“How to Steal From the British Museum: A Brazilian Artist’s Guide” by Oliver Basciano #ArtReview
“On 18 June, a little before lunch, a young Brazilian man with a thick beard walked into Room 68 of the British Museum and stole an ancient coin. Artist Ilê Sartuzi had planned his heist meticulously, staking out the display of seventeenth-century currency over twenty visits spread out over months, identifying the English Civil War-era silver coin that he would take and commissioning an exact replica. Carefully, he mapped the shift patterns of the volunteers who staffed the museum’s ‘collection handling sessions’ in which visitors can hold objects. He practised the sleight of hand that he would deploy, the fake coin pressed into the palm of one hand, fingers slightly bent over as a shield.”
"Is It Possible to Decolonise a Biennial?" by Manuel Borja-Villel #ArtReview
"Operating under the title Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th Venice Biennale promises to be both inclusive and a gesture towards decolonising one of the world’s foremost largescale exhibitions. But is it possible to decolonise a biennial? Can a decolonising discourse radically transform the institution?"
" I am quite sure that the Venice Biennale will grant visibility to some narratives that have been unjustly silenced, if not repressed. Nevertheless, if the people who produced those narratives are denied the possibility of creating their own frames of reference and cannot determine their own forms of governance, then Foreigners Everywhere will remain once more an empty gesture. Decolonisation is a two-way street."
"The Most Important Network of Art Institutions that You’ve Never Heard of" by Jason Waite (ArtReview).
"Arts Collaboratory is a network of 25 art spaces, mainly from the Global South, including Raw Material Company, Dakar; Kunci, Yogyakarta; Lugar a dudas, Cali; Ashkal Alwan, Beirut; ruangrupa, Jakarta; and Cooperativa Cráter Invertido, Mexico City, among others. It started in 2007 as more of a traditional art network like the long-running Triangle Network, begun in 1982 and with partnerships in 40 countries, only with the difference that its initiators, the Dutch NGOs DOEN Foundation and Hivos and the publicly funded Mondriaan Fund, provided financial support for the art institutions while wanting to ease bureaucracy for their grantees, provide a platform for them to exchange knowledge and foster South-South art institutional connections."