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, October 5.
NEED-TO-READ
The Guggenheim Returns a Painting to its Jewish Heirs – The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has returned a painting by Ernst Kirchner to the heirs of a previous owner. Kirchner’s Artillerymen (1915) belonged to a German art dealer, Alfred Flechtheim, who was forced to part with it under the Nazi regime. The restitution of the work is the result of a years-long process between the museum and the Holocaust Claims Processing Office of New York. (Artforum)
Schoolgirl Finds Primordial Weapon in Swedish Lake – An eight-year-old Swedish-American girl named Saga Vanecek was skipping stones in a Swedish lake this summer when she saw what she thought was a stick. To the delight of her family of Minnesota Viking fans, it turned out to be a 1,000-year-old sword. Later searches turned up an equally ancient brooch. Both will be conserved and put on display at the nearby Jönköpings Läns Museum. (The Daily Mail)
TIME Honors Christine Blasey Ford With Powerful Illustration – San Francisco artist John Mavroudis creates the eye-catching portrait of Christine Blasey Ford, taking her testimony about experiencing sexual assault at the hands of Judge Brett Kavanaugh and building an image of her speaking at the hearing from her own words. The cover image accompanies a story by Haley Sweetland Edwards. (TIME)
Conservator Gives California’s Lost Female Painters a Moment in the Spotlight – An ambitious research project and multi-volume reference book from conservator Maurine St. Guadens uncovered the forgotten biographies of some 300 female artists working in California between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. Now, over of these 100 rarely exhibited exhibited artists, including Ruth Miller Kempster, Elizabeth Borglum, and Vivian Springfield, are featured in “Something Revealed: California Women Artists Emerge, 1860–1960,” on view at the Pasadena Museum of History through March 31. (Los Angeles Times)
ART MARKET
Pierre Soulages Has Big Market Potential at Christie’s – Marion Menaker writes that the 1959 Pierre Soulages painting, Peinture 186 x 143 cm, 23 décembre 1959, which is being offered by Christie’s next month, could exceed the artist’s current auction record by 50 percent if it reaches the $10 million–15 million pre-sale estimate. According to the artnet Price Database, Soulages current record stands at $6.9 million from 2017. (Art Market Monitor)
JP Morgan Chase Gives a Hefty Grant to Theaster Gates – In keeping with the long-term philanthropic goals of JP Morgan Chase, the company has gifted a $300,000 grant to the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit led by artist Theaster Gates. The Rebuild Foundation fosters art initiatives and programming in Chicago’s South and West Side communities. (ARTnews)
The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) Acquires Kehinde Wiley Work – The UK-based organization bought Kehinde Wiley’s film Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) from Stephen Friedman’s booth at Frieze London, along with two works by the artist Zadie Xa, showing at Union Pacific gallery. The works will be donated to the Box, Plymouth, which is set to open in 2020. (Financial Times)
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers Sets a Record for a Joan Mitchell Work on Paper – The Joan Mitchell market shows no signs of cooling off, with the Chicago auction house selling Untitled (Pastel) (1991) for $1.2 million, far surpassing the $600,000 low estimate. The artist’s foundation has been working to promote awareness of her works on paper, which will be highlighted in 2020, when Mitchell has her first major US retrospective in close to 20 years. (ArtDaily)
COMINGS & GOINGS
Artists Announced to Represent Italy at the Venice Biennale – The Minister for Culture of Italy announced Enrico David, Liliana Morothe, and the work of the late artist Chiara Fumai to be shown at Italy’s pavilion in the Giardini at the upcoming Venice Biennale in 2019. Milovan Farronato, the director of the Fiorucci Art Trust, will curate the pavilion. (ARTnews)
Art F City Launches PARADE – Paddy Johnson and nonprofit manager Nancy Kleaver announced the launch of PARADE, the new programming branch of Art F City. The organization will focus on developing public art commissions and community involvement in in Western Queens and beyond; the inaugural project will be the Young & Mighty March to raise political awareness and inspire civic engagement, set for October 21. (Art F City)
Printmaker Warrington Colescott Has Died at 97 – Master etcher Warrington Colescott was known for championing progressive causes such as the Civil Rights Movement in his work, which deftly mixed humor and political commentary. He was a Fulbright and Guggenheim fellow, as well as a veteran of World War II. (The New York Times)
José Esparza Chong Cuy Takes the Reins at New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture – Writer and curator José Esparza Chong Cuy, a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, will become the new executive director and chief curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture on November 1. Eva Franch i Gilabert had led the organization for eight years before being tapped to lead London’s Architectural Association in March. (The Architect’s Newspaper)
FOR ART’S SAKE
The Best Way to Get Instagram Followers Sounds a Lot Like Conceptual Art – The latest teen Instagram trend is the absurdist gesture of posting the exact same picture every single day—and it turns out people love it. The most successful examples, which rack of tens of thousands of followers, range from stock photos (a kiwi, for example) to clip-art. According to some Instagram addicts, the recurring images are a nice breather from the steady flow of duck-face selfies. (The Atlantic)
The Museo del Prado Conserves Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Triumph of Death – It took conservator José de la Fuente two years to clean the heavily retouched work, removing centuries of overpainting on the skeleton-filled canvas. You can see it for yourself at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where it has been loaned for an exhibition honoring the 450th anniversary of the artist’s death. (The Art Newspaper)
David Lynch Is Turning Twin Peaks in to a Virtual Reality Experience – The filmmaker is curating the Festival of Disruption, launching a virtual reality experience based on his cult-favorite television series—rebooted in 2017—at the music, art, and film event. The Twin Peaks VR game has been developed by Collider Games and Showtime, and will be available on Oculus Rift and HTC vive. (Dazed)
Marilyn Minter Goes Gaga – The rabble-rousing feminist artist Marilyn Minter shot Lady Gaga for the New York Times Magazine, ahead of the opening of the singer’s latest project, starring in the upcoming remake of A Star Is Born. (Instagram)