Art Industry News: A $15 Million Gauguin in the Tate’s Collection Might Actually Be a Worthless Faux-guin + 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, March
9.

NEED-TO-READ

Can Feminist Art Shows Change the World? – More than 90 American art museums and
organizations have signed up to participate in the Feminist Art
Collective, an initiative that aims to correct the huge
gender imbalance in museum programs. Co-founder Apsara DiQuinzio, a curator at the Berkeley Art
Museum and Pacific Film Archive, helped secure a  $50,000 grant from the
Andy Warhol Foundation, which has funded the coalition and its
website. In addition to more than 20 exhibitions due open
under its banner in the fall, the initiative has inspired feminist
rehangs of the permanent collections at the Boston Museum of Fine
Arts and the Walker Art Center in
Minneapolis. (New York Times)

PinchukArtCentre Accused
of Union-Busting – Some 30 former part-time
guides and mediators at the Kiev contemporary art space, which
administers the prestigious Future Generation Art Prize, have
penned an open letter complaining that they were fired after trying
to form a union. They are asking for a boycott of the institution
until their demands to be re-employed and to create a trade union
are met. (Artforum)

Is a Gauguin in the Tate an Early Fake? – A French art dealer who helped get the
Getty to downgrade its attribution of a $5 million “Gauguin”
sculpture to the work of
an unknown artist now has as an unfinished painting in the
Tate’s collection in his sights. Fabrice Fourmanoir is questioning the
attribution of Tahitiens (c. 1891), claiming it is not in Gauguin’s style. The
unfinished picture of three reclining women facing a scantily clad
man has been in the Tate’s collection since 1917. It has impressive
provenance dating back to 1910, when the critic Roger Fry, who coined the term
Post-Impressionism, bought it in a Paris gallery. (If you ask us,
it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out that a picture in which all the
women are clothed is not your standard
Gauguin.) (Telegraph)

Court Rejects Arrest Warrant in Old Master Forgery Case –
An Italian court has rejected a
European-wide arrest warrant for a French dealer who is the prime
suspect in an Old Master forgery ring. The ruling is blow
for the French judge
investigating Giuliano
Ruffini and his associate, the Italian painter Lino
Frongia. Several
paintings that passed through Ruffini’s hands and went on to sell
for millions of dollars as Old Masters are now suspected forgeries.
The Milan court ruled Ruffini should stay in Italy because of an
alleged tax debt, which may take years to resolve. Frongia’s arrest
warrant was rejected at the end of February by a court in
Bologna. (The Art Newspaper)

ART MARKET

Max Hetzler Will Open in Marfa – Galerie Max Hetzler of Berlin and London is
opening an exhibition and studio space in Marfa, Texas. The remote
outpost—which enables the gallery to be
closer to artists including Christopher Wool and Jeff
Elrod—is due to launch in late August with an Albert Oehlen show,
which will be followed by 11 months of exhibitions. (Financial
Times)

Trevor Paglen Joins Pace – The American artist
known for his thought-provoking work with A.I. and government surveillance
will be represented internationally
by Pace, which will work in
tandem with Paglen’s longtime New York gallery, Metro Pictures,
and Altman Siegel in San
Francisco. Paglen will have a solo show at Pace London in
September. (Press release)

Lisson Plans Another New York Gallery – The gallery is expanding in Chelsea—again—after signing a
long-term lease for the space next door to its current space on
24th Street. The new outpost is due to open on May 5 with a Ryan
Gander solo show. The new space will keep the number of Lisson New
York locations at two following the planned closure of its 10th
Avenue gallery, which opened in 2017. In November, both New York
spaces will host an ambitious Hélio Oiticica exhibition. (TAN)

Could the Armory Show’s Move Be Bad News for Small Galleries?
– News that the Armory Show will move locations and
time slots beginning in 2021—to the Javits Center in
September—has been greeted with trepidation from some smaller
dealers, who fear it could crowd out their season-opening shows in
the fall. Lower East Side
gallerist Keith Schweitzer,
the director of SFA Projects, fears the move could “accelerate the trend of
shifting towards the art fair/popup ‘projects’ model without a
permanent location.” (Observer)

COMINGS & GOINGS

National Gallery’s CASVA
Gets a New Head – The National Gallery of Art in
Washington, DC, has appointed Steven Nelson as dean of the Center
for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Nelson will take up his
post in July, succeeding Elizabeth Cropper, who will retire in late
May. (Press
release)

Armory Show Prizes
Awarded – The $20,000 Pommery Prize was
awarded to Night Gallery for its presentation of artist Christine
Wang’s new “Meme Girl” painting series. Upfor from Portland
won the $10,000 “Presents” prize for its solo booth of new work by
artist Julie Green. And the inaugural $10,000 Aware
Prize, which recognizes exemplary solo presentations by women
artists, was awarded to June Green. (ARTnews)

Artist Alan Turner
Dies – The New York-based painter known
for his Surrealist works tinged with Abstract Expressionism has
died at age 76. The cause was progressive supra-nuclear palsy, a
degenerative brain disorder. (New York
Times)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Iranian Diaspora Artists
Are in Demand in the United States – While the US
travel ban has limited Iranian artists’ ability to visit the US,
those from the country’s diaspora are getting renewed exposure.
There is Shirazeh Houshiary’s show at Lehmann Maupin, which
opens May 1, and Shirin Neshat‘s major
show in February 2021 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Many
artists from this cohort left Iran and settled in the US during the
late 1970s after the Iranian Revolution. (New York
Times)

Kurimanzutto Goes on
Strike in Solidarity With Women – The Mexico City art
gallery is closed today—the day after International
Women’s Day—in response to the gender violence and inequality
that has prevailed in the country. “Women are 70 percent of the
workforce of kurimanzutto,”  the gallery said in a statement.
“Since they cannot function without us, the gallery will resume
work on March 10.” The staff is joining major protests nationwide
against gender-based violence. (Press release)

The post Art Industry News: A $15 Million Gauguin in the
Tate’s Collection Might Actually Be a Worthless Faux-guin + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.