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 Friday, November 24.
NEED TO READ
Meet the Artistic Director of Prospect 4 – Ted Loos interviews curator Trevor Schoonmaker about his edition of Prospect New Orleans, turning the city into a giant gallery for 73 artists, including Rashid Johnson, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Mark Dion, and Hank Willis Thomas, spread across 17 venues. “I bring voices to the table,” Schoonmaker explains of his style, and singles out artist Genevieve Gaignard as one to watch. (New York Times)
The Rise of the Female Auctioneer – A growing number of women are taking senior auctioneer roles, and Georgina Hilton’s win of the UK Novice Auctioneer of the Year award marks the third year in a row a woman has been awarded the prize. The top slot of evening-sale auctioneer remains elusive, however. (The Art Newspaper)
Kehinde Wiley Makes His First Film – Barack Obama’s chosen portraitist examines migration, madness, and colonization in contemporary America in his debut film Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), which draws from the ideas of Frantz Fanon and Michel Foucault and is showing at London’s Stephen Friedman gallery alongside nine new maritime paintings. (TAN)
Courtauld to Close for Major Revamp – The £50 million ($66.5 million) redevelopment of the London Gallery is expected to take two years and aims to improve accessibility and take down dividers in its Great Room, which is full of Impressionist paintings. The Heritage Lottery fund has given £9.4 million ($12.5 million) towards the first phase of the upgrade. The Gallery will close from autumn of next year, although the Institute will remain open. (The Guardian)
ART MARKET
Rapper 2 Chainz Tours Christie’s – On the eve of the Salvator Mundi‘s record-breaking sale, the rapper stopped in at Christie’s to take a gander at it, first stopping for selfie in front of Basquiat’s Il Duce and claiming Warhol’s Sixty Last Suppers was the best thing he had ever seen. Upon viewing the famed Leonardo, which would sell for $450 million the next day, 2 Chainz expressed some skepticism at the authenticity of it, wondering if it was not a “copy of a copy.” (NYT)
A Big Late Rauschenberg Heads to Miami – Rauschenberg’s 30-foot-long work Periwinkle Shaft will dominate Edward Tyler Nahem gallery booth at Art Basel Miami Beach. The work, which has a “seven-figure asking price,” was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts for a children’s medical center in Washington, D.C. (Art Market Monitor)
Camille Claudel Hoard Heads to Auction – Works in bronze, plaster, and clay by Camille Claudel, the French sculptor who had a torrid relationship with Rodin, her lover and rival, will go to auction at Artcurial in Paris, which says they come from the artist’s studio near her family home. (Art Daily)
Hawaiian Statue Sells for Record $7 Million – A wooden sculpture of the Hawaiian god of war, Kü Ka’ili Moku, sold for €6.3 million ($7.7 million) at Christie’s in Paris, setting a new record for an Oceanic work in France. The statue has been dated to around 1780-1820. (Journal des Arts)
COMINGS & GOINGS
7 Artists Pull Their Work From Biennial in Protest – Just as the inaugural Kuala Lumpur Biennale was about to be underway, a group of artists have withdrawn from the exhibition to protest the local police’s removal of a work by five Malaysian artists that addressed environmental issues in Southeast Asia, under the accusation that the work contained “elements of communism.” (ArtAsiaPacific)
Li Ming Wins 2017 Hugo Boss Asia Art Awards – The multimedia artist has been awarded the preeminent prize for emerging artists, which comes with a cash award of $45,600. The Hangzhou-based artist’s work investigates social context in architecture through video. (ArtAsiaPacific)
Interim Michener Museum Director Appointed – Barbara Donnelly Bentivoglio has been named the interim director of the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown Borough as the museum begins a nationwide search for a replacement for current director Lisa Tremper Hanover, who will resign at the end of the year. (The Intelligencer)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Major Performance Festival Comes to LA – In 2018, more than 200 Latino and Latin American artists will stage some 75 performance works around the city for an 11-day festival as part of the Pacific Standard Time Festival: Live Art LA/LA. And it will not be the only Latino performance-art festival in LA: the Broad museum is launching a Latino feminist performance series for 2018 as well. (Los Angeles Times)
Oscar Murillo Hangs Black Flags in East Jerusalem – The Colombian artist has hung his renowned flags in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. These large-scale installations have been seen previously at the 2015 Venice Biennial and this year’s Sharjah Biennial. (Hyperallergic)
Contemporary Adelaide Plans Sculpture Park – Art Gallery of South Australia has revealed more plans for Adelaide Contemporary, including a gallery with a surrounding sculpture park that will be the first of its kind in Australia. (Adelaide Now)
Robby the Robot Sells for $5.3 Million at Bonhams – The seven-foot-tall robot has sold for a world record price of $5.3 million in the “TCM Presents… Out of This World!” auction of classic movie memorabilia. The impressive result for the cult-favorite star of the science-fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956) means it has knocked the Maltese Falcon from its top spot as the previous world-record holder in the category. (Press release)