Art Industry News: Interpol Has a New App That Will Let You Identify and Report Stolen Art From the Comfort of Your Home + Other Stories

Plus, the Wexner Center for the Arts nabs a top curator from Dia, and the Uffizi opens a blockbuster show about the life of Dante.

An empty frame remains where Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee was once displayed before the theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Photo courtesy of the FBI, public domain.

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 Friday, May 7.

NEED-TO-READ

Deana Lawson Gets the Profile Treatment – Jenna Wortham has written a cover profile on the photographer Deana Lawson for the New York Times Magazine ahead of the opening of her Hugo Boss Prize exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York. Of what makes Lawson’s work so captivating, she writes: “Over the last decade or so, Lawson has made portraits of strangers so stunningly intimate and revealing they somehow make you feel as if you were being allowed into a private moment simply by gazing upon them.” (New York Times Magazine

Science Museum Trustee Quits Over ‘Contested Heritage’ Demands Sarah Dry, a trustee at the Science Museum in London, has withdrawn from her reappointment. The historian warned in her resignation letter of the government’s heavy-handed approach to recent cultural policy. She said she had been “explicitly” asked to express support for the government’s “retain and explain” position on contested monuments and heritage. (Financial Times)

This New App Helps ID Stolen Art – You can now live out your Indiana Jones fantasies from the comfort of your couch: Interpol has a new phone app that lets users track lost art. They can upload images and enter key descriptive words that the app will run against its log of 52,000 works of art that are missing. The app has already helped recover four pieces during its pilot phase, including two Dutch paintings and two Italian artworks. (Forbes)

A Section of a Concentration Camp Heads to Imperial War Museum – The Imperial War Museums in London will display an original wall from a concentration camp that imprisoned 700 women of Jewish, Romani, German, and Polish origin at Velten, near Berlin. The wooden wall had been built into a house by a family who lived there until 2008, unaware of its origins. The fragment—which still has its original paint and an intact window—will be on display in the museum’s new Holocaust galleries. (Evening Standard)

ART MARKET

Artists Create AR Works for Frieze – If you can’t get access to the now sold-out Frieze New York, you can attend its mobile phone exhibition to encounter AR works by KAWS, Cao Fei, and Frieze Artist Award winner Precious Okoyomon. “The Looking Glass” is organized by Acute Art. (The Art Newspaper)

Eye of the Collector Partners With Christie’s – The auction house is continuing its series of art-fair collaborations with Eye of the Collector, a boothless event founded by Nazy Vassegh. Christie’s will host an online platform to highlight works from the 2021 edition, which will be held IRL at Two Temple Place. (Press release)

Frieze Names Stand Prize Winner – The New York fair has awarded Bogota-based gallery Instituto de Visión with the stand prize for its presentation of work by Wilson Díaz. (For more on the artist, see our list of artists to watch on Artnet News Pro.) The stand was chosen by jury members Lumi Tan, Daniel Palmer, and Kate Fowle. (Press release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Wexner Center Nabs Chief Curator From Dia – Kelly Kivland, formerly a curator at New York’s Dia Art Foundation, has been named chief curator and director of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. She takes up the post on August 2. (Artforum)

Norton Museum of Art Adds 27 Works to Collection – The West Palm Beach museum has acquired 27 works by big-name artists including Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, and Pablo Picasso, among others, to celebrate its 80th anniversary this year. (Press release)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Lonnie Holley Welcomes a Career Milestone – The self-taught artist, filmmaker, and musician is showing work he created as a resident at the Elaine de Kooning House last year in two concurrent Hamptons shows, at the South Etna Montauk Foundation and the Parrish Art Museum. (New York Times)

Uffizi Reopens with a Dante Show – Works by artists Giotto and Cimabue, as well as other Italian masters from the 1300s in Ravenna, have been brought together for a show at the recently reopened Uffizi to chart the life of the famous poet Dante during his last years spent in exile. (Press release)

Giotto di Bondone's <i>Polittico di Badia</i> (1295-1297). Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi - Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture.

Giotto di Bondone’s Polittico di Badia (1295-1297). Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi – Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture.


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