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, October 25.
NEED-TO-READ
Raf Simons Wants a Warhol “Disaster” – The Belgian-born creative director of Calvin Klein cut a deal with the Andy Warhol Foundation to delve into its archive. Now, as Warhol’s Shadow paintings go on view in the fashion brand’s New York HQ, Simons reveals the art he lives with at home. His stash includes works by Cady Noland, Cindy Sherman, Rosemarie Trockel, Isa Genzken, and Sterling Ruby (of course), plus Picasso ceramics. He doesn’t own any Warhols (yet), but Simons says he would love a disaster work—“any car crash or disaster or electric chair” will do. (New York Times)
Jeremy Deller Puts the Bounce Into Stonehenge – To mark the centenary of Stonehenge being donated to the British nation, the artist is bringing his bouncy version, Sacrilege, to the ancient monument in West England. Deller has composed music to accompany his inflatable version, which will be installed near the visitor center, some distance from the real stones. The Turner Prize-winning artist says of Stonehenge, “There’s no reason why you can’t have fun with it and enjoy it.” (Guardian)
Anish Kapoor’s Lawsuit Against the NRA Heads South – The National Rifle Association, which is is trying to get the British sculptor’s copyright infringement lawsuit dismissed, has had the case transferred to Eastern Virginia, where the pro-gun group is headquartered. Kapoor sued the NRA in March after it used footage of his Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago in one of its ads. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Controversy Ignites Over KKK Portrait – A senior official at the department of veterans affairs has removed a portrait of the KKK’s first grand wizard from his office after his (mostly African American) staff signed a petition in protest. The official who hung the portrait says he was not aware that the Confederate general and slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest was affiliated with the hate group. (Washington Post)
ART MARKET
Underwear Tycoon Fights Over Father’s Painting – Adam Dinkes, the head of high-end underwear company Tani USA, has been slapped with a lawsuit for refusing to return a painting his father loaned him before his death back to the estate. The underwear company’s CEO fell out with the estate of his father, collector Michael Dinkes, over Max Ferguson’s My Father in the Subway, I (1982). (New York Post)
Art Basel Replaces Public Sculpture With Performance – Art Basel in Miami Beach has added an ambitious performance to this year’s fair—but in lieu of its regular public sculpture display in Collins Park. The fair is teaming up with the Kitchen in New York to present Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas’s multidisciplinary installation Autorreconstrucción: To Insist, to Insist, to Insist…. The piece, which debuted in New York last year, will inaugurate revamped convention center’s new ballroom. (Miami Herald)
Villa Grisebach to Sell Founder’s Collection – Bernd Schultz is selling 400 works on paper by artists including Picasso, Matisse, and Schiele. The founder of the Berlin auction house is donating the proceeds to the city’s planned Museum of Exile, which will tell the story of the artists and intellectuals forced into exile by the Nazis. (The Art Newspaper)
Abraaj Group Gets a White-Glove Sale at Bonhams – All 200 lots in Bonhams’s London sale of the art collection assembled by the troubled private equity giant Abraaj Group found buyers. All told, the three separate sales of the collection, which mixes Arab, Iranian, and South Asian art with traditional Islamic and Indian art, brought in £4.6 million (around $5.9 million). (Press release)
COMINGS & GOINGS
Robert Smith Donates $1 Million to Harlem Center – Harlem’s Cultural Performance Center is being renamed the Robert Frederick Smith Center for the Performing Arts after the billionaire businessman and philanthropist donated $1 million. Smith, who is the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s biggest donor and chairman of Carnegie Hall, says he believes that “music and artistic expression have a unique power to unite families and communities.” (NYT)
Saturday Evening Post Goes Digital – Over the past decade, the magazine has been painstakingly digitally archiving issues dating back to 1821. You can now trace its evolution from a men’s mag into a general interest publication and view a gallery of its most memorable cover art. Norman Rockwell did 322 covers for the Post and the idea to digitize first arose after demand for the illustrations escalated after his death in 1978. (NYT)
Hito Steyerl Wins the 2019 Käthe Kollwitz Prize – Steyerl has won the prestigious prize awarded by Germany’s Akademie der Künste in recognition of an international artist with a focus on media, technology, and the dissemination of images. Last year’s prize was awarded to the American-born, Berlin-based artist Adrian Piper. (Press release)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Rami Malek Visits the Whitney Museum – The actor, who plays Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in the forthcoming biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, visited the Whitney’s retrospective of the artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz with the New Yorker. The initial trailer garnered some criticism for whitewashing Mercury’s own illness; he died of AIDS in 1991. (New Yorker)
Led Zeppelin Guitarist Loans Tapestries to Tate – Jimmy Page has loaned huge tapestries of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones’s Holy Grail to Tate Britain for its current exhibition of the artist’s work. Page says he was “influenced” by the work of the 19th-century artist (it is unclear exactly how). (BBC)
Carmen Herrera Creates Work for Parkinson’s Research – The 103-year-old artist has created her first-ever sculpture for a charitable sale. Blue Angle goes on view at Bonhams in London tonight along with small-scale pieces created by more than 80 artists and architects. Herrera, Anish Kapoor, Gavin Turk, and Jake & Dinos Chapman, among others, have made work to fit inside small Perspex boxes, which are priced from $1,300 to $103,000. Proceeds from the Cure Cubed sale will fund Parkinson’s research. (Cure3)