Art Movements
This week in art news: Art Spiegelman withdrew his cover for the New Statesman, the Frick Collection abandoned its expansion plans, and Glenn Lowry's $2.1 million salary was scrutinized in the wake of MoMA's staff protests.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
Art Spiegelman pulled his cover for the New Stateman‘s latest issue after the magazine declined to reprint a cartoon on free speech that he produced in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Ironically, the theme of the issue is “saying the unsayable.”
The Museum of Modern Art’s tax return reveals that director Glenn Lowry earned $2.1 million in 2013. MoMA staff protested earlier his week following the museum’s demand that its staff take on additional healthcare costs (read Hyperallergic’s coverage here).
The Frick Collection abandoned its expansion plans. An anonymous museum official told the New York Times that “there was just a number of voices out there and we heard them.” Last month, Unite to Save the Frick published a letter expressing opposition to the museum’s expansion proposals. Signatories included Jeff Koons, Chuck Close, and Cindy Sherman.
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) published an “emergency red list” of Iraqi antiquities that are threatened by potential looting.
A construction worker was killed by a scaffolding collapse at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.
Prints by Rembrandt and Dürer that were believed to have been stolen from the Boston Public Library, prompting its president’s resignation, have been found. They had been filed in the wrong folder.
Edouard Manet’s “Le Bar aux Folies-Bergere” (1881) is expected to fetch up to £20 million (~$30.7 million) at Sotheby’s later this month. The auction house’s upcoming Impressionist and modern art evening sale also includes Gustav Klimt’s 1902 portrait of Gertrud Loew. The painting was recently restituted to its subject’s heirs.
The Russian bureau of Interpol requested that British police block the sale of Ivan Aivazovsky’s “Evening in Cairo” (1870) at Sotheby’s. Russia’s Interior Ministry claims that the painting was stolen from a private collection in Moscow in 1997.
Some 35,000 people attended the inaugural Off Biennale Budapest. According to its organizers, the biennale was intended as a response to “the rampant political interference in the current Hungarian cultural infrastructure as well as the strong dependence of the scene on state funding”.
The Canada Council for the Arts plans to restructure its 147 grant-giving programs into just six, with fewer distinctions between media and disciplines. The cuts will be implemented in 2017, the year that marks the Council’s 60th anniversary.
The Indianapolis Museum of Art was censured for making most of its outdoor grounds inaccessible to cyclists, even to those who have paid for museum entry.
Miami’s Institute of Contemporary Art received permission to demolish three historic homes in order to build a sculpture park.
The Ashmolean Museum launched a fundraising campaign to acquire J.M.W. Turner’s “The High Street, Oxford” (1810).
An argument over the ownership of Caravaggio’s “The Burial of Saint Lucy” (1608) erupted between two churches in Sicily.
The Clean Bay Area recycling center in San Francisco is looking for a woman who unknowingly disposed of a rare Apple-1 computer. One of six known functioning Apple-1 computers sold at Bonhams last October for $905,000.
Eighty wooden dragons will be built for the Kew Pagoda as part of a major restoration project.
Japan’s Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact demanded that the US Energy Department and the National Park Service refer to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as war crimes. The Energy Department and Park Service are currently collaborating on plans for museums dedicated to the Manhattan Project.
Two protestors were removed from a sale of Hopi artifacts at the Drouot auction house in Paris.
New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission will discuss whether the Stonewall Inn — ground zero for the riots of the same name and an icon of the LGBT rights movement — should be designated as an official historic site.
Jake and Dinos Chapman’s “Cyber Iconic Man” (1999), will go on display at Sheffield Cathedral this fall. The work consists of a figure suspended above a bucket of fake blood. The Dean of the cathedral, the Very Reverend Peter Bradley, told the Art Newspaper that “the congregation is up for it.”
Sammy Olagbaju, a retired stockbroker, plans to build a museum in Lagos for his modern and contemporary art collection.
Qatar Museums launched a competition to select an architect to convert a former flour mill and its grain silos into an art venue named the Art Mill.
French street artist Invader has been installing a number of his signature mosaic pieces on sites belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA). Back in March, astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti installed one of Invader’s works on the International Space Station (ISS).
Transactions
Banksy’s 1998 work “Silent Majority” — a 33-foot painting produced on the side of a truck trailer — was sold in Paris for around $676,000.
The Tate Modern will receive an extra £6 million (~$9.2 million) in government funding. According to the Art Newspaper, the agreement was reached ahead of the Conservative party’s re-election last month.
The British Museum agreed to loan 500 objects to the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi.
The Museum of Fine Arts Boston acquired a trove of letters, sketches, and ephemera belonging to John Singer Sargent.
A first edition of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937), which includes an Elvish inscription by the author, sold at auction for £137,000 (~$210,500).
The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art — which is largely funded by Walmart heiress Alice Walton — has spent just under $150 million on art within the last year. Recent acquisitions include Louise Bourgeois’s “Maman” (1999) and Jasper Johns’s “Flag” (1983).
Transitions
The Cincinnati Art Museum opened the Nancy and David Wolf Gallery, a permanent space showcasing contemporary ceramic, glass, and wood work.
Joshua David, the co-founder of Friends of the High Line, is to become the third president of the World Monuments Fund.
Pierre Audi was hired to be the next artistic director of the Park Avenue Armory.
Rebecca R. Hart was appointed as a curator of modern and contemporary art at the Denver Art Museum.
Andrew Edlin Gallery will relocate to 212 Bowery during the Fall.
The Monya Rose Gallery is planning to relocate to St. Augustine, Florida.
Accolades
Serial became the first podcast to receive the Peabody Award for news.
Richard Serra was awarded the Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor at the French Consulate in New York.
Obituaries
Rigby Graham (1931–2015), painter.
Bruce Martin (1917–2015), architect and designer of the K8 red phone box.
Dudley Williams (1938–2015), dancer.
Hyper Al and Hyper Alex (2015–2015), the Hyperallergic office mice.
