Roundup: Cosby and the Smithsonian, a Dick Cheney statue, the Union Station of the future

Art, the wealthy and their many tax deductions. Union Station re-imagined. Unraveling the relationship between the Smithsonian and Bill Cosby. Plus: a Dick Cheney statue, a Hunger Games theme park, and the general heinousness of the new British passport. Here’s the Roundup:

— Artists, start your jockeying: the Whitney Museum names curators for the next Biennial, in 2017.

— An essential piece by Jori Finkel in the Art Newspaper looks at the way wealthy art donors use tax write-offs to their benefit, Eli Broad included: “The biggest question of all, considering the money that the US government is forfeiting by making tax exemptions for foundations, do we really find these charitable causes worthwhile?” Good question.

Members of the media tour the Bill and Camille Cosby collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibition has been embroiled in controversy since it first launched last year.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

— A must-read piece from Times critic Christopher Knight on how the National Museum of African Art has hurt itself with the exhibition of Bill Cosby’s collection.

— Speaking of hurt: There is a Dick Cheney statue in the works. This is the kind of stuff Congress works on while not passing a budget.

— Glad to see the art industry making the world safe for condos: In New York, an art party in the Bronx plays on the neighborhood’s history of blight — for the benefit of a developer. (More here.) Related: The Brooklyn Museum is renting out its facilities for a real estate summit.

— Stanford University’s Cantor center will show a rare suite of drawings depicting the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Red Horse, a Lakota Sioux chief who was there. This looks like it will be an eye-opener.

— “Status Update,” an upcoming photographic exhibition at SOMArts in San Francisco looks at the city and its people in the wake of the tech boom — and the ways in which some residents have struggled to hold on as the cost of living has spiraled out of control.

— In Milwaukee, a city that is nearly half black, architectural renderings are pretty much lily white. This is a curious way of envisioning the future of a city.

— Things you will find in Republican candidate Ben Carson’s house: awards, photos and a truly awesome painting of Carson hanging out with Jesus. Also, ICYMI, Carson thinks the pyramids were massive grain silos. Curiouser and curiouser.

— How an Instagram account became an archive of 1990s Chicano life in L.A.

— Another painting by Francisco de Zurbarán comes to Southern California: The Timken Museum of Art in San Diego has acquired the 1635 canvas “Saint Francis in Meditation.”

— The L.A. Review of Books has a point/counterpoint on the new Broad museum: Shana Nys Dambrot says the collection’s accessibility might succeed in attracting people who might not ordinarily go to museums. Meanwhile Tucker Neel says it’d be instructive to compare Eli and Edythe Broad to a pair of other dedicated collectors: Herb and Dorothy Vogel, who donated all of their works to public institutions.

— L.A. Metro has released a new video that shows the future of Union Station under the master plan. Looking promising.

— Citylab’s Kriston Capps makes a good argument for why voter initiatives are not the way for cities to manage their urban planning.

— Things that are uglier than the U.S. passport: the British passport. Needs more eagles.

— A terrific piece by film writer Rebecca Keegan on the unforgiving ways in which women film directors are judged.

— A Hunger Games theme park. For real.

— Trigger warnings are an anti-intellectual scourge. A story in Salon shows how much they can govern classroom discussion in totally unconstructive ways.

— “To subject a dream experience to the logic of the waking state is an extreme test of writing.” The Paris Review has a very interesting Q&A with novelist Elena Ferrante about her process, the power of a female narrator and why she chooses to remain anonymous. (Ferrante is a pen name.)

— And last but not least, your moment of Marianne Faithfull singing “As Tears Go By” as filmed by Jean-Luc Godard.

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