Art Industry News: Washington Post Critic Calls for the Breakup of the ‘Chaotic’ Barnes Collection + Other Stories

Art Industry News is normally 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 Wednesday, August
14.

NEED-TO-READ

Artist Molly Crabapple Arrested at ICE Protest… –
In a day of action in New York on
Sunday against Amazon’s relationship to U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, some 40 people were arrested, including artist
Molly Crabapple. Jewish protesters from Jews for Racial and
Economic Justice and Never Again Action demonstrated at an Amazon
bookstore, demanding that the corporation stop its collaboration
with ICE. (Amazon provides cloud computing resources to companies
like Palantir, which provides software and technical support to
ICE.) Crabapple wrote about the arrest over Twitter. “Many people
who follow me are furious at ICE’s horrific actions but feel
helpless,” she wrote. “Start by
reaching out to local groups.” (Democracy Now)

…While Another Artist Is Arrested Over a Performance in Cuba
– In other artist-activist news, the Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was
arrested outside the Museum of Dissidence in Havana and detained
for two days for wearing the Cuban flag as a part of a performance.
Alcántara has been actively campaigning against Decree
349, a law that restricts independent cultural activity in the
country. His 30-day flag-wearing performance, called
Drapeau, was a protest against a law passed earlier
this year regulating how national symbols can be displayed. Under
the new legislation, Cuban flags cannot be shown with other
symbols, altered in any way, or worn. (Artforum)

Washington Post Critic Calls for the Breakup of the
Barnes Collection – A review like this one doesn’t come along
every day. In a rave review of the Barnes Foundation’s current
survey of Bill Viola’s “astonishing work,” Philip Kennicott blasts
the museum’s legendary permanent collection—which the eccentric
collector Albert Barnes insisted remain in its visionary context mixing
Impressionism, Renaissance, and African art with farming implements
and other demotic craft, only to have it extirpated from is
suburban setting and moved to Philadelphia—as “a colossal vanity
project that holds great art hostage to the narcissistic
self-indulgence of its founder.” Kennicott continues that “the old
painting galleries at this world-renowned museum are a failure” due
to their “chockablock” curation of Renaissance art. “There are
dozens of works on view in the other galleries that deserve similar
attention. And they would attract it if they could be taken out of
the chaotic menagerie in which they have been imprisoned for
decades.” His solution? “Sell off about two dozen second-rate
Renoirs, update the existing collection to include contemporary
work in its mix, and cycle the best of the collection in and out of
a more manageable display, curated by a new generation of scholars
who aren’t beholden to the antiquated theories that Barnes
espoused.” (Washington Post)

New York Culture Pass Signs Up 70,000 New Yorkers –
Culture Pass, which offers New York
residents free admission to dozens of museums and cultural
institutions when they sign up for a library card, has had a banner
first year. Approximately 70,000 people have signed on to the
program since it launched in July 2018. The list of participating
cultural institutions has also expanded from 33 to 50, and now
includes the Shed, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
(New York Times)

ART MARKET

Fashion Designers Are Pulling NYFW Shows From the Shed –
Rag & Bone and Prabal Gurung have
pulled their planned runway shows from Hudson Yards and the Shed,
where they were set to present their spring 2020 collections this
fall. The withdrawal comes amid backlash against Hudson Yards’s
real estate developer Stephen Ross, who hosted a Hamptons
fundraiser for President Donald Trump at his Hamptons home last
week that raised $12 million. (WWD)

Michael St. John Joins Team Gallery – Michael St. John, whose work pulls from
Instagram and the internet and who has been described as a “painter
of paranoia,” will join New York’s Team Gallery. He was previously
represented by Andrea Rosen. The multimedia artist will have a solo
exhibition with Team in 2020. (Press release)

art berlin Announces Exhibitor List – The art berlin fair released its lineup for the
2019 edition, which is set to run at Tempelhof Airport from
September 12 through 15 during the annual Berlin Art Week. This
year, the fair is also collaborating with Basel’s Liste, which will
present videos by artists selected by the Swiss fair’s committee
from participating Liste galleries. (Art Daily) 

COMINGS & GOINGS

Fire Extinguished at the Singapore Art Museum
– A small fire broke out
at the Singapore Art Museum on Sunday. The cause of the blaze,
which was swiftly extinguished by the fire department, is still
being investigated. The museum is currently undergoing
refurbishment and the fire affected construction materials, but no
injuries were reported. (Art Asia Pacific)

Noguchi Museum Hires New Assistant Curator – The sculpture museum in Queens has named Kate
Wiener an assistant curator. She joins the institution from the New
Museum, where she was a curatorial assistant in its education
department. (Artforum)

The New York Public Library Lions Are Getting a Facelift
– The pair of 108-year-old
lions that flank the New York Public Library’s Fifth Avenue
entrance are getting a $250,000 restoration. The lions, which were
nicknamed Patience and Fortitude during the Great Depression, will
go under the knife for nine weeks beginning September 2.
(Curbed)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Lessons From an Art Handler – The founder of the American art logistics
company Atelier 4 recalls his first-ever art handling experience
and the valuable lesson he learned when a Jasper Johns went missing
for terrifying stint when he was on the job alone in the 1980s. He
now maintains that art handlers should always work in pairs.
(Observer)

A New Show Maps Displacement Through Art – An exhibition at the Phillips Collection in
Washington, DC, maps out 75 artists’ relationships to the plight of
refugees. “The Warmth of Other Suns,” which spans Lewis Hine’s
bleak 1920s portraits of arrivals at Ellis Island to Anna
Boghiguian’s contemporary drawings of Syrian refugees, is, in the
words of critic Jason Farago, a “poignant, solemn and utterly
shaming exhibition.” (NYT)

One Month After Its Founder Was Killed, Vandals Attack Baton
Rouge Museum – Just a month
after the murder of its
founder Sadie
Roberts-Joseph, the Odell S. Williams African-American Museum
in Baton Rouge has been vandalized. Police are investigating the
incident, which saw windows broken and benches overturned inside
the Louisiana museum. (New York Post)

Elle Pérez’s Photographs Come to New York Bus Stops – New
York City bus stops have just gotten a whole lot more interesting.
The Public Art Fund has installed works by photographer Elle Pérez
across 100 New York City bus shelters in over 13 neighborhoods. The
citywide exhibition, called “from sun to sun,” explores the New York City
places and communities where Pérez grew up and lives.
(Instagram)

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the Breakup of the ‘Chaotic’ Barnes Collection + Other Stories
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