Hyperallergic

[Hyperallergic]

The centerpiece of Chitra Ganesh’s new exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, a mural that depicts the Hindu goddess Kali, has provoked the ire of the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism (USH). What is the Universal Society of Hinduism, you ask? Hard to say, as its website is currently down, and no posts have ever been published on its blog, but its Nevada-based president, Rajan Zed, keeps a very active website that describes the USH as a “nondenominational religious-philosophical-cultural-educational organization [that] aims at reaching about one billion Hindus spread around the world.” One of the most recent press releases on Zed’s site is titled “Upset Hindus urge withdrawal of goddess Kali mural from Brooklyn Museum.”

READ MORE

[Hyperallergic]

Agitprop! ought to be an outstanding exhibition of politically engaged art. A feverish amalgam of historic and contemporary artwork, the exhibition is undermined by an ambitious but poorly executed curatorial strategy.

Brooklyn Museum’s Activist Art Show Is a Messy Collision of Curation and Politics

[Hyperallergic]

Coney Island has a history as dizzying as any of the roller coasters, carousels, sideshows, and other frenetic attractions that have operated on its piece of Brooklyn shore. Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008, organized and originally staged at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Connecticut and now on view at the Brooklyn Museum, focuses on the artists who have been inspired by Coney Island over the past 150 years. Whether we’re looking at 19th-century Impressionistic vistas by John Henry Twachtman and William Meritt Chase of the seaside landscape, interrupted by a 300-foot tower for a steam elevator; an elephant-shaped hotel; or the anonymously created Cyclops head from the 1950s that once ogled its eye from the Spook-A-Rama, there’s a shared fantasy that’s both tantalizing and trepidatious. From nearly the beginning, Coney Island was a New York City escape of both dreams and nightmares.

Thrills, Fantasy, and Nightmares in 150 Years of Art Inspired by Coney Island

[Hyperallergic]

The current exhibition of paintings by Francisco Oller at the Brooklyn Museum, Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World, is a provocative and difficult show — a collision of curatorial strategies and recalcitrant artwork that defies the interpretive armature.

Fashioning an Identity for a Puerto Rican Painter on the Cusp of Modernism

[Hyperallergic]

“Gentrification in progress,” read the tape, its black type printed on yellow strips as all good warnings are. The tape was wrapped repeatedly around a group of trees in front of the Brooklyn Museum, forming a barrier that greeted anyone emerging from the Eastern Parkway subway stop. People clustered near the tape, holding signs similarly printed in black-on-yellow: “Housing for All,” “Foreclose on Developers Not People,” “DoubleCrossing Brooklyn.”

Decrying Real Estate Summit, Artists Stage Demonstration Outside Brooklyn Museum

[Hyperallergic]

More than 100 activists and artists affiliated with community groups from throughout the city gathered at the Brooklyn Museum this morning to protest its hosting of the 2015 Brooklyn Real Estate Summit. Beginning at 7:30am, protesters were stationed at the Washington Avenue entrance to the museum’s parking lot — through which most summit attendees and speakers arrived — and on Eastern Parkway in front of the museum.

Anti-Gentrification Activists Protest Real Estate Summit at Brooklyn Museum

[Hyperallergic]

On November 17, the Brooklyn Museum will host the sixth annual Brooklyn Real Estate Summit, a gathering of more than 600 of the biggest players in Brooklyn’s real estate market who will seek to answer questions including “Which emerging areas are primed for transformation?” and “How can investors take advantage of demographic changes?” Now, less than two weeks before the event, the museum is facing growing backlash from those who find the decision by an arts institution to rent its space to those who contribute to mass displacement within NYC neighborhoods — including those of artist communities, as recent events have emphasized — hypocritical and reprehensible.

Artists Denounce Brooklyn Museum for Hosting Real Estate Summit

[Hyperallergic]

The Brooklyn Museum today became the first in the US to host a public collection point for Legos to send to Ai Weiwei, joining a number of major museums around the world in showing solidarity for the Chinese dissident artist. This morning, a white BMW was parked in front of the museum’s main entrance and, just a few hours later, it was already filled with colorful bricks, courtesy of staff members who were the first to pour in boxes of the plastic toys through the car’s sunroof. The car will remain there through November 29, as the museum, which exhibited his traveling retrospective last year, stated.

Ai Weiwei Collects Lego Blocks by the Beemer-Load at Brooklyn Museum

[Hyperallergic]

Everyone discovers a new pair of sneakers from a different angle.

For the Love of Sneakers

[Hyperallergic]

Those familiar with the artwork of Jean-Michel Basquiat will agree that he is a writer. Language and text factor heavily in all his work, evidenced by the early graffiti pieces (done under the pseudonym SAMO) that launched his career. The Unknown Notebooks, on view at the Brooklyn Museum, features the pages of eight of his notebooks lining the gallery walls in vitrines and frames.

An Intimate Reading of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Poetry