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, May 17.
NEED-TO-READ
What Does the Royal Family Do For the Arts? – As the UK prepares for Meghan Markle to officially join the royal family, many are speculating where the soon-to-be wife of Prince Harry will focus her patronage. Cultural organizations say the royal stamp of approval is a boon for small organizations that need the publicity as well as large ones, which need to be seen as trustworthy in the eyes of the public. (Guardian)
Banksy’s Fake Caveman Art Goes Back on Display – Peckham Rock, a concrete slab with a doodle of a caveman pushing a shopping cart, will return to the British Museum this fall for a satire-themed exhibition organized by the British journalist Ian Hislop. The street artist first smuggled the work into the museum in 2005 as a prank; it remained on view for three days before anyone noticed. (BBC)
Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Gets the Exhibition Treatment – Why go to the movies when you can go to a museum? The French New Wave filmmaker is adapting his latest film The Image Book as an exhibition that will travel from Paris to Madrid, New York, and Singapore. The movie focuses on the modern Arabic world and premieres worldwide on Friday. (Variety)
Lucas Museum to Loan Shuffleton’s Barbershop – The Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, will display Norman Rockwell’s 1950 work from June 9 until 2020. Per an agreement with the Massachusetts Attorney General after the painting was deaccessioned from the Berkshire Museum, it’s on loan from its current owner, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is set to open in Los Angeles in 2022. (ARTnews)
ART MARKET
Zach Feuer on Life After Art Dealing – The gallerist, who began his art dealing career at the age of 19 and closed up shop last year, has become the latest director of the Fields Sculpture Park at Art Omi in upstate New York. Asked to give advice to aspiring dealers today, he says: “Keep your budget low and try not to be an asshole. Don’t spend money and don’t be a jerk.” (ARTnews)
Tbilisi Launches First Contemporary Art Fair – The hip Georgian capital is getting its first art fair this month. The Tbilisi Art Fair will see some 35 galleries take up residence in its modernist convention center, Expo Georgia, from May 17 to 20. (The Art Newspaper)
Grand Basel Finalizes Its Contract – An Art Basel for luxury cars is coming to Miami. MCH Group, the company behind the Art Basel fairs, has finalized its agreement with the city to launch a new trade show featuring around 200 luxury vehicles next February. (Bloomberg)
COMINGS & GOINGS
Theaster Gates Heads to the Getty – The Chicago-based artist will begin his term as artist-in-residence at the Los Angeles research institute alongside 37 scholars-in-residence, which include the art historian Hal Foster and curator Andrea Bayer. The incoming residents will all focus their research on the theme of monuments. (Artforum)
The Guggenheim Gets a New Board Member – Investment banker Paul Cronson has been elected to the museum’s board of trustees, while his mother, Mary Sharp Cronson, who has been on the board since 1990, has been appointed trustee emeritus. Paul Cronson is also on the boards of the Park Avenue Armory and the California Institute of the Arts. (Press release)
Fluxus Artist Geoffrey Hendricks Dies – The artist, whose depictions of the sky across various media earned him the nickname “Cloudsmith,” died on May 12 at age 86. His fascination with the sky began after the death of his sister Cynthia when he was five years old. He also participated in many important happenings of the Fluxus movement in the 1960s. (Artforum)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Virginia Woolf Gets a Statue of Her Own – A crowdfunding campaign is seeking to erect a statue of the Modernist author in Richmond, the town outside London where she once lived and worked. Half of the £50,000 ($68,000) cost has already been raised. If the initiative reaches its goal, the bronze sculpture by Laury Dizengremel will be unveiled next year. (Evening Standard)
The High Line Is Getting a Mile-Long Opera – One thousand singers will perform in the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang’s The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock, which debuts October 3 along Manhattan’s High Line. The libretto written by poets Anne Carson and Claudia Rankine is inspired by interviews with New Yorkers about what 7 p.m. means to them. (NYT)
Auschwitz Files Classed as UNESCO Heritage – UNESCO’s “Memory of the World Register” will now include documents from the postwar trial of the 22 Nazi officials who ran Auschwitz. The 1963–65 trial was the first in which Germans prosecuted fellow Germans for their role in the Holocaust. The files have been added to the register, emphasizing their importance as part of the “common heritage of humanity.” (AFP)
Antony Gormley on Joseph Beuys – In a preview for Thaddeus Ropac’s upcoming Beuys exhibition, the British sculptor speaks passionately about the artist, who resisted commodification while playing a significant role in the rebirth of German postwar art. “Here is somebody who saw the world disintegrate because of ideology, and wanted to find a deeper source of truth than appearances,” Gormley says. Curated by Norman Rosenthal, the show runs from April 17 to June 16. (YouTube)
