Art Industry News: A Quintet of Casual Thieves Heisted 27 Photographs From Fergus McCaffrey Gallery in Chelsea + Other Stories

Plus, collector and philanthropist Toby Devan Lewis has died at 87, and a legal battle looms over an August Sander NFT project.

Installation view of "Richard Nonas all; at once," the artist's most recent show at Fergus McCaffrey, in 2019. Photo courtesy of Fergus McCaffrey, New York.

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, May 6.

NEED TO READ

Cézanne Show Will Display Works Unseen in U.K. – London’s Tate Modern will mount an “extremely cost-intensive” exhibition of the Modern master in October. Twenty-two of the show’s 80 works have never been seen in the U.K. before, including Still Life With Fruit Dish (1879–80), on loan from New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Ticket will cost £22 ($27) each, the institution’s top ticket price, because of the soaring costs associated with bringing the works from around the world to London. (Guardian)

August Sander NFT Project Prompts Court Battle – A cultural foundation in Germany is asserting a claim to the copyright of the August Sander archive, putting a wrench in an ambitious initiative conceived by the photographer’s great grandson Julian to put Sander’s entire archive online for free via the NFT marketplace OpenSea. The forthcoming case could have important ramifications for photographers weighing how to enter the NFT market. (The Art Newspaper)

A Group of Five Staged an Art Theft in Chelsea – A group of five people believed to be in their 30s staged a heist at Chelsea’s Fergus McCaffrey Gallery last month, entering the establishment at 8 p.m. and walking out with a portfolio of 27 photos worth around $45,000. The NYPD has now released photos of the suspects, who fled the scene on foot, and are asking anyone with knowledge of the caper to submit a tip. (Pix 11 News)

Show in Liverpool Mounts Slave Shackles Alongside Sculptures – The Walker Art Gallery in the U.K. has chosen to display wrought-iron ankle shackles used on enslaved African people near the sculpted portraits of the Sandbach family, who built a great fortune from slave trading. The juxtaposition aims to “address the erasure of colonial history in the Walker sculpture display” as a result of a community-led research project. The shackles come from the collection of Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum. (Guardian)

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Louise Bonnet Gets First Asia Show After New Auction Record – The Los Angeles-based, Swiss-born rising star will open her first solo show in Asia at Gagosian Hong Kong on May 31. The show, which includes six new paintings, comes on the heels of a new auction record set last week at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. (Press release)

Research Project on Ancient Scriptures Gets Major Grant – The National Endowment for the Humanities has given a $75,000 grant to an project analyzing the Goryeo era’s Buddhist scripture “Jikji Simche Yojeol,” better known as “Jikji,” and the Gutenberg Bible. Led by the UNESCO International Center for Documentary Heritage, the ambitious initiative involves 50 scholars from 25 institutions. (Korea Times)

Philanthropist Toby Devan Lewis, Who Helped Fund the New Museum, Dies – The collector and philanthropist transformed the New Museum with tens of millions of dollars’ worth of donations. She also served as a board member there for 27 years and was the board’s vice president at the time of her passing. The New Museum’s forthcoming expansion will bear her name. She was 87. (ARTnews)

OMA Will Transform Former Bakery Into Art Center – The tastemaking Detroit art gallery Library Street Collective has tapped the architecture firm to convert a former commercial bakery and warehouse into a mixed-use arts community center. The new development will become the headquarters for two local nonprofits, Signal-Return and Progressive Arts Studio Collective. It will also offer 5,300 square feet of affordable artist studios and 4,000 square feet of retail space. (Designboom)

FOR ARTS SAKE

Kharkiv Documents War’s Toll on Architecture – Some of those who remain in the eastern Ukrainian city that has been heavily shelled by Russian forces are working together to catalogue the destruction, making a list of 68 buildings of architectural significance that have suffered damage. These include the train station that saw an endless queue of people waiting to board a train to flee; more than 1.4 million have left since the Russian invasion began. (Guardian)

KHARKIV, UKRAINE - MARCH 28: A rocket crater is seen in the courtyard of the destroyed Kharkiv Regional State Administration building on March 28, 2022 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. More than half Kharkiv's 1.4 million people have fled the city since Russia's invasion on Feb. 24, which was followed by weeks of intense bombardment. Russian forces remain to the city's north and east, but have met heavy resistance from Ukrainian troops here. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

A rocket crater is seen in the courtyard of the destroyed Kharkiv Regional State Administration building on March 28, 2022 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)


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