Rashid Johnson. "Triple Consciousness," 2009. Courtesy MCA Chicago. Collection of Dr. Daniel S. Berger, Chicago.
In this week’s roundup, Rashid Johnson was on the diamond, Lynda Benglis to be featured at Boston RAW, Kalup Linzy pays tribute to Cindy Sherman, and more.
- Rashid Johnson threw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field before the Cubs-Brewers game last Thursday. This was tied to the opening of his new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago. Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks explores the complexities and contradictions of black identity, rooted in his individual experience, through photographs, sculptures, videos, installations, and paintings. This work is on view through August 5.
- A film clip from a still-in-progress documentary on Lynda Benglis will be previewed at Boston RAW Menagerie a day before Benglis’s segment from Season 6 of Art in the Twenty-First Century broadcasts on PBS. RAW directors select and spotlight local artistic talent in film, fashion, music, visual art, hair and makeup artistry, and performance art. Including artists from all genres in each showcase, RAW events come together to form an amazing one-night circus of creativity. This week’s showcase takes place on April 19; Benglis’s Art in the Twenty-First Century episode airs Friday April 20.
- Lynda Benglis and Kara Walker were newly elected by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The annual induction and award ceremony will take place in mid-May. An exhibition of art, architecture, books, and manuscripts by new members will be on view in the Academy’s galleries from May 17 to June 10.
- Ursula von Rydingsvard will be lecturing on April 21 at Florida International University. The Green Critics’ Lecture Series with Ursula von Rydingsvard will introduce Rydingsvard to the South Florida community. Her traveling exhibition Ursula von Rydingsvard: Sculpture will be open to the public at the Frost Art Museum from April 21 – August 5.
- Kalup Linzy performed a tribute to Cindy Sherman to the tune of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Linzy recounts his earliest encounters with Sherman’s work as an undergraduate student, and her role in getting him a grant. The exhibition Cindy Sherman is now on view at MoMA (NYC) in conjunction with the film exhibition Carte Blanche: Cindy Sherman, through June 11.
[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=aHca3G3liYc]
- Barry McGee is one of twenty-six artists featured by SFMOMA (San Francisco) for the Google Art Project that provides Internet access to high-resolution images of selected paintings, sculptures and photographs from museum and gallery collections around the world. Twenty-nine of the partners, in sixteen cities, are in the United States, with four of those just added in California.