Art Movements

Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.

Facebook censored Evelyne Axell’s 1964 painting “Ice Cream” for “containing excessive amounts of skin or suggestive content” after the Philadelphia Museum of Art used it to promote the forthcoming exhibition International Pop on the social network.

A badger dug up several artifacts dating from between 2000 and 2200 BCE on Ministry of Defense property near Stonehenge.

Ann Freedman and the Knoedler Gallery settled a lawsuit with collectors Domenico and Eleanore De Sole over the sale of a fake Mark Rothko painting. The agreements — the terms of which have not been disclosed — put an end to the sixth lawsuit related to the Knoedler forgery scandal to have been settled. Four more lawsuits are still pending.

Pierre Le Guennec, a retired French electrician who worked for Pablo Picasso, revealed some of the works in a trove of 271 previously undocumented Picassos. The works, all dating from between 1900 and 1932, are said to be worth €40 million (~$45 million).

With the end of the standoff at Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the property will be combed over by a bomb squad, the FBI’s evidence and forensics teams, and, finally, the FBI’s art-crime unit will investigate the site to see if any of the Paiute Indian burial sites or artifacts in the refuge were disturbed or damaged.

An appeals court in Paris upheld a previous ruling that the French teacher Frederic Durand-Baissas can sue Facebook in France for censoring his post of Gustave Courbet’s painting  “L’Origine du Monde” (1866) in 2011. The social network had argued that it could only be sued in California, where it is headquartered.

A group of Croatian artists calling themselves Kulturnjaci 2016 protest the country’s newly appointed Culture Minister, the historian Zlatko Hasanbegović, who they claim lacks expertise and who, in his decisions since his appointment, “flirts with fascism.”

The Chinese performance artist Ou Zhihang did nude pushups at the sites of the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan massacres in Paris.

An exhibition sponsored by the National Riffle Association at the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has sparked protests from gun control activists.

Argentina and Spain repatriated 567 heritage objects to Ecuador.

A painting by the Western Australian artist Marcia Purdie that turned up in a thrift store donation pile in December has sold for 1,800 Australian dollars (~$1,280).

The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam will rent out space in its new Public Art Depot storage facility to collectors.

Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the Arts Require Timely Service Act — which would require the US Citizenship and Immigration Services to process international artists’ visa requests in a timely fashion — in the US Senate.

Jane Duncan, the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, called for an investigation into the selection process of a contest that chose Thomas Heatherwick as the architect to design a garden bridge over the Thames.

The UK’s House of Lords voted to end a centuries-old tradition, decreeing that from April onward British laws will no longer be printed on calfskin vellum, but on archival paper. The change is expected to save the nation £80,000 (~$116,000) annually.

Transgender performance artist Niv Acosta claimed that employees at Spa Castle refused to grant him a key to the women’s locker room.

A chateau in Uzès in the south of France that once belonged to the British art critic Douglas Cooper — and which Picasso tried to buy from him, to no avail — is on the market for $9.9 million. It includes a series of five sculpture murals on its veranda.

The City of Paris launched a new initiative to create one city-run mural space for street art in each of Paris’s 20 arrondissements. The names of the artists who will create the first 10 murals were picked out of glass bowls at random during a ceremony at Paris’s Hôtel de Ville.

New Brunswick’s Department of Tourism, Heritage, and Culture will cut the budget of the New Brunswick Arts Board by $400,000 over the next two years, firing all its employees and taking over its operations.

One of two versions of Dante Gabriel Rossetti‘s “The Salutation of Beatrice” (1881–82) went on public display for the first time at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

The Dayton Art Institute is about to embark on a $2.2 million renovation project.

Artist Geng Jianyi attributed the discovery of a duplicate of one of his earlier paintings to a “failure of memory.” The artist originally claimed that “Hairdressing: Hairwashing,” which was due to be auctioned last October, was not an authentic work. Art dealer Lv Peng recently released a series of letters from the early ’90s in which Geng apparently agreed to repaint a number of his missing works.

Short videos by artists, including Dora García, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Margaret Salmon, will screen unannounced before feature films at cinemas throughout the UK.

Seattle design firm Invisible Creature released three space travel posters commissioned by NASA for a 2016 calendar that was distributed to the space agency’s staff.

Ai Weiwei wrapped gold thermal blankets around his “Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads” sculptures as “a gesture … in defending the dignity of the refugees.”

Barnett Newman‘s “Broken Obelisk” (1963–67) at Houston’s Menil Collection will undergo a 10-month restoration.

Following research by Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum, a 1930 painting by Salvador Dalí formerly titled “La Femme Poisson” (“The Fish Woman”) was retitled “L’Homme Poisson” (“The Fish Man”).

The Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) will design this summer’s Serpentine Gallery pavilion. In addition to the usual commission, the outgoing gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones has selected four other architects — Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman, and Asif Khan — to design temporary summer homes that will sit alongside BIG’s pavilion in Kensington Gardens.

Three rare Mamluk mosque lamps that were stolen from Egypt and replaced with fakes will be repatriated — one from the UK and the others from the United Arab Emirates.

The Pinacothèque de Paris will close its spaces on the Place de la Madeleine after its parent company, Art Héritage France, went into receivership last year.

An engineering study concluded that a refurbishment of the Mitchell Park Domes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, would cost between $65 and $75 million.

Transitions

Katie Hollander was named the new executive director of New York City public art nonprofit Creative Time.

Marta Kuzma will succeed Robert Storr as dean of Yale University’s School of Art.

French President François Hollande selected his top cultural advisor, Audrey Azoulay, to replace Fleur Pellerin as Culture Minister.

Uber‘s head of design, Andrew Crow, announced that he will step down. The news follows the unveiling of Uber’s widely criticized redesign.

Fernando Cocchiarale was appointed curator of Rio de Janeiro’s Museo de Arte Moderno.

Katerina Gregos will step down as the artistic director of Art Brussels this summer.

Nicole R. Myers was appointed curator of painting and sculpture at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Kim Cullen was appointed executive director of New York Live Arts.

Richard Kurin will serve as the Smithsonian Institution’s acting undersecretary of museums and research/provost until a permanent candidate is appointed. The post was created by combining the job of undersecretary of history, art, and culture with the undersecretary of science.

The Elizabeth Dee gallery will relocate from Chelsea to the site of the original Studio Museum in Harlem.

The Lisson Gallery will open its New York space on May 3, 2016.

Accolades

Elena Ochoa Foster, founder of the art book publishing house Ivorypress, was awarded this year’s Ibero-American Prize for the Patronage of Art.

Opportunities

New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Administration for Children’s Services are accepting applications for an artist-in-residence to work with LGBTQ youth in the city’s foster care program.

ArtPrize launched a new Featured Public Projects program that will award $55,000 in grants to artists to create large-scale projects in four locations in downtown Grand Rapids.

Obituaries

Paul Aiken (1959–2016), former executive director of the Authors Guild.

Frank Finlay (1926–2016), Oscar-nominated actor.

Margaret Forster (1938–2016), writer.

William Gaskill (1930–2016), theater director. Former artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre.

Dan Hicks (1941–2016), singer and songwriter.

John Hirst (1942–2016), art historian.

Diana Mitchell (1932–2016), political activist and writer.

Jane Stuart Smith (1925–2016), opera singer.

Violette Verdy (1933–2016), choreographer and ballerina.

Maurice White (1941–2016), musician. Founder of Earth, Wind & Fire.