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 on this Thursday, July 6. 

NEED TO READ

Nirvana Merch Art Copyright Case Heads to the U.K. – The American rock band has been sued over a merchandise design allegedly stolen from a copyrighted illustration Upper Hell by C.S. Scott-Giles. The case was dismissed by an L.A. judge and will be heard in the U.K. instead, since the plaintiff, Scott-Giles’ granddaughter, is a British citizen. (ARTnews) 

Art Historian Helps Design New Assassin’s Creed Game – The impressive world-building that goes into video games has levelled up once again, with Islamic art specialist Glaire Anderson helping developers construct a historically accurate replica of Medieval-era Baghdad for the newest instalment of Assassin’s Creed. (Evening Standard)  

U.S. Institutions Reassess Relationship With David Adjaye – After serious allegations of sexual abuse, misconduct, and a toxic workplace were reported in the Financial Times this week, U.S. institutions are reassessing their relationship with the Ghanaian-British celebrity architect. The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is removing one of his works from their fall program and Counterpublic, a new public art triennial in St. Louis that features an Adjaye sculpture, has pledged to start a “dialogue with our community.” (ARTnews)

A.I. Is Biased Against Black Artists – Due to deeply embedded biases, Black artists working with A.I. have to employ a series of work-arounds to generate recognizable images of Black people, and these are often glitchy or riddled with offensive stereotypes. A recent online exhibition by Feral File gave a platform to artworks that explore racial bias in A.I. (New York Times) 

MOVERS & SHAKERS 

Denver to Build Historic Monument – The Colorado city will build a monument to honor the Gang of 19 Protest from 1978 in which activists in wheelchairs blocked public transport to call attention to the lack of accessibility. The creation of the monument is thanks to a $2.3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. (The Art Newspaper)  

Aichi Triennale Announces Artistic Director for 2025 – Curator Hoor Al Qasimi, who founded the Sharjah Art Foundation and its biennale in 2009, has been selected to lead the Triennale. She is the first non-Japanese person to hold the position. (ArtReview)  

Katherine Parr Portrait Becomes Most Expensive Tudor Painting – The exceptionally rare painting—only one other contemporaneous portrait of Henry VIII’s sixth wife survives and it is owned by London’s National Portrait Gallery—fetched a whopping £2.8 million ($3.5 million) last night at Sotheby’s London’s Old Master and 19th Century Paintings Evening Sale. The work was once wrongly believed to have been destroyed in a fire. (Antiques Trade Gazette) 

FOR ART’S SAKE 

Magazzino Makes Space for Michelangelo Pistoletto – The New York museum dedicated to Italian art has opened “Welcome to New York!,” a retrospective dedicated to Michelangelo Pistoletto on the occasion of his 90th birthday. The centerpiece is Terzo paradiso (2003), a permanent installation of land art that was conceived 20 years ago but it never previously found a suitable space for its physical manifestation. Thanks to Magazzino’s recent expansion, it has a space of its own. (The Art Newspaper)

More Trending Stories:  

In Pictures: Black Artists Use A.I. to Make Work That Reveals the Technology’s Inbuilt Biases for a New Online Show 

A Norwegian Dad Hiking With His Family Discovered a Rock Face Covered With Bronze Age Paintings 

A Tourist Who Was Arrested for Carving His and His Girlfriend’s Names Into the Colosseum Is Begging for Forgiveness 

Archaeologists Found an Ancient Marble Bust That May Have Belonged to Caligula at the Bottom of an Italian Lake 

German Archaeologists Find a 3,000-Year-Old Bronze Age Sword So Well Preserved That It ‘Almost Still Shines’ 

See Erwin Wurm’s Absurdist Sculptures Take Over a U.K. Park, From a Birkin Bag on Legs to a Bendy Truck Climbing the Wall 

Susie Barstow, a 19th-Century Artist Who Hiked Mountains in Bloomers to Paint Stunning Landscapes, Finally Gets a Museum Retrospective