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Roundup: Protests at CalArts; Eli Broad’s museum; Robbie Conal at LAX

The Broad Museum announced that it will open in fall 2015. Founder Eli Broad, pictured, stands under designers Diller Scofidio + Renfro's intricate honeycomb ceiling during a preview in 2013.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Eli Broad’s museum is set to open next year, students protest sexual assault policies at CalArts, Detroit’s art collection survives another financial hurdle, rich people get a private dinner at the Sistine Chapel, and Marina Abramovic’s latest in New York. Plus: poster artist Robbie Conal takes on LAX, Eric Owen Moss takes on Culver City, and I take on one totally insane Korean music video. It’s the Roundup:

— Starting with the serious stuff: the Center for Investigative Reporting has a terrific story on human trafficking in the tech world … in comic book format.

CalArts students protest the university’s handling of a student’s rape allegation. The L.A. Times reported on the protest here.

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— Plus, moving on to the issue of university labor: Carol Cheh at Another Righteous Transfer reports on a gathering of Los Angeles academics, students and art workers to talk about the growing insecurity faced by poorly paid adjunct faculty.

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FOR THE RECORD

Oct. 31, 7:28 a.m.: An earlier version of this article stated that arts writer Carol Cheh reported on a meeting of art world figures discussing poorly paid adjunct positions. The author is Marco Franco DiDomenico.

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— The Detroit Institute of Arts’ collection looks like it will not be used to pay down civic debt after a last-minute deal was reached with one of Detroit’s largest holdout creditors during the city’s bankruptcy proceedings.

— L.A. artists Robbie Conal and Deborah Ross are unleashing a new art project — painted owls juxtaposed against drone imagery of Los Angeles — at LAX’s Terminal 6.

A private dinner held by Porsche at the Vatican reveals a two-tier cultural system, writes Peter Aspden in the Financial Times. One in which the rich get to see priceless works of art in relative comfort, while everyone else deals with the hordes. (Weisslink)

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— All those paintings of big-eyed children painted by Walter Keane? Well, they were actually made by his wife.

The film Jeff Koons doesn’t want you to see. (Somebody please please please screen this here in L.A.)

— Looks like the Broad museum is set to open in downtown L.A. next fall. Praying that the first show isn’t a pile o’ Koons.

— Speaking of which, Broad has acquired a totally creepy robot by artist Jordan Wolfson for his collection. (See the video embedded in this post.)

— And in other acquisitions news: the Getty Research Institute has picked up a trove of assemblage artist Joseph Cornell’s unpublished letters, many of which contained visual elements, and playful aspects, such as envelopes tucked within envelopes within envelopes.

— From the department of freshly discovered Caravaggios: an Italian art historian says that a painting of Mary Magdalene in ecstasy was painted by the master, while in an unrelated case, a collector is suing Sotheby’s for failing to identify the painting he sold as a Caravaggio.

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— Critic Ben Davis says that Marina Abramovic’s latest performance feels like “a corporate trust-building exercise.”

A New York Times review of a show by Chicago-based artist Michelle Grabner has generated controversy (more here) for the way in which the critic depicts Grabner and her work. (He describes her as a “soccer mom.”) Critic Mary Louise Schumacher, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has a considered response, talking about how understanding Grabner’s work is all about understanding her Midwestern context.

— More from the department of art and gender: two female artists in New York take on the persona of a fictional male painter named Brad Jones.

— As if architecture weren’t male enough, the juncture of architecture and technology remains a bastion of dudes: only 5% of technology directors at architecture firms are female, according to a 2013 survey. A big deal, since tech is a bigger and bigger part of what makes architecture happen.

— A look at how architect Eric Owen Moss (who is also SCI-Arc’s director) has helped change the face of Culver City. (@LAHistory)

— Industrialist Andrew Carnegie built more than 1,600 libraries across the U.S. (including 142 in California). Roughly 800 survive — and the structures often still serve important roles in American city centers.

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— Archaeologists are digging up Cecil B. DeMille’s set from “The Ten Commandments” outside of Santa Barbara.

— And lastly, your moment of totally ‘net art Korean music video.

Find me on the Twitterz @cmonstah.

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