Week in Review: Louvre Removes Sackler Name, Beloved Founder of African-American Museum Killed

Doğan says the activists chose the Pergamon Museum because, “When you enter the Pergamon you feel that you are in the Middle East, simultaneously, you will feel Pergamon in Mesopotamia because all the works are taken from there.” (courtesy of the Hasankeyf Collective)

Week in Review is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world. Subscribe to receive these posts as a weekly newsletter.

The Louvre Museum in Paris has removed the controversial Sackler name from its walls and website. President of the museum, Jean-Luc Martinez, denied any connection between the decision and a recent PAIN Sackler protest outside the museum. | Hyperallergic

Denmark’s Volkswagen importer was ordered by a Copenhagen court to pay 1.5 million kroner (~$226,000) to Ai Weiwei for “unjustified use of artwork in an advertisement,” after Ai’s installation was shown in the background of a Volkswagen advertisement. The artwork was crafted from over 3,500 life jackets collected from refugees arriving on the Greek Island of Lesbos. Ai was also granted 250,000 kroner (~$38,000) for non-financial damage. | Washington Post

Sadie Roberts-Joseph founded the Odell S. Williams Now And Then African-American Museum in 2001(via Wikimedia Commons)

Sadie Roberts-Joseph, a prominent figure in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was discovered dead in the trunk of a car on Friday, July 12. On July 15, the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office announced that the preliminary cause of her death was “traumatic asphyxia, including suffocation.” The 75-year-old activist and curator founded the city’s nonprofit Odell S. Williams Now & Then Museum of African American History in 2001. | Hyperallergic

Artist Zehra Doğan was briefly detained following a protest at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum. Doğan and three other artists adorned their bodies with cave paintings from Hasankeyf, an ancient Mesopotamian city, to protest its imminent destruction caused by the construction of a new dam. | Hyperallergic

Egyptian-British novelist Ahdaf Soueif resigned from her role as a British Museum trustee, citing the museum’s endorsement of the oil giant British Petroleum (BP) and its inaction on the issue of artifact restitution as some of the reasons for her resignation. | Hyperallergic

Tate’s Directors declared a climate emergency, pledging to reduce the institution’s carbon footprint by at least 10 percent by 2023, and switching to a green electricity tariff across all four of its outposts. | Tate

Jose Bello’s girlfriend Edith Mata flanked by Bello’s two brothers, Ulises Robiero and Brian Robiero, with UCLA attorney Jordan Wells outside the Federal Courthouse in San Francisco (photo by Tammerlin Drummond, courtesy of ACLU of Northern California)

Activist José Bello was arrested less than 36 hours after criticizing the immigration enforcement and detention practices of ICE in a poem titled “Dear America.” His bond is set at $50,000. In a lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is arguing that his violates Bello’s First Amendment rights. | Hyperallergic

A man howling “You die!” set ablaze the building of the Kyoto Animation studio in Japan, killing 33 people. The arsonist, a 41-year-old man, is being held in police custody. The Kyoto police provided no immediate information on his motive. | Hyperallergic

Benin received a $22.5 million loan from France for a new museum, which will house the return of 26 cultural artifacts on long-term loan from France. The objects were originally seized by French troops from Benin in 1892. | Hyperallergic

Polymathic musician and artist Solange Knowles has partnered with art institutions worldwide to host free screenings of her interdisciplinary performance art film When I Get Home (2019). The 41-minute-long, remastered director’s cut will feature new scenes and a new score. | Hyperallergic

The Houston Endowment bestowed the Rothko Chapel $2 million to support its restoration and expansion. | Artforum

Nyugen Smith, “Bundlehouse: Borderlines No. 4 (Sint Maricotín)” (2017) (pen, ink, watercolor, thread, colored pencil, acrylic, graphite, gesso, metallic marker, tea, Diaspora soil, and lace on paper. 48 x 54 inches. Courtesy the artist via Pérez Art Museum Miami. Included in The Other Side of Now publication.)

The Pérez Art Museum Miami has received a $1 million gift from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the museum’s newly formed Caribbean Cultural Institute. The donation is timed with the July 18 opening of The Other Side of Now: Foresight in Contemporary Caribbean Art — an exhibition featuring 14 artists from Caribbean region and its diaspora, including Nyugen Smith, Deborah Anzinger, Charles Campbell, Andrea Chung, and more. This and other notable sales and acquisitions are chronicled in our latest Transactions story.

Opportunities

The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco is seeking applicants for its Emerging Artists Program, a call for artists to submit a solo exhibition proposal of their work. Three final artists will be selected to present a 3-month exhibition of their work. The application deadline is August 5. | MoAD

Learn about other opportunities you can apply for this month in our latest “Opportunities for Artists in July 2019.”

This Week in the Art World

Peter Saul, “Government in California” (1969). Acrylic on canvas (photo by Zachary Small/Hyperallergic)

Nana Adusei-Poku was appointed senior academic advisor and Luma Foundation fellow at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. | via email announcement

Khalid Albaih was awarded the inaugural Freedom artist’s residency by the Artists at Risk Connection, organized by Pen America and ArtX. | via email announcement

Daina Ashbee and Alice Sheppard were awarded the 2019 Juried Bessie Award and Outstanding Breakout Choreographer Award, respectively, by the New York Dance and Performance Awards. | via email announcement

Namulen Bayarsaihan was appointed director of education of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. | via email announcement

Kerry Bishop was appointed managing director of London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. | Artforum

Victoria Cheetham was appointed chief operating officer of Tate. | Artforum

Cheim & Read Gallery will open an outpost in uptown Manhattan. | ARTnews

Jennifer Field was named executive director of the David Smith Estate. | ARTnews

Hilary Harkness is now represented by P.P.O.W. | ARTnews

Nanna Heitmann and Zied Ben Romdhane were selected as two nominees to Magnum Photos agency. | via email announcement

Kellie Honeycutt was appointed deputy director, and Daniel S. Palmer was appointed curator, of the Public Art Fund in New York. | ARTnews

Maya Lin and Louise & Leonard Riggio were honored at the Parrish Art Museum Midsummer Party. | via email announcement

The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) has announced the exhibitor list for the Chicago Invitational, taking place September 18–21. | ARTnews

New York Foundation for the Arts has awarded $661,000 to 98 New York State artists. | NYFA

The North Carolina Museum of Art named Jerry Hwang chief operating officer; Joanne Zach was named controller and senior director of finance; Meghan Olis was named director of collections and exhibitions management; Lyle Humphrey was named associate curator of European art and collections history; and Michele Frederick was appointed associate curator of European art. | via email announcement

Tobias Ostrander, the chief curator of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, has resigned. | Miami Herald

Pace/MacGill Gallery will move to Pace Gallery’s new headquarters. | Art Daily

Paula Rego was awarded Portugal’s Medalha de Mérito Cultural. | via email announcement

Peter Saul is now represented by Michael Werner (in New York, London, and Trebbin) and Venus Over Manhattan (in New York). | ARTnews

Mary Schmidt Campbell has joined the board of trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust. | Culture Type

Bart van der Heide was appointed director of Museion in Bolzano, Italy. | ARTnews

For its spring 2019 grant cycle, Andy Warhol Foundation has given $3.81 million to 41 arts organizations in the United States and Canada. | ARTnews