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 Wednesday, September 2.

NEED-TO-READ

Charlie Hebdo Reprints Mohammed Caricatures – The French satirical newspaper that suffered a terrorist attack in 2015 is reprinting the same caricatures of Prophet Mohammed that the perpetrators cited as a reason for their action. Charlie Hebdo announced it would reprint the cartoons the day before the first trial of the individuals who are accused of supplying the three attackers with the weapons used in the January 2015 incident. All three perpetrators died in the attack. (Associated Press)

Is Hobby Lobby’s Deal With Iraq Even Close to Fair? – As Hobby Lobby and the owners of the Museum of the Bible close in on a deal with the Iraqi government regarding thousands of looted and disputed antiquities in the museum’s collection, experts have described the agreement as “exploitative and degrading” for the Middle Eastern nation. A document outlining the arrangement asks the Iraqi government to provide loans to the US museum and to let them conserve objects in exchange for the return of looted material. It also states that Iraq cannot sue in the future for damages. (Daily Beast)

Misty Copeland Has a Great Art Collection – The celebrated American ballet dancer and her husband, lawyer Olu Evans, offer Architectural Digest a peek inside their Upper West Side apartment. The elegant, colorful space is decked out in top-notch art, primarily by Black artists, including a meditative work by Lorna Simpson, a large portrait by Asuka Ogawa, a piercing work by Nathaniel Mary Quinn, and a dynamic portrait by Ndidi Emefiele. Also on view, fittingly, is a black-and-white photograph of the hands of fellow legendary dance pioneer Merce Cunningham, by Mark Seliger. (Architectural Digest) 

Staff Shakeup Comes to the Walker – The Walker Art Center has created nine new roles, cut five positions, and restructured three existing jobs as part of executive director Mary Ceruti’s plan to reshape the Minneapolis museum. Ceruti, who assumed her role in 2019, is creating a new department called Public Engagement, Learning, and Impact. She has also added a head of content and communications role while eliminating the position of editor and 18-year museum veteran Paul Schmelzer, who helmed the institution’s influential publication the Walker Reader. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

ART MARKET

Top Artists Join Benefit for Black Trans Community and Sex Workers – American photographers Nan Goldin and Ryan McGinley are among those who are selling prints to benefit three organizations providing housing, grants, and other resources to Black trans people and sex workers. The sale is being organized by the nonprofit Towards Utopia. (ARTnews)

Lehmann Maupin Will Represent Arcmanoro Niles – The Brooklyn-based artist known for his glittering portraits of Black men and women will have his first solo show with the gallery in June 2021 in New York. (Press release)

A Van Gogh Some Say Is Fake Just Sold for Half a Million – An unknown bidder paid €550,000 for a work of disputed authenticity. The Mill of Wijk bij Duurstede sold at auction in Hamburg on Tuesday. (Monopol)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Starchitect Richard Rogers Retires At Age 87 – The 87-year-old British-Italian architect Richard Rogers—who co-designed the Centre Pompidou in Paris and won the Prtizker Prize in 2007—has retired from his practice, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. His name will be dropped from the business within two years. (Dezeen)

Getty Launches Internship Program to Diversify Conservation Field – The Getty has established a new year-long internship for students of color in art conservation, one of the least diverse areas in the museum field. Each internship will come with a $30,000 grant and will be open to applicants with bachelor’s degrees. (TAN)

FOR ART’S SAKE

South Carolina Residents Want a Sculpture of Chadwick Boseman – Residents of Chadwick Boseman’s hometown of Anderson, South Carolina, are campaigning to replace a Confederate memorial there with a sculpture of the late Black Panther actor. More than 30,000 people have signed a petition to swap the existing monument outside the town’s courthouse with a statue of Boseman. (New York Daily News)

How Van Gogh Ended Up at the Center of a Twitter Controversy – Art-history Twitter has been embroiled in a feisty debate about Van Gogh after a viral tweet (unfavorably) compared the Dutch painter’s Café Terrace at Night to a more realist interpretation of the same scene by the contemporary Chinese painter Haixia Liu. The side-by-side was meant to “expose how overrated Van Gogh is,” according to the original tweet. A flurry of memes and a heated debate about the merits of realism in art ensued. (ARTnews)