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 Friday, September 10.
NEED-TO-READ
Kehinde Wiley Will Re-Work The Blue Boy – The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in Los Angeles has commissioned Kehinde Wiley to create a piece that responds to the most famous work in its collection, Thomas Gainsborough’s masterwork The Blue Boy (1770). Wiley’s work will debut in October opposite the original. “The Blue Boy represents, for me, an ability to address the different standards with regards to who gets recognized, who gets praised,” Wiley said. (Los Angeles Times)
Vermeer Restoration Yields Another Discovery – Conservators have uncovered an image of a wine glass obscured beneath layers of paint in Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (c. 1657) following its extensive restoration at Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie. This is the second hidden image found in the work: a picture of Cupid was recently discovered hiding behind the overpaint depicting the room’s back wall. The work goes back on view tomorrow at Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. (The Art Newspaper)
Beck and Marissa Ribisi Split Banskys in Their Divorce – After two years, musician Beck and actress Marissa Ribisi finalized their split, including the thorny question of who gets to keep the Banksys. Under the terms of the agreement, Beck will keep 10 of their properties in California, Tennessee, and Arkansas, a collection of gold coins, and more than two dozen works of art, including four original Banksys. Ribisi will walk away with five Banksy works, an Andy Warhol titled Sam, Sam, and a 2014 Honda Odyssey. (Daily Mail)
Heiner Pietzsch, German Collector of Surrealist Trove, Dies – The Berlin State Museums have announced that the major German collector has died at the age of 91 after a long illness. The museums hold an extensive trove of his collection, which focuses on Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist art. (ARTnews)
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Cao Fei Wins Deutsche Börse Prize – The Chinese artist won this year’s prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, which includes a purse of £30,000 ($41,647). Judges called her work, which deals with our society’s obsession with technology, “gripping and prescient.” (Guardian)
Cosmoscow Gets a New Date and Location – The Moscow art fair had to postpone and relocate because its original location is still being used as Russia’s largest vaccination center. The event will now open at Central Manege on September 18. (Press release)
Strike MoMA Announces “Phase 2” of Protests – Members of the activist group Strike MoMA are planning a second phase of their protests against toxic museum philanthropy. Demonstrators will convene outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York on September 10 to kick off a week of activities that will culminate with a citywide decolonial action called “Globalize the Intifada.” (Hyperallergic)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Jamian Juliano-Villani Opens Her Gallery O’Flaherty’s – The artist’s offbeat new gallery space in New York, O’Flaherty’s, has opened to the public with a show of work by Kim Dingle. Don’t sleep on it: The lease on the space is for one year, after which the artist said she wants to put a pin in the project and kill it “before it sucks.” (Instagram)