Art Industry News: Conceptualist Darren Bader Is Launching a Bargain-Basement Online Platform for Artists to Sell Discounted Work + 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, May
6.

NEED-TO-READ

MFA Boston Launches $500,000 Diversity Initiative Following
Accusations of Racism – Almost one year after the Museum of Fine
Arts Boston became the subject of national controversy when
several students of color were harassed during a visit to
the museum, the institution has launched a new $500,000
diversity and inclusion initiative. The Massachusetts attorney
general, who investigated the museum
after the incident, said she worked with administrators to
develop the program, which is designed to increase its engagement
with communities of color. The museum will also retain an external
consultant on inclusion, implement unconscious bias training for
staff, and issue biannual reports on its progress. (ARTnews)

Portland Art Museum Warns of Major Layoffs – The Portland Art Museum has warned in a letter
sent to employees that it could lay off nearly half of its staff by
July. The museum has only raised enough money through loans and
donations to keep people employed through June 30. Management has
said that as many as 100 people of a 213-strong workforce could
lose their jobs. (KATU)

Arts Groups Battle for Insurance Money – Arts groups are battling their insurance
companies in court over lost revenue due to the shutdown of
nonessential businesses. While many had policies that covered
business interruption, insurers are denying that the losses caused
by a pandemic fall under this category. Businesses are duking it
out with their insurers in court all over the US, particularly
debating over what constitutes a “physical loss.” A group of
celebrity chefs including Wolfgang Puck is trying to set a
precedent to prove that the virus has indeed caused a physical loss
on their businesses. “I can see a tidal wave of these
lawsuits coming,” said Kevin Sullivan, a client executive at
National Trust Insurance Services, “and insurance companies are
going to fight like hell.” (New York
Times)

Arts Nonprofits
Establish LA Artist Relief Fund – The California Community
Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Trust, and a coalition of local
artist-endowed foundations including the Mike Kelley Foundation for
the Arts and the Shepard and Amanda Fairey Foundation have pooled
$655,000 to give to artists in Los Angeles struggling because of
the pandemic. Onetime grants of $2,000 are available.
(Artforum)

ART MARKET

Artist Darren Bader Launches Online Sales Portal –
The artist Darren Bader has
launched a new online sales platform for artists called Inventory.
The website hosts work by 20 artists a week with prices marked down
from their primary-market value by as much as 90 percent. The aim
of the site is to provide financial assistance to artists while
gallery exhibitions and art fairs are on pause, and to question a
gallery system that forces artists to create new work for a
novelty-hungry market while unsold work sits in storage. Proceeds
from the sale will be split between charity (40 percent), the
artist (33 percent), and galleries (22 percent), with Bader taking
a five percent admin fee. (The Art
Newspaper)

Sotheby’s Opens Day Sales Online – Sotheby’s has launched its first-ever online
day sales for contemporary and Impressionist and Modern art. More
than 60 works are on offer across the ambitious sales, which are
estimated to achieve more than $20 million before they close on May
14 and 18 respectively. (Press release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Chinese Artist Li Hui
Dies – The artist, who was a rising star on the
Chinese art scene known for his interactive installations made with
lasers, died at 43 of an undisclosed illness. His work has been
collected by such institutions as the Yuz Museum in Shanghai and
the Pinault Collection in France. (ARTnews)

Helsinki Biennial Pushed
to 2021 – The inaugural edition of the Finnish
biennial is the latest major exhibition to be pushed back by one
year. It will now open on June 12, 2021. The show will retain its
original locations on the island of Vallisaari and on Helsinki’s
mainland. (Press release)

FOR ART’S SAKE

A Doctor Photographs the
Coronavirus Crisis – Images from the front lines of this
public health crisis are hard to come by, both because press access
is severely limited to prevent the spread and because images of
patients could violate confidentiality protocol. But Duncan
Grossman, an emergency medical resident at a Brooklyn Hospital,
took his camera into a shift to vividly capture his colleagues’
fight against the virus in real time. (Wall Street
Journal)

German Museums Collect
Coronavirus Artifacts – German museums are trying to
capture life during the coronavirus lockdown for future
generations. The Stadtmuseum Wolfsburg, for example, is asking
people to collect objects connected to memories of the time, like
cookbooks, self-made masks, signs with hygiene rules, or videos of
balcony concerts. (Monopol)

Artists Star in an Inspirational Music Video – The Paris
gallery kamel mennour has produced a video with director Pierre
Dupaquier (the man behind Pharrell Williams’s music video for
Happy) to spread some cheer in a trying time. Artists from
the gallery’s roster, including Douglas Gordon, Daniel Buren,
Tatiana Trouvé, Ugo Rondinone, and others, fly paper planes with
messages of hope inscribed on them. The footage is intercut with
images of children around the world doing the
same. (Press
release)

The post Art Industry News: Conceptualist Darren Bader Is
Launching a Bargain-Basement Online Platform for Artists to Sell
Discounted Work + Other Stories appeared first on artnet
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