Art Industry News: A British Filmmaker Recounts That Time He Randomly Met Banksy at a Soccer Game + 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 Thursday, June
18.

NEED-TO-READ

Jewish Museum Petitions for Diversity in Open Letter –
Staff at New York’s Jewish Museum
have circulated an open letter calling for more diversity and
transparency within the institution. The letter, addressed to the
museum’s director Claudia Gould, points out that the majority of
staff is white and upper middle class, and asked her to
“acknowledge the ways systemic racism is replicated within our
institution” and to carry out “an audit of institutional systems
and structures that impede active staff engagement.” The museum has
since responded to the letter, creating an internal anti-racist
working group and a complementary task force within its board as
well as initiating board training in diversity, equity,
accessibility, and inclusion. (The Art
Newspaper)

UC Berkeley Has Not Returned Native American Remains –
A New California auditor report
shows that the University of California and its campuses have not
returned all the Native American human remains and artifacts in
their possession, despite a law requiring them to do so. The
schools and institutions, including UC Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst
Museum of Anthropology, have reportedly delayed the repatriation of
artifacts stolen from Indigenous graves by requiring tribes to
submit proof, beyond geographic and oral evidence, linking them to
the objects. A federal law in place since the 1990s ordered all
government agencies and museums to repatriate remains and related
cultural objects to tribes, but Berkeley’s Anthropology Museum has
so far only returned 20 percent of its half a million
objects. (Hyperallergic)

British Filmmaker Recounts His Unlikely Banksy Encounter
– British filmmaker Louis Theroux revealed he is one
of the few people to have met the elusive street artist in the
flesh. Back in 2001, he recounted on a recent episode of That
Peter Crouch Podcast, he attended a Queens Park
Rangers soccer game. One of the other people in the box was a young
artist. “He was a little bit sheepish, he wasn’t terribly outgoing,
and I said, ‘What do you do?’” Theroux recalled. “He said, ‘I’m a
street artist,’ and he gave me a little booklet of his art, and I
looked at it and it looked quite good and I kind of made awkward
chit-chat, and I said, ‘Oh, what’s your name?’ and he said,
‘Banksy.’” (Independent)

On Glass Ceilings in the British Art World – A staff member whose contract was not renewed
at the William Morris Gallery after four years on temporary
contracts has written of her anger at the “hypocrisy, fake
solidarity, and glass ceilings” within the culture sector in the
UK. In an open letter, Teanne Andrews recounts how she was passed
over for a promotion, how Black, Asian, and ethnic minority people
often passed through the gallery as trainees but were never taken
on, and how white colleagues gaslit or dismissed her when she
pointed to systemic racism embedded in the organization. While
Andrews was given a better position during the local council’s year
as “Borough of Culture,” she believes it was because they wanted
her, a self-described “unapologetically black woman from East
London,” to be “the diversity flag bearer” during that time, and
that the gallery used the pandemic as an excuse not to renew her
contract afterwards. (We Are
Parable)

ART MARKET

Art Basel Booths Offer Monumental Sculpture – Some dealers are taking advantage of Art
Basel’s virtual format to offer monumental work that would never
fit in an art-fair booth—something that is particularly timely
given the ongoing debate
around the globe about sculpture in public
spaces. Lehmann
Maupin Gallery is presenting the $3 million large-scale
sculpture Public
Figures (2001) by South Korean artist Do Ho Suh, while
Sikkema Jenkins is offering a four-part archive relating to
Kara Walker’s monumental
fountain and slavery memorial for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.
(Financial
Times)

Sotheby’s to Sell Nike Founder’s Sneakers – A pair of handmade sprint shoes created by Nike
cofounder Bill Bowerman are the latest collectible kicks heading to
the (virtual) auction block at Sotheby’s. The seller is sprinter
John Mays, who received the prototype from Bowerman, his then-track
coach, in the early 1970s. Bidding begins at $130,000; the sale is
open through June 26. (Wall Street
Journal)

Christie’s to Offer $8 Million Magritte – Christie’s is offering a Magritte
painting, L’Arc de
Triomphe (1962), in the
London leg of its July relay-style auction. The painting—which
depicts a tree set against a background of leaves—carries an
estimate of $8.1 million to $11.9 million. (ARTnews)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Escape Artist Turned
Real Artist Ronald Tackmann Dies – The thief who
discovered his talent for art while imprisoned has died at 66. He
managed to escape from jail three times, but spent most of his life
behind bars. His detailed drawings and sculptures (made from
materials like soap) depicted life in and out of prison.
(New York
Times)

Getty Distributes $2
Million in Relief Funds – The Getty Foundation has
named 80 recipients for its first wave of COVID
relief funding to aid artists and arts organizations affected
by the shutdown. Among them are LA’s Plaza de la Raza, the Women’s
Center for Creative Work, the ONE Archives Foundation, and the
Underground Museum. (Los Angeles
Times)

Video Artist Luther
Price Dies at 58 – The artist known for creating
indelible assemblages of found footage has died of unknown causes,
his gallery Callicoon Fine Arts confirmed. A key figure in the
underground film scene, he made his name
with Sodom (1989), a compilation largely of
shots of men having sex sourced from gay porn Price found in
dumpsters. (ARTnews)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Giuseppe Penone Makes
Epic Gift to Two Institutions – The Italian artist is
making two gifts of nearly 350 drawings each—more than 660 in
total—to the Centre Pompidou and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Many of the works have never been exhibited before; highlights will
be shown publicly in 2022. (Press release)

On Graffiti’s Role in
Protest – Graffiti scholar Susan Phillips argues that
the public wall art sprouting up around the world during the
ongoing protests for racial justice will play an essential role in
creating a narrative about this moment in history. “Even
after protests have dispersed, graffiti stands as a testament to
the protesters’ collective voice,” she writes. (Los Angeles
Times)

A Sculpture of an Essential Worker Is Unveiled in Latvia
– While many statues
around the world are coming down, a new one memorializing frontline
workers is going up. Sculptor Aigars Bikše’s six-meter-tall
sculpture, Medics to the World, has
been unveiled at the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga to
honor doctors and other essential workers. (Instagram)

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That Time He Randomly Met Banksy at a Soccer Game + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.