Art Movements
This week in art news: Artforum’s co-publisher Knight Landesman resigned over accusations of sexual harassment, Condé Nast banned its publications from hiring photographer Terry Richardson, and a bust of Napoleon newly attributed to Rodin went on public display.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world. Subscribe to receive these posts as a weekly newsletter.
Knight Landesman resigned as co-publisher of Artforum hours after a former employee filed a lawsuit accusing him of groping and sexually harassing nine women. Amanda Schmitt, a curator and the director of programming and development for the UNTITLED art fair, filed a claim for $500,000 in damages with the State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday morning. In an earlier report published by artnet, several men and women voiced complaints “regarding unwanted touching, groping, and other inappropriate behavior, including requests for massages.” The same report indicated that a former employee had filed a claim for damages with Artforum. In response, Artforum stated that the former employee’s “close friendship” with Landesman “took place well after she left Artforum in 2012,” a claim that is directly contradicted by Schmitt’s subsequent lawsuit, which alleges that Landesman’s harassment first began after she was hired as a circulation assistant in 2009. On Wednesday evening, Artnews reported that Michelle Kuo, Artforum’s editor-in-chief, had handed in her resignation a week prior on October 18.
A local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy sued the city of San Antonio and several City Council members over the removal of a statue memorializing Confederate soldiers in Travis Park.
A 1908 bust of Napoleon by Rodin is to go on loan to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, three years after Mallory Mortillaro, a then newly hired archivist at the borough hall of Madison, New Jersey, noticed it in a meeting room and correctly attributed it to the artist.
In an internal email, Condé Nast International, the publisher of titles including Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, and Glamour, announced that it will no longer commission work from Terry Richardson. The photographer, who is known for his lurid and sexually explicit work, has faced a stream of allegations regarding sexual misconduct and exploitation since the early 2000s.
The Nordic Museum in Stockholm began collecting stories of sexual harassment and abuse shared online with the viral hashtag #MeToo.
John Baldessari‘s second solo show with Sprüth Magers opened at the gallery’s Los Angeles location. The exhibition includes the artist’s emoji paintings, a new series of inkjet prints in which emojis are juxtaposed with snippets of seemingly random film dialogue.
Thomas Vonier, the president of the American Institute of Architects, issued a statement urging the US to continue working with UNESCO.
A group calling itself the Monument Removal Brigade claimed responsibility for vandalizing the Theodore Roosevelt monument outside the American Museum of Natural History.
Following a public hearing, the Pittsburgh Art Commission recommended the public removal of Giuseppe Moretti’s controversial statue of American songwriter Stephen Foster. The sculpture is to be relocated to a private and “properly contextualized” location.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a proposal to overhaul the city’s Loft Law.
Mayor de Blasio’s Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers launched an online public survey to review possible public symbols of hate across the five boroughs.
Two members and one former member of the Berkshire Museum filed a lawsuit against the museum’s decision to deaccession works from its collection. Earlier in the week the museum announced that Van Shields, the museum’s executive director, would undergo surgery for an undisclosed health issue, transferring leadership to co-directors Nina Garlington and Craig Langlois. Twenty-one of the 40 collection works consigned to Sotheby’s have been deleted from the auction’s online catalogue.
Herman Leonard’s black-and-white photograph of Dizzy Gillespie went on display at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery to mark the centennial of the jazz musician’s birth.
The Mugrabi family sued Mana Contemporary, alleging that the company damaged works from the family’s art collection while also withholding access to 1,389 works of art. The suit centers on a dispute over a storage bill for $500,000. The Mugrabi family claims that the art center agreed to store its collection for free.
A petition was launched calling for the preservation of the Cinema Museum in London. In a Facebook post, the museum revealed that its landlord, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, is planning the sell the building on the open market.
Michelangelo Pistoletto will roll a new version of “Sfera di Giornali (Newspaper Sphere)” along the streets of Cold Spring, New York on Saturday, November 4. The event is a recreation of the artist’s 1967 performance in Turin, Italy.
Transactions
A print from the 1964 edition of Marcel Duchamp’s “L.H.O.O.Q” was sold at Sotheby’s for €631,500 (~$743,162).
Britain announced that it will transfer ownership of the wrecks of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror — the ships of the ill-fated Franklin expedition — to Canada.
The Gambrell Foundation donated a $10 million lead gift toward a major renovation of the Queens University of Charlotte’s fine arts building.
The Seattle Art Museum received a $3.5 million challenge grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The gift will be used to establish and endow the museum’s Asian Paintings Conservation Center.
The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art received a bequest of $2.5 million from the late Gerald E. Buck through the Buck Family Trust. The gift will endow the Archives’ collecting program on the West Coast.
The J.M. Smucker Company donated $1.1 million to the Akron Art Museum.
The Block Museum of Art acquired a suite of works by photographer Tseng Kwong Chi (1950–1990).
Crozier acquired the Los Angeles-based art shippers Fine Art Shipping.
The Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library received a $215,800 federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
A black marker drawing of the Empire State building by Donald Trump was sold at Julien’s Auctions for $16,000.
Bhupen Khakhar’s “De-luxe Tailors” (1972) was sold at Sotheby’s for £1,112,750 (~$1,468,719), a record for the artist at auction.
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin acquired the Dean F. Echenberg War Poetry Collection.
Saul Leiter’s “Waiter, Paris” (1959) was sold for $25,000 at Swann Auction Galleries, a record for the work.
Transitions
Jan Willem Sieburgh was appointed interim business director of the Stedelijk Museum following the resignation of Beatrix Ruf.
Nato Thompson was appointed artistic director of the Philadelphia Contemporary.
Ido Bruno was appointed director of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Heidi Reitmaier was appointed executive director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.
Gabriel de Guzman was appointed curator and director of exhibitions at Smack Mellon.
Tracy Bonfitto was appointed curator of art at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rozalia Jovanovic was appointed director of New York’s Collective Design fair.
The Boca Raton Museum announced plans for a $1.5 million renovation.
Aspect/Ratio will reopen at its new space at 864 North Ashland in Chicago on November 3.
Gallery Wendi Morris will relocate to 8 Octavia Street in San Francisco later this year [via email announcement].
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Enoura Observatory was opened to the public in Odawara, Japan.
Adjaye Associates, Ron Arad Architects, and landscape architects Gustafson Porter + Bowman were selected to design the UK’s new Holocaust memorial and learning centre in London.
The Norton Museum of Art revealed its plans for a new public garden designed by Lord Norman Foster. Bloomberg‘s new £1 billion (~$1.3 billion) London headquarters, designed by Foster + Partners, opened on Tuesday.
Accolades
Agnieszka Polska was awarded Germany’s National Gallery Prize for young artists.
Emanulee Outspoken Bean, Eepi Chaad, and Phillip Pyle were appointed the resident artists of Houston’s Resident Artist Program.
The Saint Louis Art Museum and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis selected Jennifer Bornstein as their 2017–18 Teaching Fellow.
Ursula Johnson was awarded the 2017 Sobey Art Award.
Obituaries
Fats Domino (1928–2017), singer, songwriter, and pianist.
Al Hurricane (1936–2017), balladeer.
Rita Henley Jensen (1947–2017), journalist. Founder of Women’s eNews.
Hugh Kearney (1924–2017), historian. Best known for The British Isles: A History of Four Nations (1989).
Walter Lassally (1926–2017), cinematographer. Awarded an Oscar for his work on Zorba the Greek (1964).
Iona Opie (1923–2017), folklorist.
Paul Vogt (1926–2017), art historian. Former director of the Museum Folkwang.
Dennis Wayne (1945–2017), dancer.
