Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know this Friday, April 1.

NEED-TO-READ

Portland Museum Settles With Laid-Off Employees – The Portland Museum of Art in Maine has agreed to make one-time payments to more than a dozen ex-employees who were let go last year before a vote that led to employee unionization. Although the National Labor Relations Board, which held a hearing on the case after the former workers alleged unfair labor practices, said they would not have been eligible to join the union, 13 of them will now be awarded $2,000, while another will get $30,000. (Portland Herald)

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré Gets the MoMA Treatment – The artist, born in 1923 in a small Bété village in the Ivory Coast, is the subject of an important show at the Museum of Modern art titled “Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: World Unbound.” The exhibition spans decades of drawings and writings, and looks at how he created a new alphabet. The artist was included in the late Okwui Enwezor’s landmark MoMA PS1 exhibition “The Short Century” in 2002. (New York Times)

Philanthropist Delfina Entrecanales Dies at 94 – Entrecanales, who supported artists including Turner Prize winners Mark Wallinger, Tacita Dean, and Martin Creed by offering residencies beginning in the late 1980s, has died at the age of 94. In 2012, she was awarded a CBE in Queen’s Elizabeth II’s birthday honors list for her contributions to the arts. (Press release)

Duran Duran Band Member Is a Painter Now – John Taylor, best known as the bassist of the New Wave band Duran Duran, is debuting an exhibition of seven paintings, 12 canvas prints, and a series of mock art magazine covers with the One Hour Ahead gallery in Aspen. The show, titled “Not Broken, Unfinished,” pulls some of its materials from Taylor’s personal memories and archive. (ARTnews)

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Getty Research Institute Lands African American Literary Archive – The Los Angeles institution will acquire the Whitney and Lee Kaplan African American Visual Culture Collection, which includes around 3,500 catalogues, magazines, artists’ books, pamphlets, and pieces of ephemera that document U.S. Black visual culture during the 20th century. Lee Kaplan established the collection in the 1980s. (The Art Newspaper)

France and Spain Will Mark the Anniversary of Picasso’s Death – To honor the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso in 2023, France and Spain will partner for an international exhibition dedicated to the artist, with shows to be staged across Europe and in the U.S. that year. The wide-ranging program will include 40 exhibitions and events, with additional details still to be announced. (ARTnews) 

Amanda Hunt Joins the Walker – Amanada Hunt will leave her post as director of public programs and creative practice at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the forthcoming institution founded by George Lucas, and head to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to become director of public engagement, learning, and impact. (ARTnews)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Urs Fischer Opens at Museo Jumex – A major survey spanning 25 years of Urs Fischer’s work will go on view from April 2 through September 18 at Museo Jumex in Mexico City. Organized by guest curator Francesco Bonami, the show will include two new life-sized candle portraits, one of which depicts the philanthropist and president of Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Eugenio López Alonso. The candle sculptures will burn throughout the course of the show. (Press release)

Installation view of Urs Fischer’s Lovers Museo Jumex (2022). Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography Zurich. Courtesy Urs Fischer