Reading list for 2 April 2016

Judith H. Dobrzynski is outraged by the Indianapolis Museum of Art doing online market research (similar to surveys Te Papa regularly undertakes) about potential future exhibitions. over market research. A local journalist follows up with the IMA, where staff talk about 'guest satisfaction' (the museum has recently re-introduced charged entry and limited free access to its extensive grounds). In case we're worried she's a fuddy-duddy, Dobrzynski points to an online survey being run by the RA in London that she can get behind.

"this exercise of discretion ... reasserts his status as a radical". Holland Cotter in the NYT on the current Robert Mapplethorpe shows at LACMA and The Getty.

Hilarie M. Sheets in the NYT on The Resurgence of Women-Only Art Shows. American art critic Tyler Green responded on Twitter that a focus on woman-only shows removes female artists from the wider context of contemporary practice and of art history, and pointed to this 2015 podcast (which is lined up for my weekend listening).

Scouring the Internet for something subversive to cover for our “arty dirtbag” readership, I happened across a newly-published coffee table book, 1968: Radical Italian Design, which collected photos of a number of garish pieces of impractical-looking furniture. Since strange furniture always gets the clicks, the book made for a perfect post. It was doubly improved by the fact that the furniture in question was so unequivocally terrible.

So hard to tell if this is satire: The Declining Taste of the Global Super-Rich.

And also part of the so-hard-to-tell files: "Using a unique auction dataset from artinfo.com, we find that narcissism measured by the signatures of artists is positively associated with the market performance of artworks." The Art of Narcissists Earns More at Auction, Researchers Claim.