Art Industry News: A Poignantly Lovelorn Painting by David Hockney Could Fetch $45 Million at Christie’s This Fall + Other Stories

by admin

Oct 16, 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 Wednesday, October
16.

NEED-TO-READ

Peter Schjeldahl Loves
the New MoMA – The art critic doles out praise for
the revamped MoMA, commending it for its flexible spaces, its
“elating circus atmosphere” for “popular engagement,” and its
juxtapositions of less visible artists among the usual masterpiece
artworks, which are he says are “dulled by overfamiliarity.”
However, Schjeldahl questions the decision to pair works from
different mediums like graphic art, artists’ books, and films with
painting and sculpture. Though it works out, he cautions that “you
sense the strain of the forced equivalencies of art and artifacts.”
(New Yorker)

Meet ‘Mona Lisa’ in VR
– Are long lines and the hassle of pre-booking
getting you down? Relief is in sight. The Louvre, anxious to tackle
its (enviable) popularity problem, is debuting a version of its
most famous artwork in virtual reality so that you can get up close
and personal without having to push through swarms of selfie fiends
to catch a glimpse of the Mona Lisa. With 15
headset stations in a gallery near the main Leonardo exhibition
that opens next week, the VR tour will provide a three-dimensional
look at the mysterious portrait. The French government plans to
spend around €3 million ($3.3 million) to offer similar digital
tours of other masterworks from major Paris museums that will be
held outside of the French capital. (Art
Daily)

David Hockney to Headline Christie’s Contemporary Sale
– Yes, you heard right, another
gigantic painting by beloved British painter David Hockney will be
the star lot at Christie’s upcoming November auction in New York.
The work, titled Sur la Terrasse (1971), was
painted as the relationship between Hockney and his lover Peter
Schlesinger went south, and the work is a melancholic—though lively
colored—perspective on the fading romance. After some four decades
in a private collection, the work is estimated to fetch up to $45
million at the November 13 sale. (Art Market Monitor)

Salvator Mundi’s
Restorer Calls Out “Hacks and Gossip-Mongers” Who Doubt Its
Authenticity – Restorer Dianne Modestini expresses
frustration at “gadflies who make their living on the fringes
of the scholarly art world” for thinking a restorer like herself
could fabricate a work like Salvator Mundi. “I
suppose I should be flattered,” she states dryly in her opinion
editorial. She denies, with “absolute certainty,” that the Louvre
has not excluded the work because it fears its authenticity will
come into question. “The reason for the Salvator Mundi’s absence
from the Louvre show resides with the painting’s likely new owner,
Saudi prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud,”
she adds. (Airmail)

ART MARKET

Dealer Iman Farès
Gallery Drops Out of Komunuma – Just as everything is set
for its official unveiling, Komunuma, the suburban
Parisian shared arts venue, has lost one of its founding
gallery members. Parisian dealer Iman Farès, who was one of
the five galleries planned to open at the former factory arts
complex, has dropped out. She has declined to give the
reason. (TAN)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Art Historian EA Carmean Jr. Has Died
– The art historian and founding curator of
20th-century art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC,
died on October 12 at the age of 74. The Illinois-born scholar
worked under Philippe de Montebello at the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, before going on to become director of the Modern Art
Museum of Fort Worth and then, in later life, turning to a
religious vocation as a clergyman. While at the NGA, he acquired
Jackson Pollock’s Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist),
which remains a jewel in its collection. (The Art
Newspaper)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Wy the First Toronto
Biennial Was a Major Success – The Canadian city’s
inaugural biennial, co-organized by Documenta 14
curator Candice Hopkins, challenges viewers in a way not
typically experienced at major group exhibitions. The guidebook for
the show includes histories of the land around each venue and
includes acknowledgements to the indigenous populations that had
resided there for 12,000 years. The exhibition also opened with a
mea culpa by artist AA Bronson, A Public Apology to
Siksika Nation, for his grandfather’s missionary work in the
region. The show is on view from now until December 1.
(ARTnews)

An Ancient Maya Monument and All Its Secrets Are Reborn
– Once again technology has proven to
help transform the field of Mayan archaeology. Thanks to
a cache of Victorian-era
photographs and plaster casts held in the British Museum, the
institution and Google Arts + Culture have commissioned a 3D print
of a monumental Mayan staircase. The Hieroglyphic Stairway at
Palenque, which was damaged by erosion, has been reproduced in
limestone by a UK foundry using the casts, which were made onsite
in the 1880s. The finished work has been flown to Mexico, where it
will be on permanent display at the excavation site from where the
original came, and where visitors will now be able to touch its
intricate glyphs and read translations of its messages. Not
everyone is happy about it, though. “There’s a lot of interest in
dead Maya and not living Maya,” said one local. “They reduce us to
folklore.” (Financial Times)

How Germany’s Z.K.M.
Museum Is Ahead of the Curve – The Z.K.M. Center for
Art and Media is unusual. In 2015, it hosted a floating cloud by
Japanese architect and artist Tetsuo Kondo and engineering firm
Transsolar; it also has fake cameras in the bathroom. The
institute, which refers to itself as an “interface” and not a
museum, was founded in the town of Karlsruhe in 1989—the year both
the Berlin Wall fell and the internet was created. It presents fun
and challenging exhibitions focused on digital art, often well
before any given artist or topic enters into mainstream art
institutions. (New York Times)