Art Movements
This week in art news: the FBI revealed that the suspects in the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist are dead, the Knoedler Gallery settled three of the 10 lawsuits stemming from its forgery fiasco, and Patti Smith's 2010 memoir Just Kids will become a television series.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) acquired “Fake Ophelia” (1991), a textile collage by Steven Campbell, a member of a group of GSA graduates known as the New Glasgow Boys. The work was donated by film director Bill Forsyth and his partner Moira Wylie.
Attorney George G. Burke told federal authorities that one of his clients claims to have identified the man who appears in surveillance footage recorded on March 17, 1990 — the night before the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. The FBI released the footage last week. Peter Kowenhoven, the FBI’s assistant special agent in Boston, told the Associated Press that the two men suspected of carrying out the heist are dead. Kowenhoven declined to identify either suspect.
The defunct Knoedler Gallery and its former director Ann Freedman settled three of the 10 lawsuits bought against the gallery by former clients. Knoedler, one of the oldest commercial galleries in the US, closed in 2009 after hedge-fund manager Pierre Lagrange sued the gallery for selling him a fake Jackson Pollock painting.
Thomas Krens, the former director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, proposed the construction of a 160,000-square-foot museum on grounds belonging to Harriman-West airport in Massachusetts. The museum, which would be named the Global Contemporary Collection and Museum, would be privately owned by a for-profit group of investors.
Ukraine blacklisted 38 books published in Russia. The list includes a number of titles written by Russian nationalists.
Cuban American poet Richard Blanco was invited to read a poem at the reopening of the US embassy in Cuba.
John Latham’s Flat Time House will close next Summer. A campaign launched in 2013 to save the London house, which the artist declared a work of living sculpture, failed to meet its £1 million (~$1.57 million) target. The house will be sold next year by the Latham family. The pioneering conceptual artist is best known for his works incorporating books and spray paint. In 1966, St. Martin’s School of Art declined to renew Latham’s teaching contract after he encouraged his class to chew pages from Clement Greenberg’s Art and Culture (1961).
New York’s Hasted Kraeutler gallery closed its doors amid reports that its partners are in dispute regarding the financial management of the gallery.
A petition calling for a boycott of Roland Emmerich’s upcoming dramatization of the Stonewall Riots has so far accrued over 23,000 signatures. Though the feature has yet to be released, criticism has centered on the fact that the film’s trailer predominantly features white, cisgender actors. “It is time that black and brown transwomyn and drag queens are recognized for their efforts in the riots throughout the nation,” writes the petition’s author. “From the preview alone, we know that will not be happening.”
A court in Venice rejected a request by the Icelandic Art Center to fast-track a legal claim seeking the reopening of Christoph Büchel’s controversial Venice Biennale project.
The non-profit group Friends of the Los Angeles River stated that they will refuse to endorse Frank Gehry’s designs for the redevelopment of the Los Angeles River.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage reversed its decision to display a series of collages inspired by a suicide attack created by artists Omer and Tal Golan.
The Stony Island Arts Bank, a new “hybrid gallery, media archive and library, and community center,” will open in Chicago in October. The new arts space is spearheaded by artist Theaster Gates, who purchased its premises — a former bank building — for $1 in 2012.
The UK’s Spoliation Advisory Panel ruled that compensation must be paid to the estate of German Jewish collector Emma Budge. The collector’s estate was seized by the Nazis after her death in 1935. A 16th-century tapestry fragment belonging to Budge ended up in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.
Art dealer Isabella Bortolozzi no longer represents Danh Vō. The artist and dealer are currently embroiled in an ongoing legal dispute with collector Bert Kreuk.
Gagosian Gallery now represents Nam June Paik’s estate, and will open an exhibition of his work at its Hong Kong gallery in September.
The house where Ernest Hemingway committed suicide was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hemingway lived in the house — located in Ketchum, Idaho — from 1959 to 1961.
The nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving Frank Lloyd Wright’s “David and Gladys Wright House” published its plans for the home’s restoration.
Trinity College’s bid to trademark the Book of Kells in the US was delayed due to an objection by Burger King (yes, you read that correctly).
A group of Hungarian neo-Nazis were denied entry to Austria’s Academy of Fine Arts, the institution that twice rejected Hitler’s application for admission in the early 1900s. Many Nazi-sympathizers cite Hitler’s rejection as a catalyst for his later interest in politics.
