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 Wednesday, March 28.
NEED-TO-READ
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev Hails #MeToo – In a new interview, the leading curator and director of Castello di Rivoli in Turin says the #metoo movement is “the beginning of something vast.” But Christov-Bakargiev is disturbed by the recent firing or abrupt resignations of four female directors and chief curator Helen Molesworth at MOCA, pointing out that there are “a lot of men on museum boards.” (Frieze)
Pussy Riot Says Trump and Putin Are Alike – As Pussy Riot embarks on its first US tour, one of the collective’s founding members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, says Trump and Putin share the same attitude toward the media “and they cannot take criticism at all.” (SF Gate)
Nan Goldin Teams Up With Supreme – The brand, which has collaborated with Damien Hirst and David Lynch (though Barbara Kruger is not a fan), is now working with the artist who chronicled 1980s New York, and who has been in the news lately for her anti-opioid advocacy. Three skateboards—plus a line of t-shirts, a jacket and a hoodie—featuring images from Goldin’s influential visual diary The Ballad of Sexual Dependency go on sale tomorrow. (Press release)
Street Artist Ignored Warnings About Offensive Sculpture – The American street artist Mear One (Kalen Ockerman), who painted a mural in east London that was covered up because of its anti-Semitic depiction of bankers, admitted that members of the Jewish community objected when he originally painted the work. The Labour Party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn has been forced to apologize for initially defending the anti-capitalist street art. (Times)
ART MARKET
This Brâncuși Sculpture Could Deliver an Exponential Return – A brass sculpture by Brâncuși could provide a 1.4 million percent return (no, that’s not a typo) for collectors Elizabeth and Frederick Stafford. The couple bought the portrait of British activist Nancy Cunard directly from the artist in 1955 for $5,000. It is estimated to sell at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern sale in New York in May for more than $70 million. (Bloomberg)
Why Tom Hill Brought His Wools to Hong Kong – The American mega-collector J. Tomlinson Hill, who plans to open an exhibition space in Chelsea this fall, is offering a prelude of sorts this week with a presentation of Christopher Wool at the new H Queens development in Hong Kong. The motivation? “I said, ‘Where is there a market that doesn’t really understand Christopher Wool?’” he asked. “It’s Hong Kong.” (New York Times)
Naked Trump Sculpture Heads to Auction – Julien’s Auctions will sell the only surviving sculpture of naked President Trump by the collective INDECLINE, titled The Emperor Has No Balls. The other versions were either vandalized or destroyed after they first appeared last year in public spaces across the US. The sale will take place on May 2 at Mana Contemporary and online; the work has an estimate of $20,000–30,000. (Press release)
Sotheby’s Offers Shares to Employees Worldwide – Sotheby’s will provide all eligible employees with stock in the publicly traded auction house, CEO Tad Smith announced. As a result of the new deal, 98 percent of Sotheby’s staff will own a stake in the company. “Whenever a client is dealing with a member of the Sotheby’s team, they will be dealing with an owner of our firm,” Smith said. (Press release)
COMINGS & GOINGS
Art Institute of Chicago Names Chinese Art Curator – Colin C. Mackenzie will preside over the museum’s collection of Buckingham bronzes, Chinese jades, ceramics, and other treasures. He joins the Art Institute from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, where he has been senior curator of Chinese art since 2009. (ARTnews)
Menil Taps Two New Curators – Irene Mei Zhi Shum and Natalie Dupêcher will begin their new roles at the Menil Collection in Houston this summer. Shum, the new associate curator of contemporary art, previously worked at the Philip Johnson Glass House in Connecticut. Dupêcher, the new assistant curator of Modern art, is a post-graduate at Princeton, where she’s writing a dissertation on Hans Bellmer. (ARTnews)
New Orleans Mayor to Receive Award for Banishing Monuments – Mitch Landrieu will be honored with the JFK Profile in Courage Award from the Kennedy Library Foundation for his role in removing four of New Orleans’s prominent Confederate statues last spring. The mayor recently published a book, In the Shadow of Statues, about the two-year process, which involved multiple court battles. (Courthouse News)
Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Column Arrives in Houston – The installation of Kapoor’s Cloud Column (2006) sculpture—an early cousin of Chicago’s beloved Bean—at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is complete. The shiny sculpture stands outside the Glassell School of Art, which opens in May. Next month, a 1968 Eduardo Chillida sculpture will be relocated nearby to complement Kapoor’s work. (Press release)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Smithsonian Receives Grandma Moses Trove – The family of Jane Kallir, the co-director of New York’s Galerie St. Etienne, plans to donate 10 major works by the late artist Anna Mary Robertson, better known as Grandma Moses, to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. The gift, to be completed over the next seven years, honors Jane Kallir’s grandfather, Otto Kallir, who was Robertson’s first dealer. (Press release)
Jim Shaw’s Hidden World Comes to the MSU Broad – Over the span of 50 years, the artist Jim Shaw has assembled a collection of more than 1,000 posters, pamphlets, record sleeves, and other objects known collectively as The Hidden World. The Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has acquired this collection of religious and didactic art, bringing it back to the artist’s home state. (Press release)
A Guide to Asia’s Top Museums – Do you struggle to stay on top of the scores of museums opening across the continent each year? Just in time for Art Basel Hong Kong, Art Agency, Partners has pulled together a handy guide—complete with hand-drawn maps—to the most important art institutions in Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. (In Other Words)
Bowie Memorial Attacked Already – A monument to David Bowie unveiled in Aylesbury, England, on Monday has already been vandalized. The phrases “Feed the homeless first” and “RIP DB” have been spray-painted around Earthly Messenger, and part of the statue has been painted on, too. “Taxpayers will now be paying for the clean-up so it is the vandal who will ironically be taking money away from the homeless,” pointed out one not-too-happy local. (BBC News)