A former Whitney Museum administrator has broken her silence about the controversial shutdown of the museum's prestigious Independent Study Program, while the art and auction worlds witness unprecedented demand for dinosaur fossils and Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke prepares for his first major art exhibition.
Sara Nadal-Melsió, whose position as associate director of the Whitney's Independent Study Program was terminated in June, has publicly criticized the museum's handling of her dismissal and the program's suspension. Writing in Hyperallergic, Nadal-Melsió revealed that she received notice of her termination immediately after museum director Scott Rothkopf sent an email to select alumni announcing the suspension of the 50-year-old program. "I lost my job at the Whitney, but the art community lost a lot more," she stated.
The controversy stems from Nadal-Melsió's public protest of the Whitney's cancellation of a pro-Palestinian performance titled "No Aesthetic Outside My Freedom: Mourning, Militancy, and Performance." The performance, which expressed transnational solidarity with the Palestinian people, was originally part of the ISP curatorial show "a grammar of attention." Nadal-Melsió's dismissal occurred just two weeks after she released her public statement opposing the cancellation.
According to Nadal-Melsió, both her termination and the program's suspension represented "the culmination of months of the museum's combined disregard and scrutiny of the program." She described the museum's actions as "yet another blunt refusal to engage in dialogue" and cited "a consistent lack of clarity, to the point of obfuscation, regarding the future of the ISP." This included the circumstances surrounding former ISP Director Gregg Bordowitz's demotion on February 2.
Reflecting on her experience, Nadal-Melsió noted that discussing the situation was "painful in personal and utterly impersonal ways." She explained that her experience followed "a well-worn institutional playbook" and taught her about "decimated workers' rights and increased precarity," as well as "a pervasive corporate culture of Non-Disclosure Agreements that keep most of us in the dark about how often power protects itself through concealment."
Meanwhile, the auction world is witnessing explosive growth in the dinosaur fossil market. A 154-159 million-year-old Ceratosaurus fossil recently sold for $30.5 million at Sotheby's New York, achieving five times its $6 million estimate. While this sale didn't surpass the $44.6 million record set by the Stegosaurus "Apex," it highlights the rapidly expanding market for prehistoric remains.
The dinosaur collecting phenomenon has attracted diverse buyers, including private collectors, celebrities, museums, and governments. Abu Dhabi purchased the famous T. rex "Stan" for $31.8 million in 2020 and plans to display it at its upcoming Natural History Museum. Hollywood celebrities Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicolas Cage, and Russell Crowe have also entered the fossil market, contributing to global fascination with these ancient specimens.
Art advisor Nicolai Frahm, who has brokered several major fossil sales, explained the appeal: "We all grew up with dinosaurs." Ken Griffin, owner of the record-setting Apex, cited his lifelong passion and desire to inspire future scientists. Today's collectors are typically professionals in their 30s and 40s, particularly from technology and science fields. Prices range widely from fragments to complete skeletons costing tens of millions, with skull fossils and carnivorous dinosaurs remaining especially sought-after.
In the art world, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke is preparing for his debut as a visual artist, describing the experience as "absolutely terrifying." Yorke and longtime collaborator Stanley Donwood are opening their first institutional exhibition at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. The show, titled "This is What You Get," chronicles 30 years of Radiohead record covers beginning with "The Bends," featuring previously unpublished sketchbooks and recent paintings by the duo.
Yorke attributed his unease about claiming artist status to the climate of the UK music industry, citing "an unspoken strict notion that a musician could not possibly be an artist and vice versa." He now considers this perspective "total nonsense," particularly given how intertwined Radiohead's sonic and visual art forms have become. As Donwood explained, "Both of [the art forms] evolve at the same time and neither of them are fixed, it's like chasing smoke."
Reflecting on their unconventional journey into the art establishment, Donwood noted the surreal nature of their success: "It feels like just last year we were standing in HMV in Oxford thinking about how we were going to do a record sleeve and now we're doing a museum show in pretty much the same spot." He described their path as the result of "two ex-art students making record sleeves for 30 years and just letting them get on with it."
