From the Race to Protect Houston’s Art to a New Spate of Gallery Closures: The Best and Worst of the Art World This Week

BEST

• The Smithsonian is into transcendental desert hippie art now? An exhibition of Burning Man festival–inspired art arrives at the institution’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., in 2018; until then, go here to check out the wildest works from the Nevada festival’s 2017 showcase.
• From the Bronx to Brooklyn, our writers and editors picked the 30 can’t-miss art shows opening in New York City this fall.
• artnet News’s Andrew Goldstein sat down with funny woman Emma Allen, cartoon editor of the New Yorker, to discuss the future of humor at the much-loved publication.
• The National Endowment for the Humanities pledged $1 million in emergency grants for institutions in Houston and Louisiana that sustained damage as part of storm Harvey.
• A multimillion-dollar Norman Rockwell painting that belonged to Debbie Reynolds is the highlight of an upcoming sale of items belonging to the late actress and her daughter Carrie Fisher.
• Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, spoke to artnet News’s Brian Boucher about his plans for a new institution called the From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration Museum, set to open in 2018 in Montgomery, Alabama.

Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey. Her office announced it was looking into the Berkshire Museum’s deaccessioning this week. Image courtesy Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.

WORST

• What is the impact of Hurricane Harvey on Texas museums? Read updates on the Rockport Center for the Arts’s damage and more.
• In an emotional mass email, gallerist Jean-Claude Freymond-Guth announced he would shutter his Zürich-based gallery, Freymond-Guth. Soon thereafter, Laura Bartlett Gallery in London announced its impending closure after 12 years.
• Apparently, European museums are more reputable than those in the US, according to one study (conducted, ahem, in Europe).
• The Berkshire Museum’s plan to sell off artwork have garnered negative press from the art world—after the institution rejected a $1 million gift from anonymous donors hoping that the museum would postpone the sale in return for the donation, the Massachusetts museum’s plan is now being reviewed by the state’s Attorney General.
• German artists are up in arms after a massive building that’s home to 50 studios for artists including Katharina Grosse and Monica Bonvicini was sold for $35 million, thereby becoming a flash point in a debate over widespread gentrification.

US Pavilion co-curators Mimi Zeiger, Niall Atkinson, and Ann Lui at the Art Institute of Chicago North Garden on August 23, 2017. Photo by Nancy Wong.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

• Mathew Gallery is moving from 47 Canal Street to 46 Canal Street.
• Last week Sotheby’s upped its buyer’s premium, with Christie’s following suit a few days later. artnet’s Tim Schneider sheds some light on the murky world of auction-house pricing in this week’s Gray Market.
• After months of speculation, a trio of Chicago-based curators announced plans for the US Pavilion in the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition, “Dimensions of Citizenship,” will address the national and international conversation surrounding what it means to be a citizen.