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 Monday, October 19.
NEED-TO-READ
A Plan to Recover the Titanic Radio Raises New Questions – The company that owns the salvage rights to the iconic shipwreck wants to retrieve its radio equipment, sparking a debate over whether such an archeological dig would be ethical. Lawyers for the US government have raised the concern in an ongoing court battle to block the expedition, suggesting that the company could stir remains of some 1,500 people who died in the wreck in 1912. The company, RMS Titanic Inc., claims that if there were human remains to be found, they likely would have been encountered in the 200 dives that preceded the planned expedition. (AP)
A Long-Running Bid for Looted Art Moves Ahead – The New York Times is checking in on perhaps the longest-running Nazi-stolen art restitution dispute. The family of Hungarian banker Baron Mor Lipot Herzog first filed a claim in Budapest in 1945 seeking the return of 2,500 artworks, Renaissance furniture, and tapestries. The most recent legal case, which centers on dozens of works valued at more than $100 million, is now snaking its way through the courts in Washington, DC. (New York Times)
Banksy Claims Mural of Young Girl – The elusive street artist has claimed authorship of a mural of a young girl doing the hula hoop with a bicycle tire in Lenton, Nottingham, putting an end to speculation that erupted last week. The mural appeared on Tuesday, October 13, alongside a bent bicycle with a missing back tire locked to a nearby poll. Local authorities rushed to protect the mural by placing plastic sheeting over it. “Everyone is very excited and many, many people are coming to see the picture,” said Surinder Kaur, who runs the hair salon next door. As for whether its presence would boost business, Kaur said it was too soon to tell. If we’re being honest, we’d wager Banksy may have been slow to take ownership of the mural because he’s done better. (Guardian)
Prado’s Post-Lockdown Exhibition Stirs Misogyny Debate – The Prado’s first post-lockdown exhibition is already making waves. “Uninvited Guests” examines how women were treated in the Spanish art world between 1833 and 1931, evolving from subjects and muses to artists in their own right. Yet some feel the historically grounded exhibition misses the point and instead promotes stereotypes. The show also hit a snag when it came to light last week that a work had been misattributed to a female artist, when it was in fact created by a man. (Guardian)
ART MARKET
Talking Heads Singer Is Selling His Art – David Byrne, the former frontman for the Talking Heads, is selling 50 hand-drawn illustrations created during Manhattan’s lockdown at Pace gallery. The works, available online, are $3,000 each. The drawings will be released in five series of 10, published every Monday and Thursday from October 15 to 29 (the first bunch has already sold out). Proceeds will go to Byrne’s nonprofit, the Arbutus Foundation. (TAN)
Zoë Buckman Joins Pippy Houldsworth Gallery – The London gallery now represents the multidisciplinary artist known for her sculptures incorporating boxing gloves, textiles, and lingerie. Her first solo exhibition with the gallery, also her first in the UK, is scheduled to open on February 12. (Press release)
A Coveted Van Gogh Will Hit the Block in New York – Vincent van Gogh’s Fleurs dans un verre (1890) will be offered at Sotheby’s livestreamed New York auction on October 28. The painting, which Hermann Göring seized from Jewish collector Alfred Lindon’s bank vault during World War II, is expected to fetch between $14 million and $18 million. (TAN)
ArtRio Forges Ahead – ArtRio is one of the few live art fairs taking place anywhere in the world—and it is among the first to be held in Brazil, one of the countries with the most COVID-19 cases, since lockdown began. Forty-seven galleries set up shop in the fair’s pavilion in Rio de Janeiro for a reduced audience of Brazilian collectors over the weekend, while 71 galleries are promoting virtual booths for an international audience through October 25. (TAN)
COMINGS & GOINGS
Northern Ireland Museums Will Close for a Month – Museums and galleries in six Northern Ireland counties will be shuttered for four weeks as authorities seek to limit the spread of the coronavirus amid a rising number of reported cases. Cultural institutions across the border in the Republic of Ireland have already been closed. (Museums Association)
Artist and Healer Marianne Wex Dies at 83 – The artist, whose rephotographs of mass-media images probed the gendered nature of kinesics, has died at 83 in Germany. Her influence as an artist on conceptual photography and women’s and gender studies was outsized; she stopped creating art in 1977 after being diagnosed with a serious illness and embarked on a successful career in alternative medicine. (Artforum)
Artist and Designer Enzo Mari Dies at 83 – The Italian artist and designer, who worked with many famous Italian brands, died in Milan at 83. A show of his work, curated by Serpentine Galleries artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist with Francesca Giacomelli, opened at Triennale di Milano on October 17. His archive will be donated to the city. (Dezeen)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Why Did PAMM Host Trump’s Town Hall? – Some were surprised—and dismayed—to see that the Pérez Art Museum Miami permitted a town hall with President Trump to be held on its premises last week. PAMM has said it has a responsibility to remain non-partisan, pointing to the American Alliance of Museums’s official guidelines on election advocacy. The institution also noted that it hosted a similar town hall earlier this month with Democratic nominee Joe Biden. (Hyperallergic)
Jordan Casteel’s Vogue Cover Goes to SFMOMA – The painting by Jordan Casteel that appeared on the cover of the September issue of Vogue is headed to a museum. The collectors Pamela Joyner and Alfred Giuffrida acquired the painting, Aurora (2020), which features the fashion designer Aurora James. The couple will send the work on long-term loan to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where it will remain on view for the next year. (ARTnews)
Carrie Mae Weems Plasters Lincoln Center – The American artist’s ongoing project to raise awareness about the risks of COVID-19 for communities of color is popping up in New York. The most recent iteration of her public-art installation “Resist COVID/Take 6!” is on view now outside Lincoln Center. It offers gratitude to essential workers, guidelines on social distancing, and words of encouragement. (Hyperallergic)