Art Industry News: Jeff Koons Was ‘Saddened’ by the Backlash Over His Balloon Tulips for Paris + Other Stories

by admin

Oct 1, 2019

artnet

Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most
consequential developments coming out of the art world and art
market. Here’s what you need to know on this Tuesday, October
1.

NEED TO READ

The Pope Unveils a Monument to Migrants – The artist who has brought Homeless
Jesus to park benches now has a monumental work in the
Vatican. Pope Francis
unveiled Timothy Schmalz’s sculpture in St. Peter’s Square on
Sunday. Commissioned by the
Vatican’s Migrants and Refugees office, the work was overseen
directly by the Pope, who even blessed the
maquette. Called
Angels
Unaware, it depicts 140
migrants and refugees, including Jewish and Muslim ones, fleeing in
a boat that is heading toward the basilica. It is unclear how long
the work will remain on show in the piazza. (BBC)

Outcry at a Treasure Hunter’s Dig for Pirate’s Gold –
Archaeologists and
environmentalists are upset that a US treasure hunter plans to use
heavy machinery to look for a pirate’s trove. Bernard Keiser has
been given permission to excavate on Chile’s Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific. He is convinced that he
has found possible sites where a treasure trove of jewels, gold,
and Inca artifacts were buried by Spanish pirates in the 18th
century. “The motive is profit, not archaeological interest,” says
the Chilean archaeologist, Alejandra Vidal. “There’s a very
real risk of artifacts being lost or damaged,” if a trove is
discovered. (Guardian)

Jeff Koons Is Bummed France Didn’t Want His Tulips
– When Jeff Koons offered to give the people of France his
39-foot-tall metallic balloon sculpture Bouquet of
Tulips as a present following
the Paris attacks, there was a lot of backlash. (Donors had
to foot the fabrication bill.) That “saddened” the artist, he
admitted, noting that the controversial Palais de Tokyo location
wasn’t his idea. It will be installed Friday at a less prominent
location near the Petit Palais museum, and remains, he
added, a “magnificent opportunity to show my respect and love for
France and the French.” Proceeds from copyright fees will go toward
victims of terrorist attacks on Paris. (Agence France
Presse)

Is This the Swiss Stonehenge? – Aquatic
excavations of Switzerland’s Lake Constance have unearthed
what archaeologists believe to be a Neolithic relic, featuring a
circle of stones placed at regular intervals. A researcher on the
project promises that his team “has no intention to compete with
the original Stonehenge” in the West of England, pouring cold water
on media reports that it is the “Swiss Stonehenge.” (Daily
Mail)

ART MARKET

John Gerrard Joins Pace’s
Roster – The artist has
joined Pace gallery but he will be co-represented by Thomas Dane
Gallery of London and Naples. Garrard is best known for his moving
image-based digital “simulations.” (ARTnews)

Ugo Rondinone
Raises $1.1 Million
for Cancer Research – Ugo Ronindone’s Stop
Bladder Cancer auction at Sotheby’s, featuring work
by Carroll Dunham, Sarah Lucas, Oscar Murillo, and Elizabeth
Peyton, brought in more than a million dollars to support
treatment and research at Weill Medical College of Cornell
University. The artist was inspired to raise money for the cause
after being diagnosed with cancer in 2017. (Press
Release)

A Gauguin Painting Heads to Auction After Ten Years at
the Met – Paris’s Artcurial expects to fetch as much
as €7 million ($7.6 million) from the December sale of Paul
Gauguin’s Te Bourao II (The Purao Tree). The piece is
one of a series of nine paintings by the artist made in Tahiti
in 1897 during his work on the large-scale Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, masterpiece Where Do We Come From? What are We?
Where are we Going?; Te Bourao II is the only one
still in a private collection. Until 2017, the work was on
view at the Metropolitan Museum in New York thanks to a ten-year
loan from the unidentified owner. (The Art
Newspaper)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Walker Art Center Names
Chief Curator – The Minneapolis-based museum has
named Henriette Huldisch as chief curator and director of
curatorial affairs, leaving her current post at the MIT List Visual
Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is the first major
appointment by Mary Ceruti since taking over as the director
of the Walker in January. Huldisch will begin her post on January
6, 2020. (ARTnews)

A New Home for Newark’s Project for Empty Space
– Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Jampol, co-directors of
Newark’s Project for Empty Space have announced plans to move,
opening a new building at 800 Broad Street in January 2020. The art
nonprofit was founded 10 years ago as a nomadic institution,
but has offered art studios for local artists and staged
exhibitions of socially engaged art in their facility at the
Gateway Center for the last seven years. (Press
Release)

Artsy Lays Off More Staff – Some 20
employees, or 10 percent of the staff, have lost their jobs at art
services company Artsy, in the second round of layoffs this year.
The company saw co-founder Carter Cleveland move to an executive
chairman position as Mike Steib, head of XO Group Inc., parent
company of online wedding services company the Knot, took over as
CEO in June. (The Art
Newspaper)

Otobong Nkanga Wins Inaugural Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award
– The Nigeria-born artist has
won the inaugural award of $100,000 for her work that inspires
social change. Norway’s Henie Onstad Museum will give the artist a
midcareer survey in 2020 and acquire a work for its
collection. (Artforum)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Brazen Thief Gets Three
Years Jail Time – The man who stole a painting—in broad daylight—from
Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery in January has been sentenced to
three years in prison. The video surveillance shows a blasé Denis
Chuprikov, carrying off Arkhip Kuindzhi’s 20th-century
painting, Ai-Petri. Crimea, without anyone
taking notice. Chuprikov told the court he took the canvas on a
whim. “If I had been stopped with the painting, I would have given
it back,” he claimed. (Radio Free
Europe)

Art that Survived Saddam Hussein Goes on Show –
Works that survived
ISIS and Saddam Hussein by Kurdish artists go on show in
London. The group show at P21 Gallery in North London includes
pieces by a former Kurdish Peshmerga fighter turned artist, as well
as an installation that includes ancient Assyrian reliefs peppered
by bullet holes. (Guardian)

Stolen John Lavery Painting Recovered After 25 Years
– Dublin’s Whyte’s auctioneers was set to auction a
work by 19th-century Belfast artist John Lavery when the house
realized the €20,000 ($21,800) painting, Youth and
Age (1885), had been stolen about 25 years ago from Stonyhurst
College in Lancashire in the UK. “Whyte’s are delighted to
have assisted in its recovery,” said the company’s managing
director. (The Irish
Times)

Rumors of
War Is Unveiled in Times Square – Obama
portraitist Kehinde Wiley debuted his first public
commission, a sculpture titled Rumors of War, in
Times Square. The bronze work sends up the traditional Confederate
equestrian statues that line the streets of Richmond, Virginia,
where the work will be permanently displayed after its weeks-long
stint in New York City. Riffing on the memorial to Confederate
general J.E.B. Stuart, Wiley’s sculpture shows a heroic young
African American man, his short dreadlocks gathered atop his head,
wearing Nike shoes and a hoodie, gallantly astride his horse.
(Instagram)

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