The Morgan Library and Museum is showing tarot decks from the Renaissance through the ages in an exhibition called How Tarot Survived for 500 Years. The show, according to a review by critic AX Mina, traces how a card game became something more powerful over centuries of shifting systems of power.
Mina, who describes themself as a tarot reader, considers how deck designers have responded to those systems to give us tools to overcome them. The exhibition includes some of the oldest surviving tarot decks, per Mina’s write-up.
Mina on Tarot Through the Ages
Mina’s review focuses on the designers who have shaped the tarot cards on view. The show is at the Morgan Library and Museum, where Mina says the tarot cards have been arranged to show how a Renaissance card game became something far more powerful.
The format is straightforward: Mina reviews the exhibition and describes its contents, including the oldest surviving decks.
Protest Outside MoMA
Outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York, protesters are calling for the removal of billionaire Leon Black from the museum board. The demonstration is part of a broader push for MoMA to distance itself from Black.
The protest is described as active, with people in front of the museum.
Michelson’s 25-Day Dance
Dancer Sarah Michelson is currently performing a 25-day dance at MoMA. The piece, described by Amit Noy as meta, is not about dance itself so much as a lifetime of collaborating with dancers.
The performance runs for a month.
Art Shows in the Bay Area
A guide to Bay Area art shows this fall covers a range of exhibitions, from Dread Scott’s body politic to surveys of Dewey Crumpler and Irving Norman. The guide also includes Azzedine Alaïa’s sculptural garments.
The guide is titled “10 Art Shows to See in the Bay Area This Fall.”
Chicago’s Return of a Cubist Painting
The Art Institute of Chicago is returning a Cubist painting by artist Jean Metzinger to the family of the late art collector Emanuel Lewenstein. The work was looted by the Nazis.
The return is part of a broader pattern of museums brokering the return of looted art.
New York’s Plumber Artist Test
Paddy Johnson’s new edition of Art Problems addresses the shame many artists feel about holding day jobs to pay the bills. The underlying issue, Johnson writes, is the classism that suffuses the commercial art world.
Johnson’s column is titled “If I Have a Day Job, Am I a Real Artist?”
The column draws a parallel between plumbing and art, noting that plumbing comes with apprenticeships and licenses while art comes with neither reliable pay nor certification.
Plumbing pays reliably. It also comes with an apprenticeship and a license. Art has no equivalent.
That is the news.
Source material: “How Tarot Survived for 500 Years,” Hyperallergic.
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