Art Industry News: The Met’s Director Apologized to Glenn Ligon for Using His Art to Address the Protests Without Permission + 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, June
8.

NEED-TO-READ

How Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Fortune Cookie Project Came Out
Empty – Andrea Rosen Gallery
and David Zwirner’s talked-about global Felix Gonzalez-Torres
exhibition has devolved into an art-world popularity contest
and Instagram stunt, writes Carolina Miranda, who was one of the
1,000 people invited to take part in the fortune-cookie
extravaganza. Miranda notes that the late Cuban artist’s original
intention for his piles of treats was to evoke cycles of depletion
and regeneration amid the backdrop of the AIDS crisis in the 1990s.
But deploying the project in the middle of another pandemic, during
which people are hungry, unemployed, and at risk of contagion, was
“tone deaf at best.” Making matters worse, many participants ended
up installing the piles in their own homes, transforming the
artist’s deeply humane work into an “Instagram prop for the art
world well-connected.” (Los Angeles
Times)

The New Quai Branly Museum Director Speaks – The new director of the Musée du Quai Branly in
Paris, Emmanuel Kasarhérou, wants to bring the colonial-era museum
into the 21st century. As the first indigenous director of a major
French museum (Kasarhérou is half Melanesian and half French), he
plans to acknowledge the colonial context under which many of the
museum’s treasures were acquired, as well as take up the mantle of
restituting cultural heritage to sub-Saharan Africa. But in an
interview, the director explains, “I feel as much the descendant of
people who were colonizers of a certain place as of people who were
colonized,” and adds that there will be no sweeping resolutions.
Instead, he will consider restitutions on a case-by-case basis.
“I’m not in favor of objects being sent out into the world and left
to rot,” he says. (New York
Times) 

The Met Apologizes to Glenn Ligon – The director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Max Hollein, has apologized privately to the artist Glenn Ligon for
using his work to illustrate a letter detailing the museum’s
response to the current Black Lives Matter demonstrations without
his permission. Ligon—whose work, notably, was used in Instagram
posts and in emails by many institutions last week in their
response to current events—objected to the
little-more-than-symbolic gesture on his
Instagram, writing, “I know it’s
#nationalreachouttoblackfolksweek but could y’all just stop, or ask
me first?” The apology comes as many museums are facing criticism
for their responses to the anti-racism protests in the US following
the killing of George Floyd. “No institutional leader
has all the answers right now,” Hollein said. “There is a moment
when you reflect, when you have to listen.” (New York
Times) 

Saudi Arabia Forges Ahead With Big Cultural Ambitions
– The price of oil may be on a steep decline, but
that hasn’t softened the ambitions of Saudi Arabia to become an
international arts destination. Over the next decade, the kingdom
plans to build more than a dozen major art institutions, plus
additional smaller ones—including a new museum to house Leonardo da
Vinci’s Salvator Mundi. But the government does not
want the painting to be seen as the star of its culture
push. “It’s an issue of perception. What does it say about
Saudi identity if we put that painting on a poster?” says Stefano
Carboni, chief executive of the ministry’s new Museums Commission.
(Wall Street
Journal)

ART MARKET

Christie’s Holds First Post-Lockdown Live Auctions –
Christie’s held its first live
sales in Paris last week since lockdown began in March, achieving a
combined total of $17.3 million for its works on paper and
Impressionist and Modern sales. But the sell-through rate of 79
percent was lower than average against conservative estimates.
(Art Market
Monitor)

What Happens to the Market If Chinese Demand Falters? –
During the last global financial
crisis, it was Chinese buyers who saved the art market—but the
combination of the public-health situation and political uncertainty in
Hong Kong may complicate that dynamic this time
around. Gallery Weekend Beijing, held late last month, was the
first major Asian market event to take place since the shutdown,
but 33 galleries that had originally signed up had to withdraw
because they hailed from Beijing’s still locked-down Caochangdi
district. (South China
Morning Post)

Christie’s Partners With La Biennale Paris – The cancelled La Biennale Paris art fair has
partnered with Christie’s on an online-only auction. More than 50
dealers will take part in the sale from September 10 through 21.
The works on offer—which range from antiquities to contemporary art
to jewelry—will be on view at the participating galleries for the
duration of the sale. (Press release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Art Workers Petition the
New York Mayor on Behalf of BLM – Curators Natalia
Viera, co-founder of Pública Espacio in Puerto Rico, and Patrick
Jaojoco, the director of programs at FABnyc in the Lower East Side,
penned an open letter to urge the local New York government to
defund the police and invest in BIPOC communities. It has been
signed by hundreds of workers in the arts sector. (Hyperallergic)

Günther Uecker Invited
to Authenticate His Own Painting in Court – The
90-year-old German artist is preparing to testify as a witness
regarding the authenticity of Sandpicture on Handmade
Paper after the plaintiff paid a deposit of €7,500
for the work, which she now believes is a forgery. (Monopol)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Toledo Museum Director
in Hot Water for Protest Response – The Ohio museum
is the latest institution to receive criticism for its response to
the protests that have swept the nation following the murder of
George Floyd. “Let me reemphasize this point: the Toledo Museum of
Art does not have a political stance,” Adam Levine, the museum’s
director, said in an internal staff memo released on the museum’s
website, adding that “nonpartisan and disinterested approach is
baked into our institutional DNA.” The statements angered the
public; in response, Levine said the museum should not have rushed
to share internal communications and asked the community to judge
it by its actions in the coming years. (Hyperallergic, The
Blade)

Dread Scott on George
Floyd – In a powerful essay, the artist Dread Scott parses
the current moment and its aftershocks being felt worldwide. “The
fire is spreading,” he writes. “The government fears us, but
the people in the streets see little to lose and increasingly don’t
fear the government. President Trump in particular hides in his
bunker with the lights off and can only walk outside for a photo op
surrounded by hundreds of armed bullies and thugs.” (The Art
Newspaper)

DC Makes Addition to Black Lives Matter Mural – The image
of a massive “Black Lives
Matter” mural commissioned by the Mayor of Washington DC on the
road to the White House (it is so big you can literally see it from space) has been
shared worldwide—but some local advocates feel it was a theatrical
stunt by a mayor who has proposed to increase funding for the
police. That’s why local Black Lives Matter activists made an
addition over the weekend, adding “Defund the Police” in yellow
letters alongside the existing mural. (Twitter)

The post Art Industry News: The Met’s Director Apologized to
Glenn Ligon for Using His Art to Address the Protests Without
Permission + Other Stories appeared first on artnet
News.