Art Industry News: A New Gallery in Chinatown Is Selling Art That You—Yes, You—Can Actually Afford + 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, January
13.

NEED-TO-READ

Germany’s Major Art Projects Have Blown Their Budgets –
In Germany, new opera houses,
airports, and major museums have a tendency to run late and bust
their budgets—but politicians don’t seem to mind. Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, which
is due to open in the fall, is a year late, and $54 million over
budget. The upgrade of the city’s Pergamon Museum won’t be ready
until 2023, and its cost has soared to north of $530 million.
Meanwhile, the planned Herzog and de
Meuron-designed museum of 20th century art in
Berlin has more than
doubled in cost to $450
million. Why is overspending so common? Initial estimates are often deliberately understated to
secure political approval. (New York
Times)

Climate Activists
Turn Up the Heat on the British Museum – Climate
activists are unimpressed with the British Museum’s attempt to
distance its forthcoming Arctic exhibition—which includes objects
that have been revealed by melting permafrost—from longtime sponsor
BP. The show, which opens in May, is supported by American bank
Citi, not the energy company. But the nonprofit Culture
Unstained points out that Citi has also funded “major fossil fuel
projects” such as the Dakota Access Pipeline, and that the sponsor
shuffle is simply a way to avoid criticism. The exhibition will
address the impact of climate change on indigenous communities from
the region. (The Art Newspaper)

Poland Is Not Looking Hard Enough for Nazi Loot –
Many Old Master paintings stolen by
the Nazis in the Netherlands could be in Poland—but the country is
dragging its feet over their restitution. Experts have identified seven paintings in the
Gdansk National Museum’s collection that are listed as looted,
including Jan van Goyen’s 1638 painting Huts on a Canal. Willi Drost, the director of the Gdansk art
museum during World War II, was an avid buyer of Dutch Old Master
paintings. But Poland tends to wait until it gets a formal request
from the Dutch government before it takes heirs’ restitution claims
seriously. “The Polish government wants to have as much as possible
back but they don’t want to give anything back to others,” said
Kamil Zeidler, a law professor at the University of Gdansk.
(NYT)

A Hitchcock Star Turns to Art – Kim Novak,
one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the 1950s and ’60s, has
returned to the public eye with a new role: artist. Novak, who had
originally set out to be a painter but moved to Los Angeles after
she earned her first modeling gig, starred in
Hitchcock’s Vertigo, among other films. But when the
fickleness of Hollywood’s studio system left her at sea in the late
’60s, she left Hollywood and returned to her first love, painting.
An exhibition of her work was recently on view at the the Butler
Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. Painting, she says,
“was a tool for me.” (CBS)

ART MARKET

New Chinatown Gallery Offers Actually Affordable Art
– New York’s newest gallery,
Public Swim, is targeting collectors with modest
budgets. Co-founders Madeleine Mermall and Catherine Fenton Bernath
are showing works in the
inaugural group show that range from $150 to around $8,000. The gallery opens on
January 17. (Observer)

Major Swiss Private Collection Is Deaccessioning –
The Swiss-based Daros Collection is
downsizing. Around 700 works
by the likes of Warhol, Twombly, Richter, and Ryman have been
quietly sold off, leaving fewer than 300, Kenny Schachter reports
in his latest column. (Artnet
News)

Christian Deydier Expands to Hong Kong –
The veteran French dealer of Asian
art, Christian Deydier, gets
the profile treatment following the opening of his gallery in Hong
Kong. He says Chinese collectors won’t come to France to buy, so he
must come to them, despite the ongoing pro-democracy protests
roiling the city. (South China
Morning Post)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Star Broadway Playwright
Will Organize High Line Festival – Jeremy O. Harris,
the young playwright behind Broadway’s
much-talked-about Slave Play, will curate the 2020
edition of the High Line’s annual “Out of Line” series, which
features experimental and multidisciplinary artistic performances.
It will be held this summer and be presented over a three-day
period for the first time. (NYT)

New Partners Named at
Hauser & Wirth – Partner and vice president Marc
Payot, who has been with the mega-gallery for two decades and leads
its operations in New York, has now been named president, joining
co-presidents and gallery founders Iwan and Manuela Wirth. The
gallery has also named eight new partners from the global Hauser &
Wirth team: Stacen Berg, Florian Berktold, Cristopher Canizares,
Barbara Corti, James Koch, Mirella Roma, Graham Steele, and Neil
Wenman. (Press
release)

Minneapolis Institute of
Art Curator to Retire – Patrick Noon is stepping down
as senior curator and chair of MIA’s department of paintings after
more than two decades. During his long tenure, he helped acquire
some 200 paintings, including works by Wilhelm List, Claude
Lorrain, and Alexander Roslin. He will retire on January
31. (Artforum)

FOR ART’S SAKE

China’s Independent Film
Festival Closes, Citing Censorship – The China
Independent Film Festival is suspending operations “indefinitely,”
saying that it is “impossible” to operate with a “purely
independent spirit” amid increasing media censorship in
China. “We are just back to the usual rule under the Party,”
one of the project’s organizers said. “We just went back to 20
years ago, when there was no room and opportunity for independent
films.” (Reuters)

New Twist in Looted Schiele Legal Saga –
A judge in New York has granted a
motion that will allow lawyers to petition the Court of Appeals in
Albany to reverse its decision on the issue of liability over two
works by Egon Schiele. Heirs of the Viennese actor and art
collector Fritz Grünbaum, who was murdered by the Nazis, had won a
landmark decision in July against the art dealer Richard Nagy, who
contested their claim to Woman Hiding Her Face (1912) and
Woman in a Black Pinafore (1911). (Press
release)

Hudson Yards Slammed for
Latest Development
Proposal – After unveiling
major high-rises, custom art, and, of course, the towering Vessel,
Manhattan’s Hudson Yards is ready to begin phase two of its
mega-development project. However, the promise of a large public
green space seems to have all but faded. The new plan is
to bring in millions more square feet of  high-end office
space and residences as well as a public school. There is also the
plan to build a 700-foot-long wall on the side adjacent to the High
Line, which would effectively turn the whole area into a gated
community. (NYT)

Wu Tsang and Boychild
Walk in Florence Fashion Show – The New
York-based fashion brand Telfar recruited some extremely hip models
for its most recent runway show. Artists and frequent collaborators
Wu Tsang and boychild—who recently took the Venice Biennale by
storm—pounded down the large banquet table that doubled as a
catwalk. The brand’s futuristic fall/winter presentation debuted at
the Grand Palazzo Corsini in Florence, Italy. (ARTnews)

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Selling Art That You—Yes, You—Can Actually Afford + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.