Week in Review: Climate Strike During Art Basel Miami Beach; Harvard Students Protest Sackler Museum

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.

This week, students at Harvard University demanded the university do away with the Sackler name on one of the museums on the university’s campus with an art installation that honored people who were affected by the lethal drug OxyContin.

A United Methodist Church in Claremont, California has taken the advent season as an opportunity to raise awareness of a humanitarian crisis. Its nativity scene presents the figurines of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus in individual metal cages evoking the chain-link pens infamously utilized by the Trump administration to imprison children in detention facilities at the US-Mexico border.

A protest by representatives of farmworker unions at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City escalated into a violent confrontation with LGBTQ+ activists on Tuesday, December 10. The protests were sparked by a painting of Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata by artist Fabián Cháirez, on view in the exhibition Emiliano. Zapata Después de Zapata.

As TikTok’s popularity rises, concerns arise over app’s censorship and security. The app is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, which has been accused of censoring users for posting content about issues including the persecution of Uighur Muslims and Hong Kong.

The National Film Registry announced the latest group of 25 movies inducted to its list. It’s a class that includes silent shorts, beloved independent features, big studio films, and rare slices of American history. The new additions now bring the total number of movies in the registry to 775.

During Art Basel Miami Beach, young climate strikers urged the art world to pay attention with a protest in downtown Miami. “Art should be used to make a political statement,” says Andrew Weaver, press director of Miami Climate Strike.

Hyperallergic attended a press conference held by artist David Datuna, now infamous for eating Maurizio Cattelan’s banana artwork at Art Basel. He told the group of reporters — from Reuters, Bloomberg, and NBC, among others — that “It tasted like $120,000.”

Banksy’s latest artwork in Birmingham, England imagined two reindeer guiding a bench where a local homeless man slept. Soon after its debut, someone spray painted Rudolph-red noses on the mural.

On August 4, a French child visiting London with his family was found on Tate Modern’s fifth-floor roof after being pushed from the museum’s tenth-floor viewing platform. Soon after, British teenager John Bravery was arrested and charged with attempted murder, and last week he plead guilty.

The Museum of Contemporary Art’s leadership decided to voluntarily recognize a union comprised of the majority of its employees. This will make MOCA only the second museum in Los Angeles after the Museum of Tolerance to have a union.

Pantone says classic blue is the color of 2020.

The pronoun “they” is Merriam-Webster’s 2019 Word of the Year.

La Bodega, a beloved San Diego gallery, is closing. Over 4,000 people are behind a petition to get the landlord to reconsider the new rent, which has more than doubled.

The International Documentary Association and the Doc Society have filed a lawsuit over the new policy that visa applicants register their social media profiles with the US State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

In Miami, New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) and Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) announced their selection for the third annual NADA Acquisition Gift. Funded by ticket sales from NADA Miami, this year’s gift to PAMM is “New Hat” (2019), an acrylic and flashe work by New York-based Dominican-American artist Kenny Rivero, from Charles Moffett. In entering the museum’s permanent collection, “New Hat” joins an array of modern and contemporary art committed to exploring the US Latinx experience, the African diaspora, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This and other notable sales and acquisitions are chronicled in our latest Transactions story.

This Week in the Art World

Keith Brown was appointed Executive Vice President of Content for Firelight Films, and Monika Navarro was appointed Senior Director of Artists’ Programs. Meanwhile, Loira Limbal was promoted to Senior Vice President for Programs at Firelight Media. | via email announcement

Noah P. Dorsky was appointed Board President of the Rubin Museum of Art. | via email announcement

Lawrence Abu Hamdan was awarded the 2019 Edvard Munch Art Award. | ARTnews

Anthony Hernandez is photo l.a.‘s 2020 honoree. | via email announcement

Larry Jackson, Carla Emil, and Joel Lubin were appointed board members at the Hammer Museum. | The Hollywood Reporter

Solange Knowles is the first-ever recipient of the Lena Horne Prize for Artists Creating Social Impact. | via email announcement

Bettina Korek was named CEO of Serpentine Galleries. | ARTnews

Daniel Lind-Ramos is the recipient of the 2019 NADA Artadia Award. | via email announcement

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the V&A are the recipients of the 2020 TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund. | via email announcement

The Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art, the Museum of Chinese in America, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland received the Art Dealers Association of America Foundation’s 2019 grants. | via email announcement

Chris Newth was appointed associate director for collections and exhibitions of the Princeton University Art Museum. | via email announcement

Catherine Opie was named the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Endowed Chair in Art at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). | via email announcement

Ebony G. Patterson received the inaugural City of Miami Beach Legacy Purchase Program. | via email announcement

Rebecca Salter was elected the new president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. | The Art Newspaper

Avery Singer is now represented by Hauser & Wirth. | artnet

Rajshree Solanki of the Hirshhorn Museum won the inaugural Registrar of the Year Award. | via email announcement

Andrea Viliani was named manager and curator of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art‘s Research Institute. | Artforum

Hepworth Wakefield is the recipient of the 2019 Freelands Award. | Artforum

In Memoriam

René Auberjonois (1940–2019), actor and singer known for her role on Star Trek | Slate

Marie Fredriksson (1958–2019), pop singer, songwriter, pianist, and painter | New York Times

Leonard Goldberg (1934–2019), film and television producer | Pop Culture

Jarad A. Higgins, aka Juice WRLD (1998–2019), rapper, singer, and songwriter | Billboard

Clive James (1939–2019), critic, broadcaster, and writer | CNN

Ron Leibman (1937–2019), Tony award-winning actor | Today

Donald B. Marron (1934–2019), financier, art collector, and philanthropist | NYT

Philip McKeon (1964–2019), actor | People

Jonathan Miller (1934–2019), theater and opera director | NYT

Caroll Spinney (1933–2019), puppeteer, cartoonist, and author known for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch | CNN

May Stevens (1924–2019), feminist painter, activist, and writer | ARTnews

Emily Mason (1932–2019), American abstract painter | via Miles McEnery Gallery