Art Movements
Nouvel MoMA tower finally on the rise, Arthur Danto passes away, Henry Moore statue still in London dispute, Alexander Calder estate in court battle, and more.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
The Jean Nouvel-designed tower that would rise up alongside MoMA has received a $1 billion backing from Singapore’s Kwee family, and is expected to finally be built, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Art critic Arthur Danto passed away on October 25 at the age of 89. The philosophical writer was especially influential in writing on Pop Art and its transformative powers, while always asking what it meant to call something art.
In the ongoing dispute over the ownership of Henry Moore’s “Draped Seated Woman,” the Tower Hamlets Council in London stated it is going forward with its sale, while the Bromley Council and the Art Fund continues to contest their right to ownership.
The Alexander Calder estate is in a court battle with the family of Calder’s longtime dealer Klaus Perls stating that they were cheated out of tens of millions of dollars, and even that Perls sold fake works by the artist, the New York Times reports.
A website was launched this week with a list of the 139 art pieces in Dutch museums that are believed to have been looted from Jewish owners during World War II.
The Katherine Dunham Museum in East St. Louis dedicated to the dancer and social activist who celebrated African Diaspora in her choreography may shut down due to a lack of funding, even just for electricity, KTVI reported.
Apparently a thief dressed as a ninja has been stealing a million dollars worth of trophies from New York and New Jersey museums and a country club, the New York Times reported.
A fire broke out at the Pan Am Terminal that is being demolished at JFK. Here’s Hyperallergic’s coverage on the attempts to save the historic structure.
Jon Seydl, who is currently Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art, was named the Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Worcester Art Museum.
Meanwhile, Deborah Gribbon who served as the Cleveland Museum of Art’s interim director from 2009 to 2010, is returning to the museum as interim deputy director.
The prized San Gennaro jewels, composed of 70 pieces including a bishop’s mitre totally decked out in gemstones, have arrived in Rome for a rare exhibition.
New York-based architect Steven Holl has been selected through a competition for a design of a four museum complex structured as “art islands” in Qingdao, China.
As Dezeen reported, the Bauhaus design school in Dessau, Germany, has opened its Studio Building dorms to guests, who can now sleep in the same places where Marcel Breuer, Josef Albers, and Marianne Brandt once dreamed.
British architect Thomas Heatherwick has been selected for a major work of public sculpture at the Hudson Yards Project, DesignBoom reported.
As the Art Newspaper reported, the New Museum is turning their next door space into a place for start-ups that will open in the summer of 2014.
Archaeologists with the Museum of London extracted a stunningly intact Roman limestone eagle from the ground where a hotel has been proposed for development.
The first depiction of an erupting volcano is believed to have been identified on an ancient mural found in Turkey in 1963.
A playground was opened earlier this month at Prospect Park designed in part from trees damaged in Hurricane Sandy.
The Woodland Burial Trust in Durham, England, has appointed its first artist in residence, the first British cemetery to do so.
