Art Industry News: Are Nude Sculptures Are Just Soft Porn for the Elite? One Eminent Critic Thinks So + 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 Wednesday, January
29.

NEED-TO-READ

Portrait in French Town Hall Long Thought to Be a Copy Is
Actually a Lost Treasure – For
the past 200 years, a painting of King Louis XV was thought to be a
simple copy. It hung in the town hall of the French city of
Tarn-et-Garonne for centuries, deemed unremarkable, until an expert
reassessed the work and discovered that it is in fact an original
replica of a piece by Louis-Michel Van Loo, an official painter of
the court of Spain and a portrait painter the King himself.
Jean-Martial Frédou de la Bretonnière, alias Frédou, has been
identified as the true author of the painting; the original by Van
Loo has long been missing and, until now, only two copies existed
of his famous painting: one in Versailles, the other in Beaune.
(Le
Figaro)

UK Museums Are Increasingly Relying on Gallery Funding –
UK museums are facing growing
public scrutiny over corporate donations from the fossil fuel, Big
Pharma, and arms industries, while at the same time, government
spending on culture is in decline. That’s why commercial galleries
and auction houses are stepping in to bridge the gap—but that
approach, which has historically been more common in the US than
the UK, presents its own ethical landmines. A Sotheby’s auctioneer
announced its sponsorship of Albert Oehlen’s Serpentine exhibition
from the rostrum last June, moments after securing a record for
Oehlen’s Self-Portrait with Empty Hands (1998),
which sold for £6.2 million to Skarstedt Gallery (another funder of
the show). Corporate sponsorship packages usually start at around
£100,000, while mid-tier supporters might contribute £50,000 to
£100,000—or even as little as £5,000 for smaller regional
museums. (The Art
Newspaper)

Are Nudes Just Soft Porn for the Elite? – The author,
professor, and Classics expert Mary Beard is ruffling some feathers with
her new TV program, The Shock of the Nude, which premieres
on the BBC on February 3. She wants her audience to question
the abundance of female nudes in museums and ask themselves what,
exactly, is behind the high volume of undressed women in painting.
“I think Western art has centered on a sexualized version of the
female body more than other cultures,” she says. “And I think it’s
about opening our eyes to it and saying, ‘What is this? Is this
really soft porn for the elite, dressed up in a classical
guise?’” (Telegraph)

Mother Cabrini Sculpture Inflames Controversy Over Public Art
– A months-long debate
over New York’s public sculptures is heating up yet again as New
York Governor Andrew Cuomo pushes forward with his plan to erect a
$750,000 statue of Mother Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants
who helped poor Italians in the early days of American
colonization, in Battery Park. Some opponents are concerned the
project does not consider the surrounding community, nor the fact
that the park is already stacked with monuments needing repair.
Battery Park is one of the few places in New York City that the
governor can erect a statue without having to negotiate with City
Hall. (ARTnews)

ART MARKET

Donald Marron’s Collection Could Head to the Auction Block
– The family of the late
financier is asking top auction houses to submit proposals for the
handling of his collection of modern and contemporary art, which is
valued at around $450 million. Marron, who died in
December, assembled treasures including a Picasso portrait of Dora
Maar and a 1957 Rothko. (Bloomberg)

A Stolen Chagall Painting Sells for $130,000
– A painting by Jewish
modernist Marc Chagall has sold at Tiroche Auction House in Tel
Aviv for $130,000, its low estimate. The work, Jacob’s Ladder, was due to head to a sale back in
1996, but was stolen days before
the auction. In 2015, the work resurfaced in Jerusalem in the
estate of an elderly woman. (Jewish
Telegraphic Agency)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Opening of Munch Museum Delayed – The opening of Oslo’s anticipated new Munch
Museum has been postponed until the fall following delays in the
delivery of security doors and problems with the indoor climate
system. The inaugural exhibition, which will juxtapose works by
Munch with those of Tracey Emin, will debut on the new opening
date. It is unclear whether the show’s second stop, at the Royal
Academy in November, will also be delayed. (The Art
Newspaper)

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Awards $2.5 Million to Art
History Programs – The late
artist’s foundation is making onetime endowment gifts of $500,000
to doctoral art history programs at five American universities: the
City University of New York; Harvard University; New York
University; Stanford University; and the University of Chicago. The
announcement marks a new phase of the Frankenthaler Scholarships
program, which has already given more than $4 million to fund the
study of art and art history in the US. (Artforum)

Nasher Sculpture Center Makes New Acquisitions –
The Nasher Sculpture Center in
Dallas has added three works by female artists to its collection.
Works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Judy Chicago, and Beverly Semmes
have been acquired thanks to the museum’s Kaleta A. Doolin
Acquisitions Fund for Women Artists. (Artforum)

Ferdinand Neess, German Collector, Is Dead at 90 –
The German art dealer and Art
Nouveau collector, Ferdinand Wolfgang Neess, has died. In spring
2017, Neess bequeathed his $46 million collection, which includes
more than 500 works by German, French, and Austrian Art Nouveau
artists, to the state, and it has been on view in the Museum
Wiesbaden since June 2019. (ARTnews)

FOR ART’S SAKE

First Cat in Space Gets a Sculpture – A bronze statue of the Astrocat Félicette, a
cat who was launched into space for 15 minutes in 1963, has been
unveiled at the International Space University in Strasbourg,
France. Félicette is the only cat to have survived a space journey,
and $57,000 was raised on Kickstarter to fund her memorial statue,
which depicts her sitting atop the Earth. (Smithsonian)

Asheville Museum Gets a Grant to Digitize Black Mountain
College Collection – The
Council on Library and Information Resources has granted the
Asheville Art Museum $163,000 to digitize the Black Mountain
College Collection, an archive of the legendary art school that
boasts Merce Cunningham, Ruth Asawa, and Cy Twombly among its
alumni and former faculty. The 24-month project will make the trove
of materials publicly accessible. (MountainX)

National Portrait Gallery Honoring Kobe Bryant With Display
– The Smithsonian National
Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, is hanging a portrait of the
late NBA legend Kobe Bryant as part of a special “In Memoriam”
display to honor the basketball star, who died in a helicopter
crash on Sunday with his 13-year-old daughter and seven other
passengers. The 2007 black-and-white photograph by Rick Chapman was
donated to the museum by Bryant and ESPN and will be on view “until
further notice.” (NBC)

The post Art Industry News: Are Nude Sculptures Are Just
Soft Porn for the Elite? One Eminent Critic Thinks So + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.