Sightings

Braase was an artist’s artist, known and respected among her peers, but like so many other women artists of her time she never achieved wider recognition. In recent years, however, her works have resurfaced and taken on renewed topicality at several artist- curated exhibitions. Still, she remains a relatively unknown figure. Now, SMK (The National Gallery of Denmark) seeks to remedy that situation. The museum is presenting an extensive solo exhibition of Ragna Braase’s works, comprising painting, graphic arts and textiles. more »

“Alexa is one more way for Amazon to gather extremely valuable data,” Meredith Whittaker, co-director of the A.I. Now Institute at NYU. “And this data collection is extremely important to this business model. It’s extremely hard to do … convincing people to just deploy something like this in their home is — it’s a brilliant trick.” It’s one that’s helping Amazon in a quest to dominate the future — not just of commerce, but also artificial intelligence. “Amazon wants to have the entire environment, essentially miked … All these intimacies, all this insight is being integrated, analyzed and integrated. That is an extraordinary kind of power that has never before existed.” more »

Nichola Gutgold writes: Elizabeth Warren during the CNN and Des Moines Register Democratic Debate in Iowa, Jan. 14, 2020: “I will do what a president can do all by herself on the very first day.” Amy Klobuchar in her closing statement at the same debate: “...if you want to do something about racial justice and immigration reform and climate change and gun safety, we need a candidate who is actually going to bring people with her.” With “her.” By “herself.” In a year of pronounced pronouns, the pronouns referring to a woman president are especially notable. more »

Six months before he died in poverty and obscurity, architect and draftsman Jean Jacques Lequeu (1757– 1826) donated more than 800 drawings, one of the most singular and fascinating graphic oeuvres of his time, to the French Royal Library. Lequeu’s donation of more than 800 architectural drawings, letters, manuscripts and physiognomic studies to the Royal Library in Paris created a paper legacy that has confounded scholars ever since. more »