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 Tuesday, October 2.
NEED-TO-READ
London Braces Itself for a Kusama Blitzkrieg – Gallerist Victoria Miro has already sold out timed tickets to experience Yayoi Kusama’s mirrored room with polka dot paper lanterns, My Heart is Dancing Into the Universe (2018), which officially opens tomorrow. London’s latest moment of infatuation with the Japanese artist also includes the concurrent UK cinema release of the documentary Kusama-Infinity (The Art Newspaper)
Jewish Peers Criticize London’s Holocaust Memorial – A £50 million ($65 million) memorial, designed by David Adjaye and Ron Arad and planned for near the Houses of Parliament in London, has been criticized by Jewish peers, including lords and a baroness related to victims of the Holocaust. They want to preserve the green space near Parliament and suggest instead expanding new galleries dedicated to the Holocaust at the nearby Imperial War Museum. (Times)
Nan Goldin Pops Up on HBO – Producer David Simon took to Twitter to thank photographer and activist Nan Goldin for her cameo in the most recent episode of HBO’s series The Deuce. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency photographer, he writes, has influenced everything from the show’s narrative to its set design. In a “moment of world-colliding meta,” Goldin cameos as a patron of the Hi-Hat bar, where her real-life artworks hang on the walls. “They call that art?”, Goldin’s character asks James Franco’s fictional bar owner. “I coulda done that.” (Twitter) (ARTnews)
Gates and Adjaye Curate Bono’s Red Auction – For the upcoming Art Basel in Miami Beach week, artist Theaster Gates and architect David Adjaye are organizing the third (RED) Auction to support the fight against AIDS. The Sotheby’s sale on December 5 will be preceded by an exhibition organized by Gagosian at the Moore Building in Miami, opening on World AIDS Day, on December 1. Jeff Koons, Ai Weiwei, Christo, Sean Scully, and Marilyn Minter are among the art stars who have donated works to the cause. (Press release)
ART MARKET
The Winter Antiques Show Rebrands Itself – New York’s longest running fair for antiques, art, and design has rebranded itself as the Winter Show. Under the new directorship of Helen Allen, the fair is seeking to better highlight the variety and breadth of its exhibitors. (ArtfixDaily)
Picasso “Guitare” Among Highlights in Christie’s FIAC Sale – With a $2.3 million low estimate, Picasso’s 1922 painting Guitare will highlight Christie’s Paris sale during FIAC later this month. This large work, formerly from the personal collection of the artist’s granddaughter, Marina Picasso, exemplifies the recurring motif in the Spanish painter’s work. (Art Market Monitor)
Spring/Break 2019 Announces Theme – Next year, the eighth edition of New York’s Spring/Break Art Show will center around “Fact and Fiction.” Running from March 6 through 11, the upcoming exhibition debuts a new partnership with the Times Square Alliance, and will show five emerging artists’ work in the plazas around Times Square. (ARTnews)
COMINGS & GOINGS
Dealer Phyllis Kind Has Died – The founder of Outsider Art Fair, who transformed an Old Master’s print shop in Chicago to a haven for self-taught and outsider artists, has died in San Francisco, aged 85. With galleries in Chicago and New York, Kind was an early champion of the work of Gladys Nilsson, Art Green, Henry Darger, and Martín Ramírez, among others. (ARTnews)
Hadeel Ibrahim Named Chair of London’s ICA – Hadeel Ibrahim succeeds Donald A. Moore in the role. The founding director of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Ibrahim is on the boards of the Clinton Foundation, New York’s Africa Center, and MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, among others. (Artforum)
IFPDA Announces 2018 Grant Recipients – The foundation of the International Fine Print Dealers Association annual awards provide support to museums and nonprofits for exhibitions, publications, and educational initiatives promoting the understanding of printmaking. This year’s six grantees are: International Print Center New York; Lawrence Arts Center; Opalka Gallery at the Sage College of Albany; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. (ArtfixDaily)
New Deputy Director of San José Museum of Art – From November 1, Holly Shen will be responsible for developing the California museum’s strategic plan. Previously Shen was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. She has also been on the faculty at Fashion Institute of Technology. (Artforum)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Brazil’s National Museum Opens Post-Fire Exhibition – The museum, which went up in flames last month, has erected tents outside its ruined building to display some of the artifacts that were stored in other facilities. It hopes to build a temporary pavilion for rotating displays. The woebegone institution is also raising money through a crowdfunding campaign, seeking 50 million reals ($12 million) to lend surviving objects to schools. (TAN)
A Trump Tank Patrols Beirut – An anonymous Syrian artist who goes by the name SAINT HOAX has created an inflatable caricature of the US President shaped as a tank. Called MonuMental, the pneumatic artwork is rumbling around the streets of Beirut ahead of his solo show of the same title, which will be about “magnified personas versus the vulnerability of the souls behind them,” the artist says. (Hyperallergic)
Architect Nicholas Grimshaw Wins Gold Medal – The architect and Royal Academician, whose buildings include the Eden Project in Cornwall, England, and Miami’s Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science, has been awarded the Royal Institute of British Architect’s gold medal. A leading architect of the functionalist, high-tech movement, Grimshaw has had to wait until he was 78 to win the UK’s highest architectural accolade. (The Guardian)
JR’s Brandenburg Gate Installation Is Unveiled – After weeks of construction, globe-trotting street artist JR’s epic installation has been finally unveiled, covering Berlin’s historic Brandenburg Gate. The signature black-and-white photomontage features crowds of people on top of the monument under the watchful eye of East German guards. The installation marks Germany’s day of reunification on Wednesday. (Instagram)