Art Movements
This week in art news: Firefighters freed an artist from a plaster block during a botched street art project, a French schoolteacher sues Facebook in a row over Courbet's most infamous painting, and a Banksy impersonator is on the loose in England.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
Firefighters freed an artist from a block of gypsum plaster in Rotterdam. The artist, an unidentified women, began to run out of oxygen during a botched street art project.
Police in Belgium are looking for a possible accomplice of Mehdi Nemmouche, the gunman accused of murdering four people at the Jewish Museum in May.
Sotheby’s will increase its buyer’s premiums beginning February 1.
Four months after replacing its docents with an internship program, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden amended its employment guidelines in order to encourage the return of long-standing volunteers.
Pop star Taylor Swift trademarked a litany of phrases used throughout her 1989 album. They include “Party Like it’s 1989,” “This Sick Beat,” “Nice to Meet You,” and “Where You Been.” Expect to see these phrases incorporated into artworks by indignant artists very soon.
British street artist INSA unveiled the “World’s largest animated GIF” (or, more accurately, the largest artwork to have been turned into an animated GIF).
The City of London’s Guildhall Art Gallery refuted The Art Newspaper‘s suggestion that it had moved a sculpture of Baroness Thatcher “into a narrow corner” (Hyperallergic’s Hrag Vartanian made a similar suggestion when he visited the gallery in January 2013). Neil Simmons’s sculpture was the subject of national attention when it was decapitated with the use of a cricket bat in 2002.
A French schoolteacher is suing Facebook for €20,000 (~$22,600). The schoolteacher’s Facebook profile was deactivated after he posted an image of Gustave Courbet’s painting “L’Origine du Monde” (1866) on the social network.
Doctor Elham Abdelrahman, the Egyptian Museum’s head of conservation, was demoted following the botched repair of Tutankhamun’s gold funeral mask.
Scientist Bruno Massa discovered four new species of cricket after finding undocumented specimens in museums in Madrid and Berlin. One of the bugs has been named Arostratum oblitum (Latin for “forgotten”).
A Banksy impersonator is on the loose in Cumbria, England.
The “Clever House,” a home in suburban New Jersey designed by architect Louis Kahn, is on sale for $289,900.
Ireland’s Sunday Independent reported that 21 artworks are still missing from Leinster House, three years after they were first reported missing.
A glut of 2015 Venice Biennale news: Pamela Rosenkranz will represent Switzerland, the UAE is putting together a group show featuring 14 artists, the Philippines will join the Biennale after a 51-year absence, and artists Tania Candiani and Luis Felipe Ortega will collaborate on a site-specific work for the Mexican pavilion.
Transactions
Zaha Hadid settled her lawsuit against critic Martin Filler (read Hyperallergic’s previous coverage here).
The Gemeentemuseum purchased two dioramas by Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys.
The California Institute of the Arts became the first recipient of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Travel Grant, a $25,000 grant for art students.
Christie’s sold a Rubens drawing for $1,925,000, a figure over three times its high estimate. The drawing is a copy made after two groups of figures from Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement.
The International Center of Photography is purchasing its new space at 250 Bowery for $23 million.
The Museo del Prado acquired the Juan Bordes Library.
LACMA trustees Jane and Marc Nathanson announced eight promised gifts for the museum, including works by Warhol, Hirst, and Lichtenstein.
Barbara Levy Kipper has pledged 400 items from her collection of Asian jewelry and Buddhist objects to the Art Institute of Chicago.
The French culture minister, Fleur Pellerin, announced a €115 million ($130 million) funding package for the Château de Fontainebleau.
Transitions
The DUMBO Arts Festival is no more. The festival was originally founded in 1997 as the Art Under the Bridge Festival by residents Joy Glidden and Tyson Daugherty.
The American Bible Society will relocate from New York to Philadelphia.
Caitlin Doherty was appointed curator and deputy director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University.
The Wadsworth Atheneum will unveil the first phase of its $33 million renovation on January 31st.
The Mike Kelly Foundation will be represented by Hauser & Wirth.
The Rockwell Museum’s board of trustees appointed Kirsty Buchanan as curator of collections.
Thomas W. Lentz, the director of the Harvard Arts Museums, will step down on July 1st.
The Fountain Art Fair has gone on hiatus.
The Brooklyn Museum has appointed Lisa Bruno to be the chief conservator in its conservation laboratory.
Crime
Three masked robbers stole gold nuggets from the Wells Fargo Museum in San Francisco. The assailants crashed a stolen sports utility vehicle into the building’s entrance before holding up a security guard at gunpoint.
A sculpture was stolen from the the “Looking to the Future” public art installation in Norwalk, California.
Accolades
Ruth Adler Schnee was awarded the 2015 Kresge Prize.
Bethany Collins, Scott Ingram, Ryan Steele, and Orion Wertz were selected as the finalists of the Hudgens Prize.
Obituaries
Phyllis Diebenkorn (1921–2015), psychologist and widow of painter Richard Diebenkorn.
Edgar Froese (1944–2015), founding member of Tangerine Dream.
Senta Taft-Hendry (1924–2015), adventurer and tribal art collector.
John Wilson (1922–2015), painter and sculptor.
