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, November 16.

NEED TO READ

Holocaust Artist Accused of False Memory – The late German-born American artist Rosemarie Koczy described her drawings of Holocaust victims as “burials for those I saw die in the camps.” But her biography has been challenged by researchers at a German museum, who found no archival evidence to back up her story. The artist’s work is in the collections of the Guggenheim and Yad Vashem museums. (NYT)

Africa’s Private Museum Boom – New private museums dedicated to modern and contemporary African art have opened in Marrakesh and Cape Town. Meanwhile, in Lagos, Prince Yemisi Shyllon is building his own space, due to debut in 2019. The FT meets the Nigerian collector to find out more about the $1.2 million project. (Financial Times)

Louvre Abu Dhabi Closes for Sheikhs’ Wives – Journalist Antje Stahl stayed an extra day after the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s opening festivities—when Brigitte Macron was the only woman around—to watch as the wives of the Sheikhs were driven in from all corners of the Emirates to view the new museum. The premises were shut down and no photography was permitted. In fact, no one even knows how many wives live in the royal palace in Abu Dhabi. (NZZ)​

Becchina’s Assets Seized in Sicily – Italy’s anti-Mafia police force has seized the Sicilian assets and bank accounts of Gianfranco Becchina, the disgraced Italian-born, Basel-based antiquities dealer, in an ongoing operation against the Cosa Nostra. High-profile looted antiquities that passed through Becchina’s hands have been returned to Italy by the Met and Getty museums. (Art-Crime)

TEFAF Maastricht Exhibitor List Revealed –  Nearly 300 exhibitors, including Waddington Custot, Perrotin, and Blumka Gallery, will show at the Dutch art and antiques fair in Maastricht from March 8 to 18. The fair has also added an extra VIP day, bumping the public opening back to Saturday. (TEFAF)

Betty Parsons’s Work on View at Louis Vuitton – The brand’s Fifth Avenue store in New York has added the art dealer’s African Dawn (1972) to its collection. Parsons’s painting will join works by Yayoi Kusama and Jeff Koons. (WWD)

Hannah Black Repped by Bortolozzi Galerie – Isabella Bortolozzi now represents the controversial British artist. Black’s work is on show at Chisenhale Gallery in London until December 10. (Press release)

Pope to Sell Lamborghini for Charity – Godspeed! Sotheby’s will auction off a €180,000 ($212,000) special edition Lamborghini Huracan that has been blessed by Pope Francis I. Proceeds will be donated to charities devoted to rebuilding churches in Iraq, medical aid in Africa, and helping migrant women who have been the victims of sexual trafficking. (The Telegraph)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Three-Tier Admission Comes to LACMA – If you are coming from out of town, it will now cost you $25 to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; locals can get in for $20. Tickets include access to the collection plus temporary exhibitions. Previously, shows cost $10 on top of a $15 general admission for all. (LA Times)

Jewish Museum Hires New Chief Curator – New York’s Jewish Museum has recruited Darsie Alexander, the director of the Katonah Museum of Art, as its new chief curator. She is scheduled to begin her new post in March 2018. Alexander was previously the chief curator of the Walker Art Center from 2009 to 2014. (Press release)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Park Avenue Armory Announces 2018 Season – The Upper East Side performance space will host installations by Nick Cave, who will invite the public to express their frustrations through dance, and William Kentridge, who will create an interdisciplinary work inspired by the history of African supply carriers in World War I. (NYT)

MIT Announces New Commissions – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has commissioned new public artworks by Olafur Eliasson and Nick Mauss, due to be unveiled in fall 2018. The new work will add to the more than 60 public art pieces on campus by artists including Sol LeWitt, Dan Graham, and Sarah Sze. (Press release)

California Museum Celebrates Julia Child – The Napa Valley Museum in Yountville, California, celebrates the American chef in a new photography show, “France Is a Feast,” which features black-and-white photos taken by her husband Paul in the postwar period in France. With a fun audio tour narrated by Child herself, the show is open until February 18. (The Pueblo Chieftain)

Orbs Light Up Madison Square Park – Austrian artist Erwin Redl’s latest public art project, “Whiteout,” lights up the Manhattan park with nine hundred ethereally glowing orbs that sway in the wind. Suspended over the lawn, each globe casts light downward and creates changing abstract patterns. (AMNY)

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