Pink Sunsets and Crappy News

The planet isn’t fucked, we are. The planet will continue to exist long after we have made ourselves extinct.

— Victoria Woodhull (@vwoodhull938) August 9, 2021

 It's not hard at all to find upsetting news...

 READ: The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World: 2021 Edition

1. Osage Nation and Sale of Ancient Cave Art — In a society where everything is for sale for the highest bid, we got used to seeing prized cultural assets being moved carelessly to private hands. But a new bottom was reached when a historic Missouri cave containing Native American art from over 1,000 years ago was auctioned off to an unnamed buyer for $2.2 million in September. What’s also unsettling is that the cave was sold by a three-generation family whose members originally purchased the 43-acre property from private ownership in 1953 and used it mainly for hunting. In the words of the Osage Nation, which was outbid in the auction, this sale was “truly heartbreaking.”

Ancient Native American art inside Missouri’s Picture Cave (photo by Alan Cressler and courtesy of Selkirk Auctioneers & Appraisers)

 

2. Laid off workers from Arts orgs — In news that surprised no one, the country’s largest cultural institutions received over $1 billion combined in forgivable loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), but were quick to lay off workers at the first opportunity. A report by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) found that out of $1.6 billion given to about 7,500 cultural institutions that qualified for PPP loans, nearly half of the money ($771 million) went to just 228 recipients. These same 288 institutions collectively laid off more than 14,400 employees, or at least 28% of their workforce. Most affected were low-paid staff working in frontline services, education, maintenance, and security who never got their jobs back. 

 

I'm also reading 👇 A new app highlights the history behind ten disputed objects in the British Museum’s collection and explains why they should be repatriated. 

At least 710 Indigenous people, mostly girls, went missing in Wyoming from 2011 to 2020 according to a January report published by the state's Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Task Force. The vast majority, 85%, were kids, while 57% were female.  HERE

 

Why are some books $50+++ ???

The Paranormal in American Art

Edited by Robert Cozzolino

America is haunted. Ghosts from its violent history—the genocide of Indigenous peoples, slavery, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and traumatic wars—are an inescapable and unsettled part of the nation’s heritage. Not merely in the realm of metaphor but present and tangible, urgently calling for contact, these otherworldly visitors have been central to our national identity. Through times of mourning and trauma, artists have been integral to visualizing ghosts, whether national or personal, and in doing so have embraced the uncanny and the inexplicable. This stunning catalog, accompanying the first major exhibition to assess the spectral in American art, explores the numerous ways American artists have made sense of their own experiences of the paranormal and the supernatural, developing a rich visual culture of the intangible.

​Featuring artists from James McNeill Whistler and Kerry James Marshall to artist/mediums who made images with spirits during séances, this catalog covers more than two hundred years of the supernatural in American art. Here we find works that explore haunting, UFO sightings, and a broad range of experiential responses to other worldly contact.

 

 

 

 

My favorite HOPE: MUTUAL AID SOCIETY  Put simply—will mutual aid stick around in a "normal" world?

 

BYE BETTY - We will sure miss you

                                        MY PINK SUNSET TONITE:

 

outside my window: Greenfield Massachusetts 1/3/2022

 

Slightly enhanced, sunset over Mount Mansfield Vermont January 3, 2022, thank you Danny Pessa pic.twitter.com/30Psomb9B5

— Tim Kelley (@SurfSkiWeather) January 3, 2022