COURTESY THE ARTIST
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Lives
The experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer has died at age 79. During the last years of her life, the artist was an advocate for people’s right to die; she once said, “there is a general fear of talking about death in the Western world. It is as if by not mentioning and discussing it, it would go away.” [ARTnews]
W. S. Merwin, the United States poet laureate from 2010 to 2011 and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, died on Friday at age 91. [The New York Times]
Exhibitions
In a review of David Hockney’s current exhibition at L.A. Louver, a gallery in Venice, California, Leah Ollman writes, “I may have never enjoyed Hockney’s paintings more. I know I’ve never appreciated his photographs less.” [Los Angeles Times]
A show at the Midlands Art Centre in England revives the 1979 Handsworth Self Portrait project, which is named for a Birmingham suburb and involved a pop-up photography studio where locals snapped photos of themselves. [BBC]
A piece on Hilma af Klint and the Guggenheim’s robust presentation of her work, which continues through April 23. Susan Tallman presents important questions about the show as it relates to af Klint’s biography and artistic aims, including this one: “To what degree does celebrating these things as works of art, and celebrating af Klint as their creator, invalidate everything she was hoping to achieve?” [The New York Review of Books]
Archives
The Lou Reed Archive, which includes photographs, notes, and more than 600 hours of recordings, has opened at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. [The New York Times]
Construction & Restoration
A new mosque in Cambridge, England, designed by the architects of the London Eye, will open in the coming weeks. [The Guardian]
Following a three-year-long, £12 million restoration, Pitzhanger Manor, the architect Sir John Soane’s west London home, reopened to the public this weekend. [The Art Newspaper]
And more
The Vessel, an “interactive sculpture” at the center of New York’s hotly contested real estate development Hudson Yards, has opened to the public. Some have compared the structure’s appearance to that of a doner kebab. [Architectural Digest]
And lastly, a sampling of some of the most artful manhole covers around Japan. [Atlas Obscura]