Art Industry News: The New Museum’s Bronx Ideas Festival Lasted Less Than an Hour Before Activists Shut It Down + 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 Monday, September
23.

NEED-TO-READ

Olafur Eliasson Is Now a UN
Climate-Change Ambassador – The artist and
environmentalist Olafur Eliasson has been named a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador of its
development program. In the new position, Eliasson will work with
the UN to raise awareness and mobilize support for action against
climate change. In a statement, he said: “Life on Earth is about
co-existence—among people, non-human animals, ecosystems, and the
environment. The fact is, we’re in it together. That’s why we all
have to take the climate emergency
seriously.” (ARTnews)

Art History Professor Accused of Assault
– Two former students of Gary Xu Gang, a former art
history professor at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and a former curator of the Shenzhen Biennale,
have filed a complaint against him for sexual assault, physical
abuse, harassment, and forced labor. Xu was removed as curator of
the biennale when the allegations against him surfaced online
earlier this year. Xu has until October 1 to respond to the
complaint. He has previous strenuously denied claims of sexual
assault. (The Art
Newspaper)

Activists Shut
Down a New Museum Event in the Bronx – The New Museum
cancelled a one-day festival in the Bronx less than an hour after
it began following protests from locals. Several grassroots
organizations that had been slated to participate pulled out of
IdeasCityBronx, a daylong series of artist talks, performances, and
workshops to address the impact of climate change on local Bronx
communities. The New Museum said it cancelled the event “out of
respect for those who raised objections” and due to “concern for
the safety of the audience and participants.” Tiara Torres, from
the activist group Hydropunk, claimed the New Museum’s commitment
to the Bronx was superficial, adding that the next time its staff
visited would probably be for a New York Yankees game. (Hyperallergic)

Steve Martin Champions a
Little-Known Art Movement – The
actor and art collector reveals he is a big fan of the relatively
little-known abstract art
movement Synchromism.
Martin has made a BBC radio documentary in collaboration with the
Museum of Modern Art about two American
artists, Stanton
MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell, who separately developed their ideas in Paris about
visual art inspired by music. Martin’s discussion of their colorful
oeuvres forms part of a series called The Way I See It, in which 30 guests respond to works in the
New York museum’s collection. (Guardian)

ART MARKET

A Saber-Tooth Cat Skull Could Fetch
$1 Million – Do you love cats and skulls and have a lot of
disposable income? It’s your lucky day. A rare fossilized saber-tooth cat skull—one of the
largest ever recorded—is the top lot of Dallas-based
Heritage
Auctions’ forthcoming
nature and science auction on September 28. It has an upper
estimate of $1 million. (Press release)

Andres Serrano’s Piss
Christ Heads to Auction – The controversial work that helped ignite the
Culture Wars of the 1990s is heading to auction at Bonhams in New York on
October 2 with an estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. The 1987
photograph of a crucifix floating in urine is one of the original
edition of 10. Piss Christ‘s current owner purchased it
in 1989 from Andreas
Serrano’s first New York
dealer, Stux Gallery. (Press release)

Two Early Van Goghs Sell for a
“Bargain” – An early watercolor
of flowers and another of a jug by Vincent van Gogh sold for
$240,000, and $153,000 respectively
at Kiggen’s Auction House in Ghent. The Belgian buyers have
promised to keep the 1883 works in the country, as the seller
requested. (Art
Daily)

Art Düsseldorf Announces Exhibitor List – The latest edition of the German art fair will
run from November 15 through 17 with more exhibitors, bringing the
total number of participants to 100. Fair director Walter Gehlen
says the regional art fair is enjoying a growing international
profile. The fair has new partners after
Art Basel’s parent company sold its stake to fair organizers Sandy Angus
and Tim Etchells. (Press release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

The Slovenian Artist
Behind the Trump Statue of Liberty Wants to Move It
– Tomaž Schlegl, the artist behind the Statue of
Freedom depicting the US president in Sela, Slovenia that
became an international media
sensation, has launched a Kickstarter to
move the sculpture to a new location after locals complained its
presence would turn their town into an international laughingstock.
So far, it has raised $406 of its $21,466 goal. (Kickstarter)

Two Artists Win Prizes
at the Toronto Biennial
– The Bogota-based artist Abel Rodríguez
is the first winner of the biennial’s Art Prize, while
Istanbul-based Hera Büyüktaşçıyan has won the Emerging Artist
Prize. Each artist will receive 20,000 Canadian dollars, or about
$15,000. The Toronto Biennial of Art opened to the public on
September 21. (ARTnews)

Bienal de São Paulo
Announces Participants – Next year’s Bienal de São Paulo
will take on a new format:
it will offer a series of related solo exhibitions opening in the
months leading up to the main exhibition. The first one kicks off
in February, with Peruvian artist Ximena Garrido-Lecca presenting
work about her home country and its relationship to colonialism and
globalism. Clara Ianni will open a show in April, followed by Deana
Lawson in July. (ARTnews)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Banksy’s Climate Change
Art in Westminster Gets Protection – The street
artist’s work at Marble Arch in central London, which Banksy
created during the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations earlier this
year, will, fittingly, be protected against the elements.
Westminster City Council in London has covered the work, which is
located on a pedestrian underpass, in Plexiglass. (Press
release)

Sneak Peek of JR’s Epic
New York Mural – The street artist’s newest mural,
called The Chronicles of New York City, goes on view
October 4 at the Brooklyn Museum to coincide with his major solo
exhibition. The massive work, which is nearly 21 by 32 feet,
includes the narratives of 1,128 New Yorkers doing all manner of
New York things: taking selfies, waiting for public transportation,
getting a haircut, and walking with a rolled up carpet on their
shoulders. (Guardian)

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The post Art Industry News: The New Museum’s Bronx Ideas
Festival Lasted Less Than an Hour Before Activists Shut It Down +
Other Stories appeared first on artnet News.