Week in Review: India's #MeToo Movement, New Museum Union Signs Contract

Kehinde Wiley, “Untitled,” Bronze, granite, Sculpture and pedestal approximately 15 feet high (image courtesy the artist)

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.

Last year, the anonymous Instagram account Scene and Herd launched in an effort to kindle a #MeToo movement in India’s art community. This week, a Delhi High Court ordered that Facebook reveal the identity of the account’s creator in response to a civil defamation lawsuit launched by Subodh Gupta, a contemporary artist who was anonymously accused of harassment on the platform. The court also ordered that in the following 48 hours, Facebook take down posts accusing Gupta of sexual harassment and Google remove the accusations from its search engine listings. Dozens of art workers call the court order to remove the allegations from Instagram “an outright move to silence the survivors and gag the platform that gave them a voice while protecting their identities.” | Hyperallergic, Hyperallergic

Artists Simone Leigh, Wangechi Mutu, Kehinde Wiley, and Vinnie Bagwell are in the running for a new Central Park memorial. The artists were selected as finalists to replace a statue of J. Marion Sims, a 19th-century doctor who conducted violent surgeries on enslaved Black women. | Hyperallergic

Protestors outside the Ford Foundation in Manhattan (photo by Hakim Bishara/Hyperallergic)

Over 50 protestors gathered outside the Ford Foundation’s Manhattan headquarters, responding to the foundation president’s, Darren Walker, statements in support of New York City’s plan to close Rikers Island prison complex and build smaller detention facilities in its place. | Hyperallergic

After months of strained bargaining, and days after New Museum workers threatened their employer with a strike, members of the New Museum union have signed a five-year contract with the museum’s management. | Hyperallergic

The Brooklyn art nonprofit BRIC has awarded 10 under-recognized New York-based artists its first Colene Brown Art Prize. Each of the awardees will receive a $10,000 no-strings-attached grant. | Hyperallergic

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization headquartered in the United States, added 36 symbols to its “Hate on Display” database, including one highly visible symbol that has come to be associated with the Trump administration and its followers, the index finger-to-thumb “OK” sign. | Hyperallergic

Weeks before Eike Schmidt was meant to start a position as director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, he reneged on his promise, choosing to remain in his role as director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.“This last-minute cancellation is highly unprofessional and actually unprecedented,” said Alexander Schallenberg, the Austrian culture and foreign minister. | NYT

Kehinde Wiley, “Rumors of War” (2019) (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

Kehinde Wiley unveiled a massive monument to Black identity in Times Square. It will later join 10 Confederate sculptures in Richmond, Virginia. | Hyperallergic

Anti-oil protest organization BP or not BP? launched a crowdfunding campaign to build a giant Trojan Horse for its largest protest yet, which will coincide with the British Museum’s Troy: Myth and Reality exhibition. | Hyperallergic

Following activist efforts, the Royal Shakespeare Company wil end its partnership with BP at the end of the year. | BBC

The German city of Aachen withdrew its decision to award the Lebanese-American artist Walid Raad a €10,000 (~$10,900) prize for providing an “evasive” answer to an inquiry about his position on the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. However, the city’s decision was soon challenged by one of its partners in the prize, the Association of Friends of the Ludwig Forum for International Art, which decided to hand over the award to Raad despite the Mayor’s opposition. | Hyperallergic

Bernard Chenebault, president of Amis du Palais de Tokyo (Friends of Palais de Tokyo) in Paris, called activist Greta Thunberg a “madwoman” who “we must shoot down” in a Facebook post on Sunday. He was dismissed from his position the following day. | Hyperallergic

“Virgin and Child With Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist” by Agnolo Bronzino. (image courtesy J. Paul Getty Museum)

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles welcomed two new Italian works to its collection in an announcement this afternoon. The works are a vibrant painting, “Virgin and Child with Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist,” by 16th-century Florence artist Agnolo Bronzino and a pair of marble sculptures, “The Annunciation” (about 1333-34), by Late Gothic sculptor Giovanni di Balduccio. The painting is on view at Getty Museum, Getty Center starting October 3, while the sculptures will be shown as part of the exhibition Acquisitions 2019: Director’s Choice from December 10, 2019, to March 1, 2020. This and other notable sales and acquisitions are chronicled in our latest Transactions story.

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

Also, check out Hyperallergic’s lists of must-see, fun, and insightful art events in New York and Los Angeles this fall.

This Week in the Art World

Cora Cahan was appointed president and CEO of the Baryshnikov Arts Center. | via email announcement

Emily Counihan was appointed head of collector and institutional development for UNTITLED, ART. | via email announcement

Katherine Crawford Luber was appointed director and president of Minneapolis Museum of Art. | via email announcement

John Gerrard is now represented by Pace. | ARTnews

Henriette Huldisch was named chief curator of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. | via email announcement

Christopher Le Brun will step down as president of the Royal Academy of Arts. | Evening Standard

Otobong Nkanga is the inaugural winner of the $100,000 Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award Programme prize, awarded by the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Museum in Høvikodden, Norway. | via email announcement

Juliana Ochs Dweck was appointed Chief Curator of the Princeton University Art Museum. | Planet Princeton

Heran Sereke-Brhan was named director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. | Washington City Paper

Wolfgang Tillmans was named chair of the ICA London. | TAN

Heidi Zuckerman stepped down as director of the Aspen Art Museum. | Aspen Times