Brooklyn Museum head Anne Pasternak has made Crain’s list of Most Powerful Women in NYC, spotlighting her activism and work with the museum and Creative Time.
The NYT has a piece this week on artist Andrea Bowers’s monumental artwork drawing on the online disclosures of the #MeToo movement, and the controversy when one person included in the work complained of exploitation. “This is a whole new set of questions,” says Prof. Griselda Pollock, director of the Center for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History at the University of Leeds in Britain. “Artists have a right to quote from the world, and they have authorization to present it as their art. But if you use materials that come from one context of use, with its own inherent ethics and politics, into another one, then we find that there are people who are challenging it.” (more…)
Jeffrey Deitch gets a profile in KCET’s Artbound program, spotlighting his recent work, his focus on Los Angeles’s thriving arts scene, and his early days expanding the scope of the contemporary art market. “Some people say I created a monster because we basically invented the profession of professional art advisory,” Deitch says of his early work. (more…)
CNN takes a look at the disappearance of Salvator Mundi after its landmark sale last year, noting that the work hasn’t been seen in public since its landmark sale. “It’s either on the yacht or in a Geneva lock-up, and I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that the yacht is really quite plausible,” writer Ben Lewis said in a phone interview, alluding to speculation that the work is on a luxury yacht belonging to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman. “But I would suggest that it may not be the safest environment in which to hang up this picture.” (more…)
Sterling Ruby’s new fashion line gets a profile in the NYT this week, as the artist and budding designer traces his experiences with fiber arts and clothing. “Outside of the logistics of putting together the collection and the garments — in the kind of production of it — I don’t see it as any different to making a sculpture or a painting,” he says. (more…)
Oscar Murillo gets a profile in The Guardian this month, speaking on his early studies and his drive to push his practice into new spheres. “History is history and you think: now let me forge my own path, ignoring what is allowed or not allowed… just going for it,” he says. (more…)
Artist Martin Roth, who often worked with living organisms and plants in his work, has passed away of unknown causes at the age of 41. Roth’s last show, November 2017 I collected a plant from the garden of a mass shooter, earned him high praise, centered on a single plant taken from the rock-strewn lawn of the shooter responsible for the murder of 58 people at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas in 2017. “Martin was one of the best artists I ever had the pleasure of working with. He was an uncompromising perfectionist, moving one rock from this corner to that corner in order to achieve exactly what it was he was looking for, and the success of each exhibition was due to his perfectionism,” Roth’s gallerist, RJ Supa said. ” The shows, on a shoestring budget, were always received as dynamic and exhilarating social commentary, emerging masterworks from a talent gone too soon. His talent and vision will be deeply missed.” (more…)
In a major shake-up, French-Israeli media mogul and collector Patrick Drahi has reached an agreement to acquire Sotheby’s in a $3.7 billion deal. “With my family, we are very enthusiastic to build together with its current management and their teams the future of Sotheby’s, a fascinating and multi-secular company with such a celebrated history of uniting people all over the world through culture and arts,” Drahi said in a statement. (more…)
The Istanbul Biennial has revealed its artist list for the 16th edition, set to open September 14. Titled The Seventh Continent, the show will feature artists like Glenn Ligon, Mika Rottenberg, Rashid Johnson, and more, organized by Nicolas Bourriaud, the director of the Montpellier Contemporary. (more…)
A study by the German Lost Art Foundation has found that a “surprisingly large number of objects with dubious provenances” linger in eastern German museums, the Art Newspaper reports. “We had the sense beforehand that there were items with critical provenances in all our museums, but we didn’t know how many,” says Alexander Sachse, a researcher at the Brandenburg State Museums Association behind the research. (more…)
The Broad has acquired David Hammons‘s African-American Flag (1990), Art News reports. The museum also acquired Mark Bradford’s 50-feet-long mixed media work Deep Blue (2018), which is now on view. (more…)
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac will host a major survey of 1980s-era works by Roy Lichtenstein this summer in Salzburg, Art News reports. “I have had a special history with Lichtenstein thanks to Leo Castelli, who introduced him to me in the 1990s,” Ropac says. (more…)
The New York Times profiles the Dia Foundation’s recent expansions of its holdings, focusing more on women and artists outside its historical holdings of mostly American and German records, as the museum opens shows by Lee Ufan and Charlotte Posenenske. (more…)
The Guardian broke news this morning that Chief Executive of the Serpentine Galleries, Yana Peel is a co-owner in an Israeli tech firm that sells software used by authoritarian regimes to crack down on dissent. “The Peel family has an investment in Novalpina. I have no involvement in the operations or decisions of Novalpina, which is managed by my husband, Stephen Peel, and his partners,” she said of the holding company the owns part of NSO. (more…)
Postmasters Gallery is expanding to its first international outpost this month with a space in Rome, located near the Colosseum. The space will open on June 20 with an exhibition of haiku paintings by Rafaël Rozendaal. “It doesn’t follow obvious patterns of where galleries open branches,” co-founder Magda Sawon says. “But we have this very firm belief that the city has vitality and that it also needs to be vitalized by a gallery like ours, which is super-contemporary. It’s a bit of an intervention, but we have great hopes.” (more…)
The National Sound Library of Mexico has discovered what could be the first known voice recording of Frida Kahlo, taken from a pilot episode of 1955 radio show El Bachiller. “He is a gigantic, immense child, with a friendly face and a sad gaze,” she says of her husband, Diego Rivera in the piece. (more…)
The lawsuit filed in New York’s Southern District Court by Lehmann Maupin Gallery against former director Bona Yoo for the alleged theft of trade secrets has been dismissed with prejudice. (more…)
A number of high-profile art galleries, including the Hong Kong Pavilion at the Venice Biennale to closed Wednesday in support of protests against the Hong Kong government’s proposed changes to its extradition law. “[Artist] “Shirley [Tse] and I respect people’s right to strike,” curator Christine Li says. (more…)
Phillips auction house will sell two pieces from the collection of star baseball player Alex Rodriguez, including a Basquiat valued at £3 million to £4 million. “A number of gallerists and advisors pointed me in the right direction, and I have been in conversation with several artists, whose studio practice seem close to my own as an athlete,” Rodriguez says of his collecting. (more…)
Hauser & Wirth is planning to open a 16,145-square-foot space on Menorca’s Isla del Rey in the Balearic Islands, off the coast of Spain. “This is a very cultured island but there is no art education in the curriculum there,” says president Iwan Wirth. “If we want to engage with our audience we’re not just going to drop shows there—we want to have a dialogue.” (more…)
The Golden State Warriors have launched an initiative that will place works from the SFMoMA on view at Chase Center. “It goes back to the genesis of what we are trying to create here,” says team President and CEO Rick Welts. “This is the new public gathering place in the Bay Area, and we want it to reflect sports, entertainment and art.”
East Harlem activists staged an action at New York’s El Museo del Barrio on Tuesday evening, calling for the museum to change policies to better serve the demands of the surrounding community. “This action today is about planting the seeds for community awareness and education,” Debbie Quinones, one of the activists, says. (more…)
The Tate will send its collection to China with plans to show premiere works at the new Pudong Museum of Art in Shanghai, Art Newspaper reports. “We are delighted to have Tate as a consultant to the Pudong Museum of Art and to be signing the MoU,” says Zhu Di, the general director of the art department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China. (more…)