Required Reading
This week: the Obama Center opens in Chicago, painting with Urdu script, glamour as protest, the woman who popularized astrology, an artist’s ode to pigeons, and more.
Critic Eileen G'Sell hasn't forgotten about the iconic anti-red carpet staged by Amazon workers to protest the Met Gala, and neither should you. For the Conversation, she writes about the complex history of glamour as resistance:
Contemporary painters in India are incorporating Urdu script into their art as widespread Islamophobia threatens its rich history, Shweta Upadhyay writes for the Scroll:
Mohammed Ahmed Wad Al Sak reports for In These Times on the young Sudanese women who are documenting and filming the ongoing violence in their homeland:
Reporter DaLyah Jones, an eighth-generation Black Texan, interviews landscape architect Diane Jones Allen for the Texas Observer about environmental justice and Black marronage in the state:
This 40-foot-tall effigy of Elon Musk is somehow more grotesque than the original. Activists raised the massive balloon over Times Square in a demonstration against Grok, Vittoria Elliott reports for Wired:
The Nation's John Nichols writes about Claire Valdez, a New York State Assembly member, union organizer, and artist — as Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara discovered — who's running for a seat in Congress on progressive values:
For the New Yorker, Rachel Syme reads a new biography of Linda Goodman, who popularized astrology in the United States (she walked so Co-Star could run):
Dr. Nasser Mohamed, the first Qatari man to publicly come out as gay, hosted a night of queer joy and music for Pride on June 13, the same day Qatar played its first World Cup match. Love Is You welcomed revelers to the San Francisco Mint, whose steps were emblazoned with the phrase in different languages:
A post shared by Nas Mohamed (@dr._nass)
Happy belated National Pigeon Day to all those who observe, myself included! The Public Domain Review shares a batch of Emil Schachtzabel's paintings of our feathered friends for the occasion:
Fake AI tech ads to add some humor to your subway commute:
A post shared by Harris Alterman (@theharrisalterman)
Required Reading is published every Thursday afternoon and comprises a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.