Antony Gormley’s beach statues subject of ‘trans hatred’ sticker protest Women’s rights group Liverpool ReSisters has said the stickers are aimed at raising awareness of ‘the potential threat to sex-based rights and women’s rights’ from proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. The group argues against the right to ‘self-identify’ as a woman.
It posted a tweet on Twitter that said: “1,000 statues, all men. Women don’t have penises”. An accompanying picture showed a phallus-shaped sticker stuck on the genitalia of one of the 100 statues on Crosby beach that make up Gormley’s Another Place installation.
1,000 statues, all men. Women don’t have penises. #StickerWoman #NoToSelfID #sexmatters pic.twitter.com/HxUVUM6Rv1
— @LiverpoolReSisters (@LiverpoolReSis1) August 18, 2018
The move was condemned by a coalition of women’s groups that includes Big Love Sista, the Homeless Period Project, Grrrl Power Liverpool and the Liverpool Queer Collective. As the Guardian reports, they have released an open statement addressed to ‘our trans siblings’. The groups said: “In our city there’s no room for hate against trans people. We condemn the behaviour, hate and transphobia of Liverpool Re-sisters. We condemn their appalling stickers and we absolutely will not tolerate transphobia in our city.”
Joe Anderson, Liverpool’s mayor, tweeted: “Liverpool takes #PRIDE in its diversity and history of fighting for equality for all, we love all our Trans residents and all our LGBT community.” He has vowed to remove the stickers and “work with the police to identify those responsible”.
MoMA reaches contract agreement with staff following union protests The new five-year contract will include a 3% increase in wages, updated health care benefits, and a ‘seniority step program’ that offers a raise for employees after a certain period of time. There will also be ‘paid family leave, tuition benefits, and commissions for employees’.
As Artforum reports, Maida Rosenstein, president of United Auto Workers Local 2110, which represents around 250 employees, commented: “We attribute the museum’s retractions in no small part to the dedicated efforts and perseverance of our members, who have spent months volunteering their time to our activism and turning out in record numbers to participate in collective actions, as well as to the resounding vocal support from our colleagues, friends, and the public at large.”
MoMA had previously responded to the stand off by saying: “MoMA’s extraordinary staff are the best in the world. We are committed to working with the Local 2110 to reach an agreement that will keep our community of dedicated staff and the museum on a path of financial stability and future growth.”
Queer art show reopens in Rio de Janeiro to record-breaking crowds following crowdfunding campaign The show, which is entitled ‘Queermuseu’, includes work by artists Lygia Clark and Adriana Varejão. It was removed from the Santander Cultural Center in Porto Alegre last year, with a number of Brazilian artists and art professionals complaining in an open letter of “the rise of hate, intolerance and violence against freedom of expression in the arts and education” in the country.
In response, a crowdfunding campaign was launched to relocate the show. Its original target of $5,600 was smashed, with the total eventually topping more than one million reals, or $250,000.
264 works are now on display at Rio’s private School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage. Gaudencio Fidelis, the show’s curator, has called the show’s success a “celebration of democracy and resistance in face of the fast growing fundamentalism and fascism”.
Okwui Enwezor criticises Haus der Kunst after museum blames him for its financial woes Former artistic director of the Munich institution has defended his conduct after the museum accused him of financial mismanagement. An exhibition of work by the experimental video and performance artist Joan Jonas that was due to open in November was recently cancelled, with the institution citing ‘a difficult financial situation stemming from management errors of the past’.
According to the Art Newspaper, Enwezor has denied responsibility, saying reading the statement was “for me, one of the most shocking things in my professional experience”.
Enwezor left his role at Haus der Kunst in late 2017 due to ill health. He said: “There was nothing wrong with the finances of Haus der Kunst up to the end of 2017. I am very proud of the work we did. To run an institution, you need not only financial support, but also moral support, and we have done a lot without either. I am shocked but not surprised that the enormous amount of work I did in Munich with a lot of sacrifice on a lot of levels should be besmirched.”
However, explaining the reasons for its current financial problems, Bernhard Spies, the museum’s commercial director, blamed Enwezor’s ambitious exhibition programme. He said: “Mr Enwezor was ill for the past two years, and there were management mistakes made before and after. It was a long process. For a long time, expenditure exceeded income, and, at some point, that is no good. The subsidy is enough to maintain the house, to pay the staff and to have regular exhibitions. It is not enough to have a programme like the one planned for this year.”
Man requires hospital treatment after falling in Anish Kapoor ‘depthless void’ installation Installation Descent into Limbo at the Fundação de Serralves, Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, features a 2.5m deep hole, the sides of which are coated in black pigment that give the illusion of a depthless void.
A spokesman for the museum said the visitor was “OK and almost ready to return home. Security protocol was followed”.
Cultural visits continue to fall due to terrorism fears Visit England has said that visits by children to English attractions fell by 7% last year, with London-based galleries amongst those hardest hit. As Arts Professional reports, the figures are based on survey responses from 1,400 English visitor attractions, including major London institutions such as Tate Modern and the National Gallery as well as smaller regional venues.
Visits to museums and art galleries fell for the second year in a row, dropping by 1% both last year and in 2016. This was largely driven by those based in London, who saw a 4% drop in visitor numbers in 2017. In addition, the number of overseas tourists visiting museums and art galleries also fell significantly last year, dropping by 11%.
Image:
1. Antony Gormley, Another Time, 2017. Photo: Stephen White
2. Okwui Enwezor. Photo: Andreas Gebert, 2011
More on a-n.co.uk:
Liverpool Biennial work listing names of dead refugees and migrants destroyed for a second time
National Gallery tribunal campaign: “Artists and educators deserve to be valued and treated fairly”
Artists and mental health: a conversation that needs to get louder
