What We're Reading: 8/2/23
Company behind 'immersive' Van Gogh exhibitions files for bankruptcy
Lighthouse Immersive, a Toronto-based company best known for its travelling Vincent van Gogh exhibition—in which large-scale reproductions of the Dutch artists' works are projected over gallery walls and floors—filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in Delaware last week, according to court documents obtained by Bloomberg News.
The company, which purports to have sold 7 million tickets to exhibitions in 18 cities across North America, has also designed displays featuring art by Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt and Frida Kahlo, as well as Disney animations. The filing protects the company’s US assets while insolvency proceedings continue in Canada.
Via The Art Newspaper
How South Side Kids Are Using Art To Fight For Climate Justice
As the climate crisis sweeps the earth with wildfires, rising temperatures and hazy skies, a local art program is taking inspiration from an Afrofuturist author’s works to guide the next generation of environmental leaders.
Hours after an erratic storm thundered through Chicago, swarms of 6-year-olds made Hamilton Park, 513 W. 72nd St., their playground on a recent afternoon.
Clay formations molded with sticks of cinnamon, grass, leaves and berries dried on the ground near their feet as they played games and colored a park flag in vibrant colors.
The chaos — and the fun — is a typical day for children at the Young Cultural Stewards and ArtSeed program, a Park District initiative for youth ages 5-15 that blends nature and the arts to teach local children about climate and racial justice.
Via Block Club Chicago
Late in June, art dealer Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels opened the latest iteration of her roving art space, We Buy Gold, with an excellent show featuring both emerging artists like Nandi Loaf and legends like Kerry James Marshall and David Hammons.
Titled “SEVEN,” the latest version of We Buy Gold takes the form of two-venue show spread across two galleries in New York’s Chelsea district: Nicola Vassell Gallery and Jack Shainman Gallery, where Bellorado-Samuels serves as director.
We Buy Gold is a roving project space launched in 2017 that has presented exhibitions, commissioned projects, and held public events that broadly dissect and deconstruct systems of power through art. This latest iteration explores the ways that artists “disrupt the politics of space, time, and language to constitute another world,” according to a description for the show.
Via ARTnews