Brooklyn resident (and van Gogh doppelgänger) Robert Reynolds became a viral sensation after a Redditor posted photographs of him on the G train (courtesy Robert Reynolds)
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
Vincent van Gogh was sighted on the G train in Brooklyn.
Artist Tania Bruguera was unable to accept her accolade from the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts due to her ongoing detention by Cuban authorities.
Alex Barrett, the developer who purchased Arthur Wood’s “Broken Angel House” in Brooklyn, incorporated the artist’s work into his condominium development without Wood’s permission. Wood was evicted in 2013 following a protracted struggle with the city over the safety of his elaborately constructed home. Barrett subsequently purchased the Clinton Hill property for $4.1 million. “It’s heartbreaking,” Wood told DNAinfo. “They have taken my home and now my artwork. My artwork is now also out of context. To me that is like chopping of the head of the Mona Lisa and using it in a Starbucks ad.”
The illegally erected 100-pound bust of Edward Snowden that appeared in Fort Greene Park last month, was returned to the anonymous artists who created it. The NYPD confiscated the bust as evidence. Two of the artists who created the work are required to each pay a $50 fine to the city.
The “Speaker’s Parlour,” one of the rooms in Clandon Park House, remains “almost intact” following a devastating fire that gutted the Palladian mansion last week. The cause of the fire is still unknown.
The Foundazione Prada opened its new art space in Milan. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, the foundation has twice the gallery space of the new Whitney Museum. Patrizio Bertelli, Prada’s managing director, told the Guardian, “we don’t want to pollute the Fondazione with fashion. That would exploit the artists, and they don’t like being used as an advertising tool.”
Frederic Lord Leighton, “Flaming June” (c.1895), oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico (via Wikipedia)
The Frick Collection will display Frederic Lord Leighton’s “Flaming June” (c.1895) this Summer. The work is on loan from the Museo de Arte de Ponce.
Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery is currently under investigation as part of a probe into art valuations and smuggling.
Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, replaced all of the city’s billboard advertisements with reproductions of artworks.
Cornell University’s Johnson Museum of Art is suing architectural firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners over alleged “architectural malpractice” and and the submission of “inherently flawed and materially defective” designs. The museum claims to have spent $1.1 million repairing damages on its 2011–12 expansion.
Five paintings that went missing during World War II were returned by the US State Department to Germany. Three of the works were won in a poker game by an American GI.
The UK’s National Lottery provided a record amount of lottery money to the arts in 2014/15. Of the £1.8 billion (~$2.8 billion) shared between the Lottery Good Causes, the arts received £359 million (~$554.6 million).
Comedian and playwright Sébastien Thiery delivered a speech while naked at France’s annual Molière Awards (Nuit des Molières). Directly addressing France’s minister of culture and communication, Fleur Pellerin — who was seated in the audience — Thiery discussed the labor injustices faced by French playwrights.
Alice Tate-Harte, a conservator for English Heritage, discovered Titian’s signature on a painting long thought to be an imitation after the artist.
The New England Institute of Art will close after current students complete their studies. A spokesman for Education Management Corp. told the Boston Globe that the institute’s success rate of employment had been unsatisfactory.
The towers of the New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Corona Park will get a free paint job. The work, which would ordinarily have cost $3 million, will be carried out as part of a training program for apprentice painters.
A crowdfunding campaign was launched to fund the completion of Orson Welles’s unfinished film, The Other Side of the Wind. 2015 Marks the 100th anniversary of Welles’s birth.
The Egyptian government is investigating a rumor that a pornographic film was shot at the pyramids of Giza.
Transactions
Charles White, “Awaken From The Unknowing” (1961), charcoal, 30 x 55 inches. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin. Susan G. and Edmund W. Gordon Family Collection (courtesy Blanton Museum of Art) (click to enlarge)
Susan G. and Edward W. Gordon donated their collection of works by Charles White to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas.
The San Jose Museum of Art acquired 44 works from the collection of Barbara and Dixon Farley. The gift includes works by Jay DeFeo, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston.
The Phillips Collection acquired several hundred photography gifts in 2014, increasing its collection by over 25%.
The Cleveland Museum of Art purchased a collection of Columbian gold artifacts from Sotheby’s for an undisclosed sum.
Transitions
The Munch Gallery, Broome Street, New York (via Facebook)
Timothy Rodgers, the director of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, will resign his post as of May 18.
Anne Flanagan, the deputy director of the Art Gallery of NSW, will retire after 23 years at the institution.
Katie Pfohl was appointed curator of modern and contemporary art at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Kristen Watts was appointed director of exhibitions and design at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Sterling Ruby parted ways with Hauser & Wirth.
Leo Fitzpatrick was appointed director of Marlborough Chelsea.
The Munch Gallery on Broome Street will close after a four-and-a-half-year run. According to its Facebook page, the gallery is looking to relocate in the coming months.
Accolades
Maria Hassabi, Sharon Lockhart, Julia Wolfe, Taylor Mac, and Tania Bruguera were the winners of the 2015 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts.
The Cooper Hewitt announced the winners of the 2015 National Design Awards. The late architect Michael Graves was posthumously awarded a lifetime achievement award.
John Baldessari will receive the 2015 SMFA Medal Award on May 18.
Frances Stark and Mark Godfrey won the 2015 Absolut Art Award for artwork and art writing, respectively.
Karen Kramer and Alice May Williams were the recipients of the 2016 Jerwood/FVU Awards.
Kevin Peterson was awarded the 2015 Hunting Prize.
Obituaries
Maya Plisetskaya in Sergei Prokofyev’s “Romeo and Juliet” (1961) (via Wikipedia)
Piotr Piotrowski (1952–2015), art historian and critic. Author of In the Shadow of Yalta: Art and the Avant-garde in Eastern Europe, 1945–1989.
Maya Plisetskaya (1925–2015), Russian ballet star.
Einar Thorsteinn (1942–2015), architect, mathematician, and crystallographer.
Dalibor Vesely (1934–2015), architecture scholar.
