“Celebrating Columbus Day is celebrating settler colonialism.”
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.
A crowd of hundreds participated in an Anti-Columbus Day Tour organized by the activist group Decolonize This Place (DTP) together with a coalition of prison abolition, anti-gentrification, and demilitarization groups. More than 700 protestors (DTP estimates over 1,000 participants) marched from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), through streets and sites in Central Park, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The activists reiterated their demands from previous years: “Rename the day, remove the statue, and respect ancestors.” | Hyperallergic
A visitor to the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday, October 6, fell to his death while sliding down a stairwell banister. Kirkland Dawson, a 34-year-old New York-based attorney, toppled over the third-floor staircase railing and landed on the ground floor, according to a police report. | Hyperallergic
Francis Bacon, “Pope” (1958) (via Sotheby’s)
The Brooklyn Museum is trying to sell a Francis Bacon Painting that the artist wanted destroyed. During his lifetime, Bacon wrote the museum that “It was a throw-out and it depresses me […] that it has years later found its way onto the art market and I would prefer if it were not exhibited.” It’s estimated to sell for between $6 and 8 million. | Hyperallergic
Reuters photographer Gleb Garanich rescuing a teenage boy from a group of rightwing attackers (image courtesy of and by Andrew Kravchenko ©)
A photojournalist saved a teenage boy from a homophobic attack after an LGBTQ pride parade in Kharkiv, Ukraine. “A group of more than ten adult men surrounded a boy of maybe 14 to 16 years old and started to punch him laying on the ground when [Gleb] Garanich intervened,” Andrew Kravchenko, another photographer, said. | Hyperallergic
The Museum of the Bible (MOTB) in Washington, DC — which was founded by the owners of the arts-and-crafts store chain Hobby Lobby — will return allegedly stolen biblical fragments it had acquired from an Oxford professor, Dirk Obbink. | Hyperallergic
Earlier this month, three Desert X board members — Ed Ruscha, Yael Lipschutz, and Tristan Milanovich — resigned from their positions after the biennial announced a collaboration with the Saudi Royal Commission for AlUla, called Desert X AlUla. They say the Saudi government’s violations of human rights and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi prompted their resignations. On October 16, the MaddocksBrown Foundation, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that was one of Desert X’s early donors, announced that it will withdraw funding from the organization. | Hyperallergic
Salvador Dalí’s “Burning Giraffe” etching was stolen from Dennis Rae Fine Art (courtesy of Dennis Rae Fine Art)
How many seconds are needed to pull a heist in the art world? Thirty-two, apparently. An audacious thief on Sunday managed to snatch a Salvador Dalí etching off an easel at a San Francisco art gallery. | Hyperallergic
A long-lost chapter of the Japanese classic work of literature The Tale of Genji — known as the world’s first published novel — was recently found at the Tokyo home of a family with ancestral ties to the feudal lord. The unearthed manuscript is now the fifth confirmed transcription of the historical novel. | Hyperallergic
Quote: Greta Thunberg; typeface: Greta Grotesk Regular by Uno (layout by Hyperallergic)
The UK’s culture secretary announced on Saturday the launch of a new development fund, which will allocate nearly £250 million (~$275 million) to cultural institutions, including libraries, museums, and “creative industries.” It is the government’s biggest-ever investment in the cultural sector. | Hyperallergic
Greta Thunberg’s handwriting has sprouted a new, free typeface by the designers at Uno. | Hyperallergic
Ben Enwonwu, “Christine” (1971) (courtesy Sotheby’s)
The painting “Christine” (1971) by Ben Enwonwu, one of Nigeria’s most influential modernist artists, sold for nearly eight times its estimated price at a Sotheby’s London this week. Incredibly, the painting hung in the home of the family of its subject, a hairstylist named Christine Elizabeth Davis, for over 40 years before they realized it had been painted by Enwonwu. It sold at the Modern and Contemporary African Art sale for £1,095,000 (~$1,411,329), while the full auction ended with a total receipt of £4,002,750 (~$5,159,084) in lots sold.
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.
Installation view of Arthur Jafa’s “Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death” (2016) (all images courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York/Rome. All photos by Thomas Müller)
This Week in the Art World
Éric Baudelaire was awarded the 2019 Marcel Duchamp Prize. | ARTnews
Kenneth T. Berliner was named Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Parrish Art Museum. | via email announcement
Joan Jett Blakk was awarded Queer|Art‘s $10,000 sustained achievement award. | via email announcement
Enda Bowe was awarded the Zurich Portrait Prize by the National Gallery of Ireland. | Irish Times
Melissa Chiu was named curator of the third edition of the Honolulu Biennial, which opens February 2021. | Artforum
Emilie Gordenker was appointed director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. | The Art Newspaper
Arthur Jafa was awarded the 47th PIAC – Prix International d’Art Contemporain (International Contemporary Art Prize). | via email announcement
Inseon Kim was appointed artistic director of the second edition of the Jeju Biennale, held by the Jeju Museum of Art (JMOA) in South Korea. | Artforum
Anne-Marie Nedoma was appointed interim director of the National Gallery in Prague by the Czech Ministry of Culture. | Monopol
Obituaries
Harold Bloom (1930–2019), literary critic and professor | New Yorker
EA Carmean Jr. (1945–2019), museum director and curator | TAN
Carlos Celdran (1972–2019), artist and activist | Artforum
Stefan T. Edlis (1925–2019), art collector | Chicago Sun Times
Robert Forster (1941–2019), actor | Entertainment Weekly
Dana Fradon (1922–2019), New Yorker cartoonist | New Yorker
John Giorno (1936–2019), poet and performance artist | NYT
Philip Gips (1931–2019), film poster designer | Hollywood Reporter
Richard Jackson (1935–2019), children’s book author and publisher | USA Today
Charles Jencks (1939–2019), architect and designer | Dezeen
Sophia Kokosalaki (1972–2019), fashion designer | Vogue
Deborah Marrow (1948–2019), former president of the J. Paul Getty Trust | NYT
Anna Quayle (1932–2019), actress | NYT
Ettore Spalletti (1940–2019), contemporary artist | Wallpaper*
Stephen Swid (1940–2019), music investor and executive | Variety