Artist Dan Fontes is seeking $400,000 in damages for the whitewashing of a mural he painted in Oakland in 1987.
US Immigration and Customs officials returned Pablo Picasso’s “La Coiffeuse” (“The Hairdresser”) (1911) to the French government. The stolen painting was disguised as a wrapped Christmas present with a label declaring its value as $33.
The High Regional Court of Cologne ruled that the estate of Sigmar Polke must return an artwork to an unnamed collector. Polke reported the work stolen in 2009. The collector maintains that he purchased the untitled work directly from the artist. The court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the collector had stolen the work.
Seward Johnson’s “Embracing Peace” (formally titled “Unconditional Surrender”) is currently on display in Times Square as part of the Times Square Alliance’s “Kiss-In” event. The 25-foot-tall sculpture depicts the subjects of Alfred Eisenstadt’s iconic photograph, “V-J day in Times Square” (1945).
Showtime plans to adapt Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids (2010) into a series. The memoir details Smith’s early years in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe.
“Event Horizon,” an installation of statues by Anthony Gormley, will go on display across the rooftops of Hong Kong in November. The installation of the series was postponed in 2014 following the suicide of a trader working for J.P.Morgan.
Collector Lio Malca converted a former salt warehouse in Ibiza into an art gallery.
Dr. Dre will donate all his artist royalties earned from his new album, Compton, toward the establishment of a new performing arts center in Compton, Los Angeles.
Mammoth remains were discovered at a building site in Switzerland.
Nicholas Reeves, an Egyptologist at the University of Arizona, published a paper outlining his theory that Queen Nefertiti’s tomb is located in a hidden room behind Tutankhamen’s burial chamber.
A 16-year-old tourist was caught stealing a terra-cotta roof tile from Pompeii.
The Cincinnati Art Museum is hosting a selfie competition in a bid to promote its exhibition of 17th-century painting.
Forensic scientists identified traces of cannabis on a number of clay pipe fragments excavated from William Shakespeare’s garden.
Transactions
Annette Michelson donated her papers to the Getty Research Institute. The archive includes correspondence with Michelson’s colleagues at Artforum and October, as well as with artists including Robert Morris, Ad Reinhardt, and Martha Rosler.
The Wolfsonian-FIU received a gift of sheet music produced during the Spanish-American War (1898)
The Nasher Sculpture Center announced the formation of a new fund dedicated to purchasing works by women artists — the Kaleta A. Doolin Acquisitions Fund for Women Artists.
Transitions
The gallery 55 Gansevoort will close after its current exhibition of work by artist Rachel Foullon. Furniture company Restoration Hardware intends to convert the gallery’s site into a 14-room luxury hotel. Ellie Rines, the gallery’s owner, is currently looking for a new space.
Anne Munsch was appointed CFO of the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Harold Holzer, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s longtime director of media relations — and one of the world’s leading Abraham Lincoln scholars — was appointed to lead the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College.
Meg Linton was appointed executive director and chief curator of Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts.
Florence Müller was appointed the curator of fashion and curator of textile art at the Denver Art Museum.
The Columbus Museum of Art promoted Tyler Cann to the position of curator of contemporary art.
The Guggenheim Museum appointed Hou Hanru as consulting curator, and Xiaoyu Weng as associate curator of Chinese art.
Jonathan Peterson was appointed director of development at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Phillips hired three former Christie’s employees: Jean-Paul Engelen, Hugues Joffre, and Robert Manley.
Accolades
St Giles House was awarded the Historic Houses Association/Sotheby’s Restoration Award.
Glenda Nicholls was named the winner of the 2015 Deadly Art Award.
The Graham Foundation announced the 49 recipients of its 2015 Grants to Organizations.
“Cat Behavior Finally Explained” was awarded the Golden Kitty at the Walker Art Center’s fourth Internet Cat Video Festival.
Obituaries
Sunil Das (1939–2015), painter.
Vernon Faulconer (1939–2015), philanthropist and co-founder of The Warehouse.
Kiripi Katembo (1979–2015), photographer.
Lynn Manning (1955–2015), playwright and co-founder of the Watts Village Theater Company.
Glyn Morgan (1926–2015), artist.
Jonathan Ollivier (1977–2015), dancer.
Robin Phillips (1940–2015), theatre director.
Marion Whybrow (1931–2015), art historian.
Herbert Wise (1924–2015), theatre and television director.
