Art Industry News: Instagram Makes a Rare Exception for a Nude Artwork After an Italian Museum Protests + 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 this Tuesday, September
3.

NEED-TO-READ

Kaiser’s Heir Makes Waves With Restitution Claims
– An heir of the last
German Kaiser has quietly removed a bust and three paintings that
have been on loan to Berlin’s Charlottenburg Palace. The controversial move
emerged as the Hohenzollern heir, Georg Friedrich, pushes to
reclaim thousands of works of art in public collections, as well as
former royal residences of the Hohenzollerns. The news first
reported by Der
Spiegel has sparked
a furious reaction against the former royal family in Germany. The
Left Party has launched a petition under the headline “No gifts for
the Hohenzollerns!” George Friedrich denies that the family will
“endanger objects on public display in museums” but he has not
ruled out pursuing its claims through the courts. He also wants a
Hohenzollern museum in Berlin, according to Die Welt am Sonntag. (The Art Newspaper)

The Hidden Plight of Art Handlers – Art technicians are speaking out about the
accidents and injuries they have suffered in the course of work,
their lack of job security, and their long hours. Art handlers at
Sotheby’s report having to labor up to 100 hours per week at peak
times. While some museum
art handlers are unionizing in New York to improve their pay and work conditions, life is
even harder elsewhere, as Natalie McLaurin discovered when she
moved to New Orleans. The former art handler, who now directs a
nonprofit gallery, says, “People are so desperate for work that
isn’t in the hospitality industry that they will put up with
anything.” Horror stories include serious injuries suffered by an
art handler at the Ogden Museum of Art when a temporary wall
collapsed on him. (Hyperallergic)

Instagram Drops Ban on a Nude Posted by the Palazzo Strozzi
– Instagram has relented and
allowed a female nude by Natalia Goncharova to be posted uncensored by
the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The director of the Palazzo
Strozzi, Arturo Galansino, is delighted at the social media giant’s
U-turn, which will allow it to use the Russian artist’s
painting A Model (Against
a Blue Background) (1910) in its promotions. The art critic and
curator Francesco Bonami noted that Goncharova’s work fell foul of
the Russian Orthodox Church when first shown in 1912. “That
Instagram is more obscurantist in 2019 is staggering,” he wrote in
the newspaper La
Repubblica. Galansino,
meanwhile, tells artnet News that his museum’s Marina Abramovic
retrospective was
censored “every day” on Instagram. (TAN)

Art Museums Should Invest Ethically – The combined endowments of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney
total more than $6 billion. How they invest their wealth is coming
under growing scrutiny. Why, then, don’t these leading US art
museums decide to set an example as socially responsible investors?
Former senior deputy chair of the National Endowment for the Arts,
Laura Callanan, says there is a growing body of evidence
demonstrating that socially responsible investments outperform
conventional ones, so switching wouldn’t impact their bottom line.
She praises the Souls Grow Deep
Foundation’s new
policies, and applauds the Field Museum in Chicago and New York’s
American Museum of Natural History as examples of science museums
that have divested from fossil fuels because of climate change.
“The time has come for our largest cultural institutions to
demonstrate similar leadership,” she says. (Financial Times)

ART MARKET

New Show Celebrates Glenn O’Brien – The New York gallery Off Paradise plans to
stage a show called “Glenn O’Brien: Center Stage” to celebrate the
late writer, who was editor of Andy
Warhol’s Interview. Curated by Natacha Polaert to include works by Warhol, Richard Prince, and Dash Snow,
among others, it will run
from September 17 through November 2. (Page Six)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Palestinian Museum Wins Architecture Award – The zigzagging Palestinian Museum in Birzeit,
Palestine, designed by Heneghan Peng Architects, is among the six
winners of the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. It will split
the $1 million prize with a wetland center in Sharjah; a university
building in Bambey, Senegal; and the Arcadia Education Project in
Bangladesh, among other projects. (dezeen)

The British Museum Acquires a “Lost” Rossetti Painting –
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s dark
painting The Death of
Breuze Sans Pitié,
executed in the late 1850s, will now go on view at the British
Museum after being acquired from the heirs of the late art
historian John Christian in a deal meant to offset inheritance
their tax. The watercolor painting, which shows two Arthurian
knights in a brutal knife fight, has rarely been displayed
publicly. (Guardian)

London Museum to Create $37 Million World War II Galleries
– The Imperial War Museum in
London has announced that it is investing £30.5 million ($37
million) in a new a series of World War II galleries, due to open
by 2021. The galleries will feature an expansion of its Holocaust
displays, showing how slave laborers were forced to build Hitler’s
V2 rockets and flying bombs. (Times)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Can Sterling Ruby Reinvent Himself as a Fashion Designer?
– After years of collaborating
with maverick Belgian designer Raf Simons, the artist fell in love
with the art of clothes, and has established his own fashion line,
S.R. Studio. LA. CA. The line has rapidly become successful,
despite the fact that Ruby’s dealers have discouraged his foray
into fashion, fearing that the unprecedented move would negatively
impact his prices. (New Yorker)

Staff Gets Tattoos of Fire-Ravaged Rio Museum –
A paleontologist who worked at
Brazil’s National Museum before it burned down, Beatriz Hörmanseder, got a tattoo of the
building’s façade to help her cope with the loss. Now staff and
students are also carrying the museum’s legacy via memorial tattoos
of the museum and objects that were lost in the blaze under a
movement called “Museu na pele” (museum on my skin). Two tattoo
companies, Electric Ink and Amazon Group, are offering people the
artwork free of charge. (BBC)

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The post Art Industry News: Instagram Makes a Rare Exception
for a Nude Artwork After an Italian Museum Protests + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.