Art Industry News: Banksy’s Valentine’s Day Mural Is Vandalized + 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, February
17.

NEED-TO-READ

Cooper Hewitt Director Forced Out
Amid Wedding Inquiry – Reasons have finally emerged as to why
the director of the Smithsonian’s
design museum stepped down earlier this month. It turns out that
Baumann was dismissed over allegations that the discounted cost of
her dress and the venue for her wedding in 2018 presented a
conflict of interest. The
Smithsonian’s inspector general’s office declined to comment on its
inquiry or how Baumann may have used her position to pay $750 for a
designer frock and use a Buckminster Fuller dome for free for her
wedding last year. The departure came as a shock to trustees who
were not consulted. Some are now considering their positions.
Trustee Judy Francis Zankel is appalled at the harsh decision and
has raised the matter with the Smithsonian’s secretary
Lonnie Bunch. (New York
Times)

Russian Artist Pyotr Pavlensky Is
Arrested – A controversial Russian
performance artist given asylum in France has been arrested.
Officially he has been detained for an alleged brawl but it comes
days after he released a sex tape to shame a politician who hoped
to be Paris mayor. Pyotr Pavlensky leaked the video of Benjamin
Griveaux. The artist accused him of “political hypocrisy” for
having an extra-marital affair. Griveaux, who is a member of
Emmanuel Macron’s political party, blamed
the “vile attacks
concerning my private life” for his decision to drop out of the
campaign. (The Art
Newspaper)

Banksy Valentine’s Mural Is Vandalized – Someone has vandalized Banksy’s Valentine’s Day
street art within days of it appearing in his home city. The
attacker added “BCC
wankers”—seemingly an insult aimed at the Bristol City Council—and
a love heart in pink spray paint to the street artist’s work
featuring a girl who has fired a slingshot full of roses. One
resident of the Barton Hill area of Bristol in the West of England
said of the vandalism: “It’s a real shame, but it was always going
to happen, unfortunately.” (Guardian)

Inside the Meltdown of the Marciano Foundation –
The Marciano brothers are refusing
to respond to questions about why they abruptly closed
their Los Angeles art museum in November. They blamed low
attendance. Insiders say it was more complicated than that,
claiming the Marciano Art Foundation was in trouble from the beginning,
due to a lack of organizational structure, and long-term planning.
Maurice Marciano’s passion for the project seemed to have waned
rapidly. (Paul always thought it was excessive). When
front-of-house staff objected to low wages and wanted to unionize,
the brothers closed their doors. Running a private museum is
expensive, especially when its glitzy launch party reportedly cost
$500,000. The former Masonic building on Wilshire
Boulevard is now shuttered, but their blue-chip art is
believed to remain inside, so the Marcianos now own a rather
expensive art storage facility. (Los Angeles Times)

ART MARKET

David Geffen Buys Back His Hockney
Splash  – The media mogul
reportedly bought the 1966 painting of an LA swimming pool that he
had sold in 1985. This time Geffen splashed out $30 million when
making the only bid at Sotheby’s last
week for the Hockney. (Bloomberg)

Takeaways From the London Auctions
– The auctions
totalled $522 million, down nearly
a quarter from the 2019 sales. The hangover from Brexit uncertainty was partly
to blame, as consigners held back works
and buyers remained
wary of overpaying at the high end of the market. Phone bids on
behalf of younger Japanese collectors were notable, however, and
work by female artists continued to surge, with an auction record
for Jordan Casteel. (Wall Street
Journal)

Artists Accuse Unseen Amsterdam of
Nonpayment – The bankrupt
photography fair left the artist London-based artist Felicity Hammond unpaid.
She has written an open letter criticizing the Unseen Foundation
for being complicit in the debacle. Art Rotterdam is now in talks
to buy Unseen Amsterdam although it is unclear if debtors like
Hammond will be paid. (Artforum)

NADA Names New York Open Exhibitors
– The second edition of NADA’s
New York Gallery Open will include 60 exhibitors ranging
from A.I.R. Gallery, and
Pioneer Works, to False Flag, and Rachel Uffner Gallery. It is due
to run March 5 through 8 to coincide with the Armory Show.
(Artforum)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Fugitive Art Dealer
Hunted in Germany – Art
collector Angela Gulbenkian is wanted by the police after
failing to appear in court
in London at the beginning of February. She is believed to
be in Germany after fleeing charges of fraud totalling £1.1 million
($1.4 million), a case involving her allegedly selling a fake Yayoi
Kusama polka dot pumpkin sculpture to Mathieu
Ticolat. (Times) 

Dallas Museum Names
Contemporary Art Curator – Vivian Crockett will join
the Dallas Museum of Art as assistant curator of contemporary art.
She currently serves as a Joan Tisch teaching fellow at the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New York and will begin her new post on
March 9. (Artforum)

Egypt Sentences
Ex-Minister’s Brother for Artifact Smuggling – An Egyptian
court has sentenced Raouf Boutros-Ghali, the brother of a former
finance minister, to 30 years in prison and fined him 6 million
Egyptian pounds ($382,000) after he was convicted on two separate
counts of trafficking antiquities out of the country. The
cases began in 2017 when Italian police seized smuggled goods from
Egypt that included five burial masks, 11 vessels, 151 small
statues, and thousands of coins from different eras.
(AP)

FOR ART’S SAKE

FBI Restitutes 450
Artifacts to Haiti – Some 450
cultural and historical artifacts will be returned by the United
States to the Republic of Haiti after being discovered within a
trove of 7,000 items held in a private collection, the largest
recovery of cultural property in FBI history. The return marks the
largest repatriation of art from the United State to Haiti to date.
(Press
release)

The Getty Buys a
Painting Rejected by English Heritage –
A recently discovered masterpiece, Two Boys
With A Bladder by the 18th-century painter Joseph Wright
of Derby, will head to the Getty Museum in LA after English
­Heritage rejected the chance to buy the £2.5 million ($3.3
million) painting because of its condition. Expert Peter Barber is
sceptical that the cost of conservation was the real issue and
fears English Heritage is more concerned with the upkeep of Kenwood
House in London than adding to its art
collection. (Camden New
Journal)

Street Artists Auctioned
to Benefit Australia’s Fire Recovery – An auction
organized by leading street art collectors Sandra Powell and
Andrew King raised AUD$300,000 ($202,380) for relief for those
affected by the wildfires. There were works by Banksy, Shepard
Fairey, Swoon, and Ron English. (TAN)

See Raphael’s Tapestries Return to the Sistine
Chapel – For one week only the
Renaissance master’s ten tapestries will hang again in the
Vatican’s chapel as they did in the 16th century. The Vatican
Museum has posted a video of their historic return to mark the
500th anniversary of Raphael’s death. The display unveiled today
will end on Sunday when they return to their permanent home in the
museums. (Instagram)

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