Art Industry News: Kendall Jenner Teams Up With Maurizio Cattelan to Restage His Most Famous Works + 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, February
19.

NEED-TO-READ

Cecilia Alemani Unveils High Line Commissions
– As soon as a curator
is appointed artistic
director of the Venice Biennale, every decision they make is
read as a preview of what’s to come at the art world’s most closely
watched exhibition. So there is extra interest in the latest round
of commissions from Cecilia Alemani, Venice’s 2021 pick, on New
York’s High Line. She is planning a “music-minded” group exhibition
and two sculpture presentations set to launch in April by Hannah
Levy and Ibrahim Mahama. The group show, called “The Musical
Brain,” will include work by Raúl de Nieves, David Horvitz,
Mai-Thu Perret, Naama Tsabar, and Antonio Vega
Macotela. (ARTnews)

Academy of Art Students Wrestle With Debt – With 13,000 students, the San Francisco Academy
of Art says it is the “largest private accredited art university in
the US”—even though three out of four students never graduate.
Median salaries within a year of graduation range from $19,100 to
$46,500, while those very same graduates will have possibly racked
up more than $400,000 in debt. A federal lawsuit by four
ex-employees is accusing the Academy of Art of using illegal
schemes to bait students. They allege that the school illegally
adjusted recruiters’ salaries depending on how many students they
registered and dangled trips to Hawaii as an incentive. They also
claim that the school lied to the government in order to collect
millions in financial aid. (San Francisco
Chronicle)

Kendall Jenner Teams Up With Maurizio Cattelan
– Fresh off her purchase of a James
Turrell work at Frieze Los Angeles, Kendall Jenner has unveiled her latest magazine cover—and
it’s got major contemporary-art star power. Jenner teamed up with
Maurizio Cattelan to recreate some of his most famous artworks,
including the cover image, a twist on his bust of model Stephanie
Seymour posed as a ship’s figurehead. In a portfolio shot
by British-Ghanian fashion photographer Campbell Addy, Jenner
also poses with pigeons (a reference to Cattelan’s installation at
the 54th Venice Biennale) and tapes Addy to the wall as a twist on
Cattelan’s viral banana stunt at last
year’s Art Basel Miami Beach. (Press release)

Drawing Center Goes Free for Three Years
– The Drawing Center in New York has received a
multi-year grant from the Cy Twombly Foundation that will enable it
to offer free admission though February 2023, starting… tomorrow.
The Drawing Center noted that when it piloted free admission during
its recent
exhibition The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by
Incarcerated Artists, it saw a 50 percent increase in
attendance and welcomed a significant number of first-time
visitors. (Press release)

ART MARKET

Hong Kong’s Galleries Carry on Despite Coronavirus –
Despite new quarantine rules and
the cancelation of the 2020 editions of Art Basel Hong Kong
and Art Central, Hong Kong galleries are finding a way to operate.
Several have adjusted their opening hours or are offering viewings
by appointment. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department says
state-run museums will reopen on March 3. (SCMP)

Bjarne Melgaard Gets a Norwegian Gallery – Norwegian artist and provocateur Bjarne
Melgaard has joined a
gallery in his home country. He is now represented by Oslo-based
VI, VII, which will present its first first project with the
artist at the new June art fair in
Basel.
(Email)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Smithsonian Provost Takes the Helm at Cooper Hewitt –
The Smithsonian’s provost John
Davis is taking up interim directorship of the Cooper-Hewitt Design
Museum after its director, Caroline Baumann, was ousted over
allegations that she misused her position to earn favors for her
wedding. (Six trustees resigned in protest over her departure,
arguing the punishment was far too harsh to fit the crime.) The
museum is now forming a search committee to hunt for Baumann’s
permanent replacement. (The Art
Newspaper)

Oolite Arts Names Architects for New Home – The Barcelona-based architecture firm Barozzi
Veiga will design the new Miami home for Oolite Arts after the
organization dedicated to supporting artists, formerly known as the
ArtCenter/South Florida, sold its old headquarters in South Beach
in 2014. The new HQ is slated to open in Miami’s Little Haiti
neighborhood in 2022. (Press release)

David Adjaye and Cai Guo-Qiang Win Noguchi Award –
The Ghanaian-British architect and
Chinese artist have won the seventh edition of the annual Isamu
Noguchi Award. The award celebrates artists continuing the legacy
of the Japanese-American artist and architect, who was committed to
East/West cultural exchange. (Artforum)

Pérez Art Museum Miami Awards 2020 Prize – The Pérez Art Museum Miami has awarded its
second annual $50,000 Pérez Prize to the artist Daniel Lind-Ramos.
The prize recognizes recent achievements in artistic innovation,
and Lind-Ramos was honored for his work exploring Afro-Caribbean
and Afro-Latin American themes. (Artforum)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Planet Word Comes to DC – A new interactive museum dedicated to words is
opening in Washington, DC, at the end of May. Founded by a former
first-grade teacher, Ann Friedman, Planet Word aims to “bring language to life,”
with artists commissions and interactive displays that seek to
engage visitors in language and reading. (Washington
Post)

Simon de Pury Is Moonlighting as a DJ – The
former auctioneer (and onetime music-video star) recently
announced he will be heading a gallery in the
UK. But that’s not all he’s up to: he is also returning to the
DJ booth. Thomas Hug, the director of artgenève, artmonte-carlo and
artmoscow, will host a music night in London at Elephant West
featuring 10 music sets. The two-day event ends with a DJ set by
Simon de Pury, while Hug will perform with his band La Stampa,
which includes guitarist and Frieze editor-at-large Jörg
Heiser. (Press release)

Museum Funding Could Fund a Freeway Instead –
A UK town council wants to take
£4.8 million ($6.2 million) in funds raised for the Swindon Museum
and Art Gallery and redirect them toward building an extra lane on
the M4 freeway. The plan to expand the museum fell through after
authorities failed to raise sufficient funding. (BBC)

Monet Is Now a Digital Experience – A new museum at Terrada Warehouse in Tennozu,
Japan, called the Immersive Museum aims to repeat the success of
experiential pop-ups and teamLab’s light installations by showing
light projections of famous masterpieces. The inaugural show,
slated for April 17, will focus on Impressionism and project works
including Monet’s famous Water Lilies around the space. (Time
Out)

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Maurizio Cattelan to Restage His Most Famous Works + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.