Artist Samara Golden gets the profile treatment in the New York Times this week as she opens a show of new work at Night Gallery in LA. “The piece speaks to the art history of Southern California because of its viscerality,” says Night Gallery founder Davida Nemeroff.
Read more at NYT
KAWS is launching an online exhibition in the video game Fortnite, as well as one at London’s Serpentine Gallery. “Being able to create works,” the artist says, “and the version that I’m viewing in Brooklyn is the version you could be viewing in India, I just started to get really obsessed with the opportunities within that.”
Read more at The Guardian
A Camille Pissarro work looted by the Nazis will head to US Supreme Court to hear a case over its ownership, as the descendants of Lilly Cassirer Neubauer sue for the painting’s return. “This has been three generations of the Cassirer family trying to take back what is theirs,” says attorney Stephen Zack of the US law firm Boies Schiller Flexner.
Read More at The Guardian
Employees at the Jewish Museum in New York have voted to unionize. “The Jewish Museum is aware that staff have petitioned for a union election,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “The Museum greatly values its staff and will respectfully engage in any process that transpires.”
Read more at Art Newspaper
London’s Serpentine Galleries have formally removed the Sackler name from its North Gallery. The museum had faced criticism over its sluggishness to remove the name after fierce criticism and similar moves at other major institutions.
A piece in the Art Newspaper looks at efforts to begin regulating NFTs alongside cryptocurrencies, and how much catch-up those governments will have to play. “Education is paramount to protect new entrants from falling prey to bad actors, and the online community can contribute to increasing the level of understanding around NFTs,” says Omri Bouton of the London-based media and technology law firm Sheridans. “The industry may also benefit from having standards to allow consumers to quickly identify trustworthy projects.” (more…)
After less than a year at the Parrish Museum, Kelly Taxter has left. “It was something she worked out with the board as being the right thing to do at this point in time,” says Parrish board president Mary E. Frank. (more…)
Spain has granted protected status to a small work believed to be a Caravaggio original, The Guardian reports. “Elements such as the psychological depictions of the characters, the realism of the faces, the luminous force that illuminates the body of Christ, the interplay of the three characters and the communication it establishes with the viewer make this a work of great artistic interest,” the government said in a statement. (more…)
A piece in the Art Newspaper notes that two years after forming its union, MOCA employees are still negotiating their first contract with management. “I, along with many of my fellow coworkers in the union, felt very disrespected and undervalued by the proposal,” says Anna Marfleet, a member of the union organizing committee. “The fact that the museum spent six months stalling and delaying only to deliver a gravely insufficient proposal really shows how little the museum values the time and labor of its employees, and how unaccountable upper management is to the actual workers that make the museum run every day.” (more…)
The latest in the ongoing fight over the estate of Robert Indiana accuses Michael McKenzie of forgery and emotional abuse as well as lying under oath about evidence in his possession. “We’ve corroborated every single allegation of wrongdoing against Michael McKenzie,” says the lawyer Luke Nikas, partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. (more…)
A piece in the New Yorker this week notes the extensive push by a wide-ranging group of artists to convince The Met to remove the Sackler name from the museum’s iconic wing. “Honoring the Sackler name on the walls of the Met erodes the Met’s relationship with artists and the public,” read an open letter from a group that included Nan Goldin, Ai Weiwei, and Maurizio Cattelan. (more…)
French lawyer Claude Dumont-Beghi, who pursued Guy Wildenstein over alleged fraud charges, has herself been convicted of aggravated tax fraud and money laundering over $5.1 million kept in an anonymous account. Dumont-Beghi denies the accusations, and has partially challenged the conviction. (more…)
The White House has turned its regulatory attention towards the art world, calling out “built-in opacity, lack of stable and predictable pricing, and inherent cross-border transportability of goods sold, make the market optimal for illicit value transfer, sanctions evasion, and corruption,” in a recent report. (more…)
The Desert X Biennial will return to Saudia Arabia for its second edition, Art Newspaper reports. “Following the success of the inaugural edition in 2020, Desert X AlUla is continuing in sustaining the artistic and natural heritage of the region by placing visionary contemporary works by Saudi and international artists amidst this extraordinary and majestic desert landscape,” says Nora Aldabal, arts and creative planning director at the Royal Commission for AlUla, the government body run on behalf of the Crown Prince. (more…)
Dealer Jeffrey Deitch will represent the estate of Rammellzee, the prolific graffiti artist, painter, philosopher, and musician. “Rammellzee was not at all focused on the art world when we met or aware of how if functioned but was essentially just looking for a platform and an audience for his ideas. I decided to take Ramm under my wing, so to speak, and introduced him to some of the friends I was making downtown, like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Charlie Ahearn, Edit deAk, and Patti Astor. All saw he was brilliant and believed he was a fascinating artist who should be known and shown,” says his contemporary, musician Fab 5 Freddy. (more…)
A piece in Art Newspaper this week documents the string of Los Angeles galleries setting up shop in New York. “I think the move is giving us the chance to work more closely and be in more constant dialogue with the best institutions in the country,” says dealer François Ghebaly, who is opening a space in the city. “Selling art at this moment is not difficult, it’s more a question of who we want to sell to.” (more…)
A piece in the New York Times this week documents galleries’ recent trend towards preselling works at their fair booths, and the craft of selling work at a fair more broadly. “Managing expectations is an art,” says David Zwirner. “You’ll be successful in this industry if you master that. If you don’t, you won’t.” (more…)
New York’s Department of Cultural Affairs will give the Brooklyn Museum a capital infusion of $50 million, making it the largest gift in museum history. “I’m really grateful to the mayor and the commissioner of Cultural Affairs,” says director Anne Pasternak. “When I came to them with this very big idea, they actually took the meeting, and they took it seriously.” (more…)
Frieze has tapped Christine Messineo as director of both its LA and NYC fair events. “As a former exhibitor, I understand the commercial, educational and creative dynamics that make Frieze a unique place for discovery,” she says. “I’m excited to embark on this venture in both cities, places I love and have called home.” (more…)
The Garage in Moscow will launch a massive expansion project, headed by SANAA. “Garage has always had a strong focus on the architecture of public spaces and their history, and this is very much in line with our practice. The Hexagon has a particular charm and we have tried to retain that in our design,” say architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. (more…)
LACMA curator Christine Y. Kim has been named the inaugural Christine Y. Britton Family Curator-at-Large for the Tate Modern. “Christine is a hugely talented and experienced curator, with a reputation for showcasing the incredible diversity of North American contemporary art,” says Tate director of collections Gregoir Muir. “I’m delighted that she’ll be joining the team in this role. As an American living in the United States, Christine will also bring on-the-ground expertise to Tate’s activities in the region.” (more…)
Frank Stella has an interview this week with the New York Times, as he installs a new sculpture outside of the World Trade Center, and reflects on the course of his career. “People used to talk about artists and say things like, ‘Oh, now he’s lost it,’” he says. “And what now seems like minuscule phases and changes in the work were at the time the end of a career. It was kind of a joke. But it was serious in the way people reacted to it.” (more…)
