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 Thursday, February 7.
NEED-TO-READ
Venice Will Tax Day Trippers During the Biennale – Ten days before the Venice Biennale opens, day trippers will have to start paying a €3 ($3.40) tax to visit the city. The controversial charge, which is due double by 2020, is aimed at visitors who stay on cruise ships and so avoid the city’s existing hotel tax. The organizers of the biennale have not commented on the new charge, which is not likely to cause too much distress for the billionaire collectors who like to moor their mega-yachts in the lagoon during the preview week. (The Art Newspaper)
Kim Gordon Gets Solo Show at the Warhol Museum – The Sonic Youth frontwoman will take center stage in “Kim Gordon: Lo-Fi Glamour” at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The show will feature a selection of Gordon’s artwork including paintings, drawings, and sculpture, as well as a film score titled Sound for Andy Warhol’s Kiss, which Warhol commissioned from Gordon for his 1964 silent film Kiss. (Pitchfork)
Marina Abramović Embraces Mixed Reality – The veteran performance artist is an early adopter of the Magic Leap One device, which will allow visitors to London’s Serpentine Gallery to experience a digital version of Abramović in her new “mixed reality” work called The Life. Produced by Tin Drum, a US-UK studio that specializes in enhanced virtual reality, visitors will be equipped with wearable spatial computing devices for the 19-minute-long performance, which is due to run from February 19 through February 24. (TAN)
Cher’s Costumes Will Star at the Met – The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will show Cher’s over-the-top stage costumes in its upcoming exhibition “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” The star’s collaborator, Bob Mackie, revealed the inclusion of Cher’s outfits in an interview to Fashionista magazine. He designed the costumes for the Broadway musical The Cher Show. The Met’s camp fashion show opens on May 9. (Billboard)
ART MARKET
Galerie Lelong to Represent Barthélémy Toguo in New York – The Cameroon-born, New York-based artist Barthélémy Toguo will be represented by Galerie Lelong & Co. in New York in addition to Paris. “Urban Requiem,” Toguo’s first solo exhibition in New York in 10 years opens at Galerie Lelong on March 15. (Press release)
Frieze New York Releases Exhibitor List – The New York edition of Frieze has announced that Daniel Birnbaum is organizing a virtual-reality exhibition on Randall’s Island. A second curated exhibition will be organized by Javier Téllez in collaboration with the Outsider Art Fair. Laura Hoptman of the Drawing Center is organizing the Spotlight section of overlooked artists, which includes a solo booth of work by the Iranian Modernist Bijan Saffari presented by Tehran’s Dastan’s Basement. (ARTnews)
COMINGS & GOINGS
Former Blouin Foundation Director Gets Top Lincoln Center Gig – Henry Timms will take up the role of CEO at the performing arts center in New York in May. Timms is taking the position at a fraught time for the institution after the abrupt departures of the two previous chief execs, Jed Bernstein, who left after just two years due to a relationship with a staff member, and Debora L. Spat, who vacated the role after one year. (ARTnews)
Tate Americas Foundation Names New Executive Director – Beginning later this month, Catherine Carver Dunn will lead the fundraising and acquisitions charity for the Tate museum network in England. Previously, she was deputy director for development at the Guggenheim Foundation. (ARTnews)
Zimbabwe Names Its Picks for Venice Amid Political Upheaval – A group of artists including Cosmos Shiridzinomwa and Georgina Maxim will represent Zimbabwe at the Venice Biennale this summer. Shiridzinomwa is known for political work, which should prove interesting given the background of the ongoing violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in the country. The tumult, which was initially sparked by a precipitous rise in gas prices, has already caused the country to delay launching its own new biennial, in Bulawayo. (TAN)
Romania Picks Biennale Artists – Artists Belu Simion Fainaru, Dan Mihaltianu, and Miklos Onuscan will present a group show titled “Unfinished Conversations on the Weight of Absence” at the biennale. The group show will feature new versions of historic installations by the artists whose careers began in the 1980s and spanned through Romania’s communist era. (TAN)
FOR ART’S SAKE
The Hill Foundation Opens in New York – Collector J. Tomilson Hill and his wife Janine will open their Hill Art Foundation on Saturday, February 9, showcasing work from their private collection. Construction issues delayed the original opening of the foundation located in a building on the High Line in Chelsea, which had been slated for fall 2017. (TAN)
Ford Foundation Announces Gallery Opening Date – The new gallery will open on March 5 with an inaugural exhibition titled “Perilous Bodies.” It will be a group show addressing issues related to social discrimination and featuring global artists including Hannah Brontë, Tiffany Chung, and David Antonio Cruz. (NYT)
Sarah Sze Teases Her Work for Storm King – Artist Sarah Sze talks about her new site-specific commission for the Storm King Art Center. “Fallen Sky,” opening spring 2020, will become part of the center’s permanent collection. Sze says she visited the site at least seven times over the last four years to find the perfect spot for her sculpture that tries to “flip the sky into the earth itself.” (Instagram)