Art Industry News: Staffers Quit a Moscow Museum After Pay Is Cut to ‘Starvation’ Levels at $390 a Month + Other Stories

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
8.

NEED-TO-READ

George Washington High School Alumni Sue to Keep Mural on
View – Five former students
have filed a lawsuit against their San Francisco school district in
an effort to
keep Victor Arnautoff’s
polarizing George Washington murals on view. The suit follows the San Francisco school
board’s recent vote to
conceal “The Life of George Washington,” which includes imagery
suggesting George Washington’s connection to violence against
slaves and Native Americans. The lawsuit focuses on a
technicality—the fact that the school board did not conduct a
proper environmental review before making its decision—rather than
the broader issue of whether it is more appropriate to cover up or
publicly air problematic histories. San Francisco’s superior court
will hear the case. (Hyperallergic)

The French Really Don’t Like Koons’s Tulips
– Jeff Koons’s
sculpture Bouquet of
Tulips is meant to
symbolize love and solidarity with Paris in the wake of the 2015 terrorist
attacks on the city. But many locals remain unimpressed with the
spectacle, which was unveiled last week. One compared the
sculpture’s rounded tulip flowers to marshmallows. Others have
described the work as “grotesque,” “dreadful,” and even
“pornographic.” The philosopher Yves Michaud had a particularly
colorful description, calling the bouquet “11 colored anuses
mounted on stems.” Koons’s sculpture has been controversial
since he first offered it as gift to Paris. But the city’s mayor,
Anne Hidalgo, remains a fan, describing it as “a magnificent symbol
of freedom and friendship.” (BBC)

Staff Quit Russian Museum in Protest of Low Wages –
Dozens of staff members have quit their jobs at a Moscow museum
after their wages were cut to what they described in an open letter
as “starvation” levels. One
employee at the Bakhrushin
Museum, which houses theatrical archives, said their pay been
halved to around $390 a month. In the open letter, disgruntled
staff claimed that the collection, which includes works by Léon
Bakst and Natalia Goncharova, is now at risk due to the departure
of qualified specialists. Trouble began with the appointment of a
new deputy director in March, who staff claim is redistributing
museum funds. The museum’s longstanding director, Dmitry Rodionov,
told the Russian media in August: “Quiet museum life is in the
distant past.” (The Art Newspaper)

Feminist Art Show Is Called Off in China – Organizers abruptly cancelled a feminist group
show in Shanghai ahead of China’s National Day in what has been interpreted as the latest incident
in a wave of self-censorship. Curators would not comment on the reason for
the eleventh-hour cancellation, but organizers posted a coded
message on social media showing a blindfolded woman falling over, accompanied by
the caption: “This matter is difficult, but not hopeless.”
The exhibition of work by young
female artists was due to take place at a space in Shanghai’s art
district M50. (TAN)

ART MARKET

Francis Naumann Is Going Private – The celebrated expert on Marcel Duchamp and
Dada is closing his New York gallery after 18 years to focus on
private sales. Naumann says his motivation is “primarily
financial,” as collectors migrate toward cutting-edge contemporary
or high-end blue-chip and away from more academic 20th-century
fare. Francis Naumann Fine
Art will close in March 2020, but the veteran dealer will continue
to sell from his Upper East Side apartment. (ARTnews)

David Lynch Plans First Show at Sperone Westwater –
The filmmaker and visual artist
will unveil new work at Sperone Westwater New York in November. The
show, which runs from November 1 to December 21, will include
paintings, works on paper, watercolors, lamp sculptures, and
furniture. (Press
release)

Sotheby’s Secures a 35-Work Imp/Mod Collection
– Auction houses are
racing to secure material for the marquee fall sales in New York.
The latest to score is Sotheby’s, which will offer a trove of works
from an unnamed European collection by masters including Picasso,
Magritte, and Monet at its Impressionist and Modern auctions in New
York on November 12 and 13. Highlights include six paintings by
Marc Chagall and a 1933 work on paper by Picasso, Homme
enlevant une femme, which carries an estimate of $1.2 million
to $1.8 million.
(Press release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Agnes Gund Gives $1 Million to Promote Tough Conversations
– The collector and
philanthropist has given her alma mater, Connecticut College, a $1
million gift to endow the Agnes Gund ’60 Dialogue Project, a
program to train a new generation of leaders to be able to talk
through difficult scenarios. “The Gund Dialogue Project responds to
the urgent need for acceptance, understanding, and empathy in our
increasingly divided world,” the college’s president Katherine
Bergeron said. The program, which includes community service,
cultural immersion, and workshops, will teach students “to embrace
difference, listen deeply, and find common ground.”
(Press release)

Walter Hood Wins Gish Prize – Walter Hood,
the landscape and public artist who recently won a MacArthur “Genius”
grant, is on a major roll. He has now been named the winner of
the annual $250,000 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, which
honors an artist who has pushed artistic boundaries and helped
create social change. Hood, whose work includes landscape design,
urbanism research, and art, is currently redesigning the garden and
terraces at the Oakland Museum. (ARTnews)

Louvre Buys a Sketch of Napoleon Looting Art –
The Louvre Museum in Paris has
acquired a group of drawings by artists who followed Napoleon’s
campaigns in Prussia and Poland at the beginning of the 19th
century. The collection, which the museum purchased at auction in
Toulouse, depicts the emperor’s “imperial achievements,” including
his seizure of sculptures from the Kassel Museum during his
Prussian campaign, which was captured in a sketch by artist
Benjamin Zix. (Antiques Trade
Gazette)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Matthew Barney Gets His First Show in China –
Matthew Barney is getting his first
solo show in China, at UCCA in Beijing. “Matthew Barney: Redoubt,”
which runs through January 12, 2020, will present a new body of
work that previously debuted at
Yale University, including five monumental sculptures of trees
harvested from a burned forest. The exhibition will go onto the
Hayward in London in October 2020. (Art Daily)

MoMA Plans New Contemporary Art Displays – New York’s Museum of Modern Art is
offering a few tasty morsels of what to expect ahead of its grand
reopening on October 21. The institution announced that it has
commissioned six new long-term, site-specific contemporary art
installations by the collective Experimental Jetset and the
artists Kerstin Brätsch, Goshka Macuga, Yoko Ono, Philippe
Parreno, and Haim Steinbach. See a selection of the new commissions
below. (Press
release)

The post Art Industry News: Staffers Quit a Moscow Museum
After Pay Is Cut to ‘Starvation’ Levels at $390 a Month + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.