Tariq Abdus-Sabur’s Post

For December, RECORD surveys a quartet of cultural projects that artfully navigate deep-rooted histories, socio-economic divides, and complex sites. They include a minimalist modern art museum situated in the fraught civic heart of an Eastern European capital city; an inviting expansion of a Southern Californian natural history museum that embraces the surrounding community; a performing arts complex realized (on a strict budget) as part of a larger reimagining of a sleepy industrial town in northern Italy; and a National Park Service-administered interpretive center—located deep within the rugged terrain of Maine’s Penobscot Nation—designed to foreground Indigenous sensibilities.⁠ ⁠ Elsewhere in the issue, we profile a burgeoning housing development in St. Louis’s arts district, a reimagined public garden outside of Philadelphia, and a nature-inspired hotel tower near the Denver Art Museum. The major capital projects underway at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art are the subject of this month’s CEU and we reveal the winners of our annual Products of the Year competition.⁠ ⁠ Read more from this month's Culture section here: https://lnkd.in/gWTcM4VH ⁠ Pictured: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw by Thomas Phifer and Partners 📸 © Nate Cook

🎉 Excited to announce our partnership with Conserv, bringing early water leak detection to cultural heritage sites. Together, we’re working to protect historic buildings and priceless collections for the future. 🤝 Water leaks are more than a financial issue - they threaten the loss of irreplaceable artifacts. This partnership is a step forward in preserving our cultural treasures. Looking forward to working with Dave Masom, Claire Winfield, Melissa King and the team! #Innovation #Sustainability #CulturalHeritage #Preservation

“Whether you’re eight or eighty, you want your world to work for you.” This quote from the “Unlimited by Design” exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York encapsulates the spirit of universal design. The same conditions for everyone, no matter their age, rather than special solutions for the select few. But what is behind the term “universal design”? How does the approach, which is at once both innovative and universal, address the challenges of demographic change? Read More at https://lnkd.in/gk8mxavQ

In the spirit of “sharpening the saw”, I participated in a Design Thinking DC field session for the National Museum of American History this week. Question: How might we create a more inviting and engaging Constitution Ave entrance? So great to flex my DT muscles IRL with creative designers! #designthinking #smithsonian #creativity #brainstorming #prototyping

“Whether you’re eight or eighty, you want your world to work for you.” This quote from the “Unlimited by Design” exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York encapsulates the spirit of universal design. The same conditions for everyone, no matter their age, rather than special solutions for the select few. But what is behind the term “universal design”? How does the approach, which is at once both #innovative and universal, address the challenges of demographic change? Read more at https://lnkd.in/g4NCaG_q

We are honored to be part of the team working on Ferris State University's new Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery, the first of its kind. This $22 million, 26,000-square-foot facility will house over 30,000 artifacts, serving as a powerful space to confront America’s history of racism and celebrate resilience and resistance. Reflecting Ferris State’s longstanding commitment to equity and sustainability, the museum will also embody environmentally conscious design, ensuring its impact extends to future generations. Set to open in Fall 2026, this transformative project will educate and inspire visitors, students, and policymakers from across the nation. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gs3WmUPk #FSU #JimCrowMuseum #FerrisStateUniversity #catalystpartners #sustainability

For the 1969 “What Is Design?” exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Charles Eames drew a diagram to represent the design process in terms of interested parties—the client, the designer, and society as a whole. Llisa Demetrios, Chief Curator of Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity and granddaughter of Charles and Ray Eames, explains how their focus was always on the areas of overlapping interests. Eames Institute is a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the work of Charles and Ray Eames and responsible for stewarding the Eames Archives in Richmond, California, containing thousands of artifacts from the Eames collection, Eames Office archives, and elsewhere. © Eames Office | All rights reserved.

The Textile Museum Journal, volume 51 is now available through https://lnkd.in/eehg8dBa or https://lnkd.in/eWJn8VbF Guest edited by Dr. Myriem Naji, with Dorothy Armstrong, Jonathan Cleaver, Ludovica Matarozzo, and Anna Portisch, The Textile Museum Journal’s 51st volume goes beyond the classical canon of “Oriental” carpets developed in the West from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. They examine less-studied sites of carpet weaving, and highlight diverse analytical methods including immersive fieldwork, the impact of technologies, the participation of carpets at inflection points in global history, and the practice of contemporary weavers

“The ‘modern’ in American Art is, more often than not, multiple contemporaneous moderns, different expressions of the modern with distinct sources and intentions. But whatever their differences, each expression was made possible by changing perceptions of what constituted art, the forms it could take, and how and by whom it might be created. This shared foundation is the focus of this year’s conference.” –IAC President Lisa Koenigsberg on Multiple Modernities, Initiatives in Art and Culture’s 28th Annual American Arts Conference. Targeted to collectors, gallerists, museum professionals, and academics/anyone interested in exploring American Art, the conference will explore artists such as Mary Cassatt, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe, Beatrice Wood, Ben Shahn, and Man Ray, specific approaches and contributions to the modern by Black and Indigenous artists, and the dynamic interplay of different regional expressions of the modern in the 20th century. About IAC’s American Art conference, Marty O’Brien, president of the O’Brien Art Foundation, observed: “I have been attending for 25 years. The networking at this longstanding event is invaluable and there is really no other forum out there devoted exclusively to American art.” Each conference, he added, “is a unique, deep dive into an entirely different facet” of American Art. The conference will be held at Heritage Auctions’ newly expanded Park Avenue Gallery. Explained Aviva Lehmann, Heritage Auctions’ Senior Vice President, American Art, New York, “Heritage Auctions, the largest auction house founded in the US, believes deeply in the significance and value of American Art, and we are thrilled to be hosting the conference. American Art has been, and continues to be, uniquely modern and at Heritage, we delight in this notion.” #initiativesinartandculture #nycevents #americanmodernart #beauforddelaney #georgiaokeeffe #benshahn