Art Movements
This week in art news: the ancient city of Petra was added to Google Street View, Scotland Yard opened its "Black Museum" of historic crime artifacts to the public, and the US government is sued over lost footage of JFK's assassination.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
A Beijing court extendd the pre-trial detention of Pu Zhiqiang, the human rights lawyer who has previously represented Ai Weiwei. Pu was arrested for “creating a disturbance” after attending a seminar on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber will “initiate the process to consider” the removal of a mural depicting Woodrow Wilson — a proponent of racial segregation — following a campaign by the Black Justice League. The student coalition is also campaigning for the renaming of campus buildings that bear the former US president’s name.
Kameelah Rasheed, an artist, Fullbright scholar, and contributing editor at The New Inquiry was forced off of a United Airlines flight to Istanbul at Newark Liberty International Airport to be interrogated by an FBI agent — Rasheed, a US citizen, had already passed through regular security and questioning by customs officers before being allowed to board the flight.
Bulgaria‘s museum and cultural workers held a “day of discontent” to protest low wages and draft a 2016 national budget.
The ancient, rock-cut city of Petra, in Jordan, is now viewable on Google Street View.
British artist Sonia Boyce is compiling the first database of works by artists of African and Asian descent held in UK public institutions.
Catherine Opie unveiled the design for her largest ever public commission, a multi-story installation for the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. The work is a photograph of Yosemite Falls divided into six sections — one for each floor of the building.
Los Angeles-based collector and philanthropist Blake Byrne vowed to no longer donate money to Democratic candidates who voted in favor of tightening restrictions on Syrian refugees seeking asylum in the US.
Gayle Nix Jackson, the granddaughter of Orville Nix, is suing the US government for the return of her grandfather’s footage of John F. Kennedy‘s assassination. Earlier this year, the National Archives informed Nix’s family that they did not have the original film or documentation regarding its chain of possession. Jackson’s lawsuit alleges that the film was in the possession of the government during the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation in 1978.
Scotland Yard’s so-called “Black Museum” opened to the public for the first time in 140 years. The Crime Museum, as it’s officially known, houses a collection of Scotland Yard’s crime artifacts and confiscated weapons.
Philanthropist Jonathan Ruffer is looking to convert a former bank and school building in Bishop Auckland — a former mining town in northeast England — into a museum that will house works by Spanish masters including El Greco, Ribera, and Velázquez.
Hauser Wirth & Schimmel‘s inaugural exhibition will be entitled Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947-2016.
Matisse in His Time: Masterworks of Modernism from the Centre Pompidou, Paris will travel to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art next summer — the only US institution to host the exhibition.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology commissioned Antony Gormley to create a site-specific installation for a campus building that houses part of the institute’s mathematics and chemistry departments.
The 56th Venice Biennale drew over 500,000 visitors.
Researchers can now access the papers of artist and gay rights activist Avram Finkelstein at the Fales Library and Special Collections.
Geoffrey Smith, an assistant professor of early Christianity at the University of Texas found a 1,700-year-old papyrus fragment of the gospel of John on eBay. The fragment was on sale for $99.99.
Transience, the first solo exhibition of Michael Craig-Martin‘s work at a London public institution since 1989, opened at the Serpentine Gallery.
The Christian Lawyers Association filed a lawsuit against artist Abel Azcona for “offense against religious sentiments and desecration.” A photograph of a performance in which Azcona spelled the word “pederasty” in Spanish using consecrated communion wafers is currently on display at a gallery in Pamplona. An online petition denouncing the exhibition had, at the time of this writing, just under 100,000 signatories.
Gothamist published a series of photographs documenting the renovation of the New York Public library‘s Rose Reading Room.
Arizona Public Media produced a short film to mark the 30th anniversary of the theft of Willem de Kooning‘s “Woman-Ochre” (1954–55) from the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
Eight-year-old Itai Halperin discovered a 3,000-year-old figurine while visiting the Tel Beit Shemesh archaeological site in Israel.
Eleven bike racks created by different artists were installed around Pittsburgh’s cultural district.
Advertisements for The Man in the High Castle, a television series based on Philip K. Dick’s eponymous 1962 novel, were removed from the New York subway following complaints that the ads were insensitive. The show imagines a world in which Nazi Germany and Japan rule the US after defeating the allied forces in World War II.
Transactions
The Lily Endowment announced a series of grants for the state of Indiana’s cultural institutions totaling $100 million.
The only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan‘s album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was sold for “an undisclosed figure in the millions” according to Paddle8 co-founder Alexander Gilkes.
One of two complete “Dorothy” dresses worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz (1939) sold for $1.56 million at Bonhams (price includes buyer’s premium).
A Disneyland PeopleMover sold at auction for $471,500.
Transitions
Daniel Libeskind unveiled his design for the Modern Art Center in Vilnius, Lithuania. Construction on the non-profit center is scheduled to begin in 2017.
Rem Koolhass‘s Office for Metropolitan Architecture won the competition to design The Factory Manchester.
The National Gallery of Singapore opened after a decade of planning and construction.
Bonnie Burnham retired her post as president and chief executive of the World Monuments Fund.
Andrew J. Maus was appointed director of the Plains Art Museum.
Judy Hecker was appointed director of the International Print Center New York.
Kim Cook was appointed the director of art and civic engagement for the Burning Man Organization.
Steven L. Bridges was appointed assistant curator of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University.
Raphael Gygax will curate Frieze Projects for the Frieze London art fair next year.
Accolades
The inaugural Pierre Daix Prize was awarded to the first volume of the Catalogue Raisonné of the Work of Ellsworth Kelly (Yve-Alain Bois/published by Editions Cahiers d’Art) and Aby Warburg (Marie-Anne Lescourret/published by Editions Hazan).
Edgar Arceneaux was awarded Performa’s Malcolm McLaren award.
The winners of the seventh Houston Artadia Awards were announced.
The Saatchi Gallery and the Firtash Foundation announced the winners of the UK/RAINE: Emerging Artists from the UK and Ukraine competition. The top prize was awarded to artist Sergiy Petlyuk.
Obituaries
Laura Patricia Calle (unconfirmed–2015), arts advocate and programming director for Living Walls.
Art Fitzpatrick (1919–2015), artist. Best known for his advertisements for General Motors.
Adele Mailer (1925–2015), artist and actress. Second wife of Norman Mailer.
Michael Rosenberg (1943–2015), wildlife filmmaker.
David Steen (1936–2015), photographer.
