January 23rd. [The Art Newspaper]