A piece in Art News notes the increased pace of acquisition of artists and artists’ estates by Hauser & Wirth of late, and looks at the sizes and purported earnings of each of the mega-galleries. “Gagosian was reputed to gross the most: roughly $1 billion a year,” says writer Michael Shnayerson. “The others were said to be closer to $250 million each, but claimed to do better.” (more…)
Administrative workers and cinema staff at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York are trying to unionize, Artforum reports. “We are here because we believe in BAM’s mission,” the new union’s Twitter account posted last month. “Through unionization, we raise our morale, pride, and job satisfaction. Our union will make BAM stronger, more democratic, and more sustainable. BAM is a cultural institution that stands for freedom of expression, innovation, and open dialogue. However, as administrative staff, we need a truly powerful voice of our own in our workplace.” (more…)
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has given a $1.7 million gift to PBS, Art News reports. “This initiative raises the visibility of artists working across the U.S., north to south and east to west, in cities large and small,”says Victoria Rogers, the Knight Foundation’s vice president for arts. “Through its iconic national programming and expanded digital presence, PBS NewsHour’s Canvas elevates art as national news, bringing arts directly to millions of people on their screens big and small.” (more…)
Kim Gordon, Zenas Hutcheson, Glenn Ligon, Olivia Marciano and Conor O’Neil have been named to the board of the nonprofit art space LAXART in Los Angeles. “I’m simply giddy—humbled, honored, inspired all at once. These new members heighten our dynamism,” Hamza Walker, LAXART’s director, said in a statement. “Whereas Gordon and Ligon are seminal figures (read rock stars) in the field of contemporary art, Hutcheson, Marciano, and O’Neil mark a new generation of cultural stewardship. They join an already outstanding slate of directors who are our primary supporters and advocates.”” (more…)
Artists Cheng Ran and Cameron Rowland have been awarded the newly launched Nomura Emerging Artist Award, with each of them receiving $100,000. “It is extraordinary and admirable that Nomura has based this award program on the concepts of change and challenge,” Kathy Halbreich, a member of the prize’s jury and the executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation said. “For the Nomura Emerging Artist Award, the jury has responded by selecting two artists of high purpose, exceptional intellectual ambition, and profound sensitivity to the fast-moving currents of today’s world.” (more…)
A piece in Art News this week notes the recent fundraising successes at MOCA, and Klaus Biesenbach’s vision for the museum. “I think the future of MOCA is getting back to serving art and serving community—that’s the message,” says artist and board member Catherine Opie. “It’s all about opening up the museum and what MOCA stood for when it started. I think people are feeling really good about everything. I’ve been trying to take a beat from people I know, people that work inside the museum, as well as the perspective outside of MOCA. I have to say that, so far, everyone’s been giving the thumbs up.” (more…)
A survey finds that museum holdings in the U.S. tend overwhelmingly towards white males, with men making up 88% of collection holdings nationwide. The survey breaks down collection data across a range of datasets and reports. (more…)
Aras Amiri, a British Council employee accused of spying for the UK, has been sentenced to a ten-year prison sentence in Iran. “We are very concerned by reports that an Iranian British Council employee has been sentenced to jail on charges of espionage,” the UK Foreign Office said. “We have not been able to confirm any further details at this stage and are urgently seeking further information.” (more…)
The collector couple Emily and Mitchell Rales were the buyers of Lee Krasner’s The Eye is the First Circle (1960) last week at Sotheby’s, which set a record of $11.7 million for the artist. WSJ reporter Kelly Crow broke the news on her Instagram. “We weren’t sure we’d get it,” Rales told her. “We’re so happy.” (more…)
The Guardian has a piece on the Savitsky Museum in Nukus, Uzbekistan, which holds a collection of avant-garde masterpieces rescued from the Staling regime in Russia. The works were taken by Igor Savitsky, an electrician who fled Russia with the works in tow. (more…)
Nicole Eisenman, via Art Observed
Following a wild few weeks between New York and Venice, the pace of the art world has slowed somewhat, and the big apple has had a moment to catch its breath, opening the doors on this year’s edition of the Whitney Biennial. Often described as a snapshot of art in the United States, the Biennial brings together work by a range of artists across the spectrum of American contemporary practice and in a broad array of mediums. Over the past year and a half, curators Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley crossed the country visiting artists and surveying a broad selection of perspectives and concepts to complete their show.
