Wu’s Cut to Arts & Culture Budget Reveals History of Underinvestment and Leaves Programs in Limbo - Boston Art Review

Allegations of “Amazon-style” working conditions and calls for pay raises prompted unionized workers to authorize yet another strike at the UK museum network. V&A unionized staff picketed outside the V&A South Kensington late last September as negotiations remain ongoing. (all photos courtesy Prospect Union)

For the last decade, our good friend and collaborator Jeroen Smeets of The Jaunt, has facilitated journeys for artists to some of the most far-flung places on Earth as part of week-long residencies in destinations of their choosing. Building on the limitless inspiration of travel and seeking to grow The Jaunt community, Smeets first hosted a Winter Camp in 2024 that invited four artists to spend time together in close quarters, hemmed in by winter weather and providing a welcome respite for the cross pollination of ideas, art, food, stories, and adventures. For the third iteration of Winter Camp, Joy Machine and The Jaunt teamed up to bring four artists from balmy California, to the frigid tundra of the Midwest, subjecting them to a proper winter for the first time in their lives with frozen lakes, sledding, snowballs, and temperatures reaching a sublime 4 degrees Fahrenheit. The destination? The historic and picturesque Camp Wandawega, located just a short trek north of Chicago in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.

kenko’s tiny pieni III camera captures lo-fi photos without a screenJapanese photography brand Kenko Tokina has released the Pieni III, a tiny digital camera that weighs just 18 grams and hangs around the neck like a pendant. Measuring 53 millimeters (2 inches) wide, the working camera is small enough to fit between two fingers, with a familiar silver top and circular lens that recall the proportions of an old film camera. It arrives in four colors, including pastel pink Strawberry and pale blue Soda, alongside Milk and Black. The Pieni III also has a curious omission. There is no screen or viewfinder, and thus leaves photographers to point the lens toward a subject and press the shutter without seeing exactly what they’re capturing. The images remain a mystery until they’re transferred to another device. A subject might drift toward the edge of the frame, or an unexpected detail could make its way into the shot.

With a career spanning 60 years, James Gibson was a revered Tennessee teacher and sculptor. Today, over 240 sculptures from his estate are available to collectors for purchase. It’s hard to miss a sculpture by James Gibson, whose numerous and often massive works can be characterized by blocky abstracted, yet continuous forms, constructed in either wood or metal, sometimes both. Though Gibson is known for his extensive oeuvre of more than 600 sculptures, he also had a rich 60-year career as a college art professor in the American South.

In an interview conducted earlier this month, after the first large-scale demonstrations in Paris, Jenny Holzer addressed the protests that have continued to roil the city in the weeks since. “It’s gruesome that kids have to fight for a better education or for teachers to be paid properly, for their schools to be clean,” the artist told T: The New York Times Style Magazine. “I worry about the kids’ safety.” The occasion for the interview was Holzer’s solo show at Musée d’Orsay, which includes an LED panel work that bears a message penned by the French writer Émile Zola in 1860: “I think of the future and see it so dark, so dark that I shrink back terrified.”

The intervention is responding to the university’s recent $3 million investment in more than 500 new AI-integrated campus surveillance cameras. A bedazzled surveillance camera on MIT's campus (all photos by and courtesy Claudia Tomateo, unless otherwise noted)