The Round-Up: Censorship Surges, David Lynch's Art, and the Met's Video Game

We are back this week with our monthly edition of the Art Angle Roundup, where co-hosts Kate Brown and Ben Davis are joined by a guest to discuss some of the biggest headlines of the month. This week, Caroline Goldstein, acting managing editor of Artnet News, joins the show.

It’s been quite the January. Though it is typically a slow month, some major stories have transpired. We’ll be talking about censorship in the museum world in the U.S., looking in particular at the case of two Sally Mann photographs that were seized from a museum in Dallas, Texas.

We will also talk about the passing of the filmmaker David Lynch on January 15. Lynch is famous for his films, but he was also a respected artist with his fair share of institutional exhibitions under his belt. He has always been a painter, but do we like his paintings? We discuss. Lynch has been represented by Pace Gallery since 2022. We take a look at his artistic legacy and his enigmatic ways.

Last but not least, New York’s prestigious Metropolitan Museum has ventured into the blockchain world of all places with a free-to-play video game that you can access on Web3. The game was launched this month together with TR Lab, a platform that aims to connect artists and technologists and creates and sells fine art collectibles. The Met's new game, called Art Links, does weekly drops. If you win you can collect badges in your OpenSea wallet and win IRL prizes. Sound fun? Maybe not? We each played it and gave it our honest review.