Simone Leigh, via Art Observed
The NYT looks at the redesign of the Hirshhorn Museum Gardens and the plans in place for Hiroshi Sugimoto to rework the design. “This is what we’re seeing again and again,” says . Charles Birnbaum, the founder and president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation. “It’s really about having more open spaces to accommodate more people and more programs.” (more…)
The NYT has a piece on Robert Mnuchin this week, following the dealer’s winning bid on a $91 million Jeff Koons that made the work the most expensive price for a living artist. “It was an intense business,” he says of his past career at Goldman Sachs. “It was very competitive and I was successful at building relationships with serious institutional people, that I could work for them and myself at the same time. That I could serve as their agent and be their principal. And I think I’ve carried that over somewhat into this.” (more…)
Following a $10 million donation by MOCA board president, Carolyn Clark Powers, the LA Museum is planning to eliminate general ticket fees. “I think many of us are at a point where we understand that museums should not be ivory towers,” Klaus Biesenbach says. “MOCA should feel like a public library where you can go and have access to culture.” (more…)
New York’s Alexander Gray Associates will host a series of shows centered around single works in a barn upstate this summer, Art News reports. The project will kick off with a show of Harmony Hammond’s Bandaged Grid #5 (2016). “Certainly, with the environment that we’re in right now, there’s so much noise, and there’s a big emphasis on spectacle,” Gray says. “We’re interrupting that really fast-paced rhythm of looking.” (more…)
Lutz Bacher, via K21
Artist Lutz Bacher, a relentless innovator whose works frequently defied easy categorization or understanding, has passed away. The artist, who has long avoided releasing much biographical information about herself, was either 75 or 76 at the time of her death. (more…)
Jeff Koons, Rabbit (1992), final price:$91,075,000, via Christie’s
Following the early days of the marathon week of auctions in New York, it wasn’t hard to anticipate a strong outing for the Contemporary Auctions soon to take place, yet the impressive sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips this week outpaced expectations, charting a path of major auction records and bested tallies that marked a strong outlook for the secondary market. Of particular note was the setting of a new auction record for a living artist with Jeff Koons’s Rabbit selling for a new record price of $91,075,000. (more…)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will no longer accept gifts from members of the Sackler family linked to the maker of OxyContin. “The museum takes a position of gratitude and respect to those who support us, but on occasion, we feel it’s necessary to step away from gifts that are not in the public interest, or in our institution’s interest,” said Daniel H. Weiss, the president of the Met. “That is what we’re doing here.” (more…)
Czech Culture Minister Antonin Stanek will resign following protests over his dismissal of Jiri Fajt, the director of Prague’s National Gallery. “This is not acceptable in a 21st-century democracy,” said Marion Ackermann of the Dresden State Art Collections. “Fajt has been one of the best ambassadors for the Czech Republic. He has put so much energy into creating an international network and we all admire him enormously. This will cause a big rupture—it’s a great shame.” (more…)
Now, a British Court of Appeals has rejected an appeal by collector Rudolf Staechelin to overturn a $10 million commission to Simon de Pury and his wife Michaela for the $210 million sale of Paul Gauguin’s 1892 painting Nafea Faa Ipoipo? (When Will You Marry?). “It is regrettable that for the first time in my long career in the art market, I was forced to take legal action against anyone, and in this case, a childhood friend. . . . I look forward to continuing to put all my energy into my activities in the world of art and philanthropy,” de Pury said in a statement. (more…)
A group of Six Titian masterpieces will go on view at London’s National Gallery for the first time together since 1704, The Guardian reports. “They rank amongst the most significant paintings of the 16th century and the all-time great visual statements on the themes of love and death,” says Matthias Wivel, the National Gallery’s curator of 16th-century Italian paintings. (more…)
Activist group Indigenous Womxn’s Collective staged a protest against Whitney Vice Chair Warren B. Kanders this week over his rol in the production of military supplies. “Indigenous people and other people of color are violently under attack by Warren Kanders’s manufactured weapons of terrorism,” the group said in a statement read to attendees. “You, the Whitney, is harboring a terrorist who profits from violence against brown bodies. You want our art, but not our people.” (more…)
Claude Monet, Meules (1891), final price: $110,747,000, via Sotheby’s
It’s been a wild week so far the world’s financial elite, especially in New York, where the stock market has plummeted over fears of an ongoing trade war with China and the attendant tariffs that implies. Yet that didn’t seem to deter the city’s auction houses from swinging for the fences and connected, as Christie’s and Sotheby’s capped a pair of wildly impressive sales that saw both auction houses notch some strong figures, and some major auction records, including a new world record for Claude Monet at Sotheby’s last night. (more…)
The Museum of Modern Art has hired Lanka Tattersall as a curator in the drawings and prints department. “With its unparalleled permanent collection, MoMA is an extraordinary place from which to build and question our understandings of art in our time,” Tattersall said in a statement. “I eagerly look forward to supporting artists by bringing their inventive, challenging and generative works and ideas to the museum.” (more…)