Art Movements
This week in art news: Tania Bruguera returned to the US following her detainment in Cuba, a group of archaeologists protested the brutal murder of Khaled al-Asaad by ISIS, and dealers Stefan Simchowitz and Jonathan Ellis King filed suit against artist Ibrahim Mahama.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
Tania Bruguera returned to the US after having been detained in Cuba for 8 months. Bruguera’s passport was revoked by the Cuban authorities after the performance artist attempted to stage a work entitled “Tatlin’s Whisper #6” in Havana’s Revolution Square.
Archaeologists working at the ruins of Antioch in Pisidia staged a sit in to protest the brutal murder of Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad by ISIS last week.
Staff at the National Museums of Scotland embarked on a seven day strike over the removal of a weekend allowance for new members of staff.
The UK government’s export bar for the 4,500-year-old Egyptian statue of the scribe Sekhemka is set to expire at the end of the month. The statue, which was deaccessioned by Northampton Borough Council, was controversially sold at auction for £15.8 million (~$24.5m). The Egyptian antiquities minister Mamdouh Eldamaty launched a crowdsourcing fund to acquire the statue for the nation.
Art dealer Brian Balfour-Oatts showed the Guardian a drawing manual composed by notorious art forger Eric Hebborn (1934–1996). Entitled The Language of Line, the manuscript critiques the “threadbare terminology of traditional connoisseurship” used by art historians and critics. Hebborn was killed by a blow to the head on a Roman street in 1996.
Dealers Stefan Simchowitz and Jonathan Ellis King filed suit against Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama. The two dealers allege that Mahama declared hundreds of his signed works inauthentic, which they claim will potentially cost them $4.45 million. Greg Allen described the lawsuit in his latest blogpost as “eye-opening for its combination of candor, hubris, and delusion.”
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bachman-Wilson House will open to the public at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art on November 11. The museum disassembled and reassembled the New Jersey home after transporting it 1,200 miles across the country.
The designs for the (George) Lucas Museum of Narrative Art are to be reworked according to Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
A number of social media users railed against Banksy‘s decision to give Brad Pitt a private tour of his Dismaland theme park.
Transactions
The University of Texas acquired the archives of author Kazuo Ishiguro.
An anonymous donor gifted a sculpture by Auguste Rodin to the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne. The sculpture, “L’Homme au Serpent” (1887) hasn’t been seen in public since it was sold at auction in 1914.
Former investment banker John La Gatta donated $2 million to the Nevada Museum of Art.
The Fundación Zúñiga Laborde A.C donated 12 works by Mexican artists to the Museo Nacional de Arte. The gift includes work by artists such as Francisco Zúñiga, Manuel Rodriguez Lozano, and Roberto Montenegro.
Brooklyn-based developer Slate Property Group launched the Slate Property Arts and Culture Endowment. The fund plan to allocate $80,000 in grants to artists and community members this year.
Six Brooklyn libraries will receive $3.225 million for upgrades and repairs.
Transitions
Education Management Corp (EDMC) will shut down 15 of its Art Institute campuses. According to First Student Aid, the closures will effect 200 employees and 5,432 students.
Abraham Thomas resigned as director of the Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Tan Boon Hui was appointed director of the Asia Society.
Andrew Blauvelt was appointed director of the Cranbrook Art Museum.
Richard Rhodes will step down as the editor of Canadian Art magazine at the end of the year.
Christopher Cook was appointed executive director of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.
The Joan Mitchell Center, a new $12.5 million artist retreat, opened in New Orleans.
The Art Museum of West Virginia University officially opened.
Performing arts space La MaMa will open a new venue named The Downstairs at 66 East 4th Street on November 6.
Jerry N. Smith was appointed chief curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg.
Horace D. Ballard Jr. was appointed curator of education at the Birmingham Museum of Art.
Kristy Edmunds will curate CONVERGE 45, Portland’s city-wide arts festival.
Accolades
Brooklyn-based artist Marela Zacarias was awarded the William Vale’s $200,000 lobby commission. The four-star hotel is currently under construction in Williamsburg.
Obituaries
Clifford Hatts (1921–2015), television designer, best known for his work on Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59)
Marion “Kippy” Boulton Stroud (1939–2015), founder and director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia.
