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, November 15.
NEED TO READ
Coco Fusco on Her Experience With Sexual Harassment – The artist and theorist writes about being sexually harassed by older men when she was in her 20s and argues that the art world, and art schools in particular, are a “perfect place for sexual predators.” Especially at top schools, which have pronounced ties to the market, students learn to “play by the rules”—which often means yielding to money and power. (Hyperallergic)
Berkshire Museum Seeks Expedited Trial – The Berkshire Museum really wants to sell its art. The institution has asked the Superior Court for an expedited trial to reach a final judgment “as quickly as possible” after a previous injunction prevented it from selling works at a Sotheby’s auction on Monday. The delay “has already put the museum at risk,” lawyers argued. (Press release)
Marina Abramović Explains Where the Money Went – The performance artist called a reporter from Kiev to offer a breakdown of exactly how the $2.3 million raised for her unrealized Marina Abramović Institute was spent. (The total includes $1.2 million of her own money.) After a $700,000 asbestos removal, the building, which she bought and donated to MAI in 2013, is now up for sale. (Vulture)
Socialite Loses $1 Million Worth of Art at a Party – After hosting a piano recital at his Fifth Avenue abode, Alexis Gregory, the octogenarian collector and publisher of Vendome Press, discovered he was short eight 16th-century golden figurines. “If [the art doesn’t] come back, I will do my best to put them in jail,” he said of the unknown thieves. (New York Post)
ART MARKET
All-Female Art Fair Comes to Miami – An art fair where admission is free and nothing is for sale, Fair is an art project that seeks to subvert the traditional commercial model and address gender inequality in the art world. The event, which will feature work by the Guerrilla Girls, Yoko Ono, and Nathalie Alfonso, among others, will be staged between December 7 and 10 at Brickell City Center. (New York Times)
Sean Kelly to Represent Janaina Tschäpe – The New York gallery has announced that it will represent Tschäpe, a German-Brazilian contemporary artist who works with painting, drawing, photography, video, and sculpture. (Press release)
Salon 94 to Rep Lyle Ashton Harris – The photographer joins Judy Chicago, Jayson Musson, and Laurie Simmons on Salon 94’s roster. The gallery will host a reception on December 13 for Harris’ new monograph, Today I Shall Judge Nothing That Occurs, published by Aperture. The gallery’s first exhibition of the artist’s work will take place in next fall. (ARTnews)
Sotheby’s Pulls in $19.4 Million at American Art Sale – A temporary injunction granted Friday prevented the Berkshire Museum from selling its deaccessioned works at Sotheby’s American art auction in New York on Monday. Without them, the sale brought in just shy of $20 million—but the Berkshire’s two Rockwells alone would have likely added between $27 million and $40 million to that pot. (Press release)
COMINGS & GOINGS
2017 Getty Medal Goes to… – German artist Anselm Kiefer and writer Mario Vargas Llosa were honored with this year’s J. Paul Getty Medal. Established in 2013, it is awarded to key figures for their extraordinary contribution to or support of the arts. In his acceptance speech, Kiefer said, “The true artist is always an iconoclast.” (Press release)
Ballroom Marfa Hires Executive Director – The West Texas contemporary art institution has tapped its very own Laura Copelin, currently interim director, to be its new executive director. (ARTnews)
Edvard Munch Award Winner Announced – New York-based painter Kerstin Brätsch has won the Munch Museum’s Edvard Munch Art Award. The award comes with $65,000, a residency in Oslo, and a solo show at the eponymous institution. (ARTnews)
St Ives Artist Trevor Bell Has Died – The British abstract artist Trevor Bell has died at age 87. He is best known as one of the Modern artists who lived in and around St Ives. The Leeds-born artist moved to the Cornish resort in the mid 1950s, though he later spent two decades painting and teaching at Florida State University in Tallahassee. (The Guardian)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Queen Victoria’s Fake Cranach Turns Out to Be Real – After more than a century of being labeled as a fake, a painting the Queen purchased for Prince Albert has been confirmed to be an authentic work of the German master Lucas Cranach the Elder—and not, as previously believed, by the hand of his imitator Franz Wolfgang Rohrich. (The Guardian)
How Art Hitler Loved Wound Up in Virginia – Washingtonian offers a peek inside the US Army’s little-known but very large collection of Nazi-era art, which is stored under lock and key at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Seized after the defeat of the Third Reich to remove militaristic art from Germany, the 600-strong collection includes four watercolors by Hitler. (Washingtonian)
See the Costume Designs for Pussy Riot’s New Play – Coinciding with Saatchi Gallery’s new exhibition “Art Riot: Post-Soviet Actionism,” the dissident group member Nadya Tolokonnikova has written a play titled Inside Pussy Riot, with costumes inspired by the punk-rock group’s signature style and spirit. Audience members will don colorful, Pussy Riot–inspired balaclavas during the performance. (Vogue)
Ai Weiwei Auctions Cat-Toy Sculpture to Benefit Syrian Children – The new sculpture, an oversized cat toy titled F-Size, will be offered at a charity auction at Berlin’s Villa Grisebach on December 1 to benefit Syrian refugee children. The work is estimated to sell for between €200,000–300,000. (The Art Newspaper)
Ai Weiwei’s F Size (2011). Courtesy of the artist and Grisebach Salon.