A SIGNIFICANT POP CULTURE MOMENT

Thank you. Thank you Universe for the happiest of distractions, from your on-going maelstrom upon humanity and my fragile psyche.

And thank you to Universal Studios for taking a risk on aging Steven Spielberg to let him direct once again. And for letting him pick the amazing actors. And for exhibiting the film on a big movie screen.

We think Steven is going to give all of us a great gift next summer. Maybe even a significant moment in the History of Our Pop Culture, just when we need it most.

Don't listen to me. Click Here and see for yourself. We present the first trailer for Steven Spielberg's "Disclosure Day."

[Editor's Note: I am sorely disturbed by the shocking final shot. Surely, alien heaven or transcendence won't look like a Thomas Kinkade painting, will it?]

Art Report Today .com

THIS WEEK IN THE ARTS

In breaking news, the once prestigious Academy Awards will now be broadcast on YouTube, beginning in 2029. Before you yawn, this is significant.

It is odd to call YouTube an upstart. Today, the channel is as tentacled and manipulative as the old Fourth Estate ever was, but it still looks fresh and smells like the future.

Objectively, we can look at greater opportunity for the little guy armed with imagination, an iPhone and a little bit of software. And very rich parents.

It all adds up. After years in the trenches, hard working artist Math Bass can type a new acquisition onto their CV. Or just let Susanne do it. The Vielmetter nest has been the Bass home ever since the artist first popped up on our radar a while ago.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles is the new owner of the Math sculpture 'Full Body Parentheses.' Click Here to see to see the work.

I see a work of artist David Schrigley every day, for it is a feature of an exclusive daily newsletter, which I feel privileged to receive. I am very glad to be on the mailing list, which has a limited circulation. The publisher, editor and curator of 'Old News' is the LA-based artist Jeff Weiss. If he gave a thumbs-up to Shrigley, then I want to know more.

Shrigley is easiest known for his fun, colorful and often pithy text paintings on paper, created fast and loose. (Every artist's envy.) But that is just one body of work for this busy and prolific British artist.

In today's issue of Sunday Lounge!, we provide a closer look at David Schrigley.

Speaking of MOCA, they are planning a definitive show opening in February 2027, of a very fine group of interesting art makers, most who faced some very distressing environmental influences in their lifetime. Great beauty in the sadness. "Afterlives: Japanese American Artists and the Postwar Era."

I can't wait to see the show, like this Chiura Obata watercolor. Click Here to look at the small detail in the lower right. It's not a circus in town.

Art Report Today .com

SAY IT AIN'T SO

I was zooming with a globe-trotting friend who has an instinct for the arts, yet that world is very new to him.

He had digested the news from last week's Basel Miami when he gladly chirped up, "You must be happy. The art economy is booming. Through the roof."

His cookie was stale. Suddenly the chronic anxiety of 'things you can't control' darkened my mind. I had to kick that good cheer to the gutter.

I leaned into the screen, "My friend, the recap coverage of art fairs has always sang the same cheery tune. Blue skies and blue chip record breakers. Greenbacks raining from heaven. Since the contemporary art fair was first invented in 1967, I think they've run the same recap article and just changed the date and the author."

I sure hate popping dream bubbles. Sometimes it's the only true, and kind, thing to do. Happy Holidays.

Art Report Today .com