How many days of your life have been derailed by someone else’s fragile ego? How often have supposed “friends” brazenly taken your ideas? In this month’s Art Problems column, Paddy Johnson takes on an uncomfortable question: Why are there so many toxic people in the art world? Read her advice on how to shield yourself from insecure peers and bad-faith actors. We hope it helps.
On the subject of toxic behavior, President Trump has ordered content warning signs to be installed outside the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, in a move meant to alert the public to the institution’s alleged leftist bias.
“No other president has seen fit to vandalize taxpayer-funded museums with a billboard telling people not to go inside, while directing them to more politically ‘palatable’ — which is to say extreme right-wing — revisions of the historical record,” writes Ed Simon in a must-read opinion piece below.
Elsewhere this week, we bid farewell to two giants: assemblage artist Betye Saar, who died just four days before her 100th birthday, and performance artist Simone Forti, who died at 91. We mourn their deaths while honoring the enormous legacies they leave behind.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
