Art Industry News: A Longtime LACMA Donor Severs Ties With the Museum Over Fears Its Gifts May Be Buried in Storage + 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
26.

NEED-TO-READ

Major LACMA Donors Pull Funding – The Ahmanson Foundation, a major supporter of
the museum, will stop giving
gifts to the institution following a disagreement with director
Michael Govan’s plans to transform the museum and tear down the
Ahmanson Building. The foundation, which has donated more than $130
million in European Old Master paintings and sculptures, is unhappy
that the museum plans to disband its permanent collection
installations and put its gifts into storage. “We’ve been unable to
get a commitment from Michael Govan about presenting the collection
as it has been throughout the life of the museum,” the foundation’s
president, William Ahmanson, says. (LA
Times)

Milan Postpones the World’s Largest Design Fair –
Milan’s Salon di Mobile, due to
open in April, has been postponed until June owing to the spread of
coronavirus, which has forced museums to shutter
across Northern Italy.
The board of the flagship event of Milan Design Week made the
decision at an emergency meeting yesterday and confirmed that the
fair will now take place from June 16 through June 21.
Giorgio Armani held his
Milan Fashion Week
runway show behind closed doors on
Sunday due to concerns raised by the disease. (designboom)

Bannon Wins a Battle
Over His Italian Monastery – President Donald Trump’s
former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, won a third court hearing in
his legal fight with the Italian Ministry of Culture last Thursday,
February 20. The Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI), a Catholic
lobbying group that he runs alongside British conservative Benjamin
Harnwell, has a 19-year lease on a 13th-century, mountain-top
monastery just outside Rome, and the Italian ministry has been
trying to cancel the lease of the national monument. “I cannot wait
for the main trial in March when the DHI can finally begin to
expose to the Italian people, and the whole world, the truth, as
well as the ministry’s appalling conduct,” Harnwell
said. The next legal
decision comes on March 11. (TAN)

Austria Picks Its 2021 Venice Biennale Artists –
The Austrian pavilion at the 2021
Venice Biennale promises to be a lively affair. The artists
Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans
Scheirl, who are frequent collaborators, made a proposal that
“lacks neither humor nor satire,” says the pavilion’s curator,
Karola Kraus, the director of MUMOK in Vienna. The artists plan to
fill the pavilion with paintings, textile works, photographs,
objects, audio and video works, and holograms in order to
“undermine the hierarchies of art and design, of high and
low.” (Artforum)

ART MARKET

Armory Show Issues Statement on Coronavirus –
The New York art fair, which opens
next week, acknowledged widespread concerns about the spread of the
coronavirus in a letter issued to exhibitors this week.
“We will continue to consult with
experts in the field and pursue best practices in safeguarding the
Armory Show[‘s] 2020 edition.” (ARTnews)

Blain Southern Goes Into Wind Down Mode – The gallery, which shuttered its
spaces in London, New
York, and Berlin, has gone into administration, a British process
similar to bankruptcy proceedings in America. Blain
Southern’s financial woes are being blamed on expanding to New York
last year, and before its abrupt shutdown, the gallery’s cofounder,
Harry Blain, had even talked of adding spaces in Los Angeles and
Hong Kong. Artist Sean
Scully, who joined the gallery in 2018 and left within a year, said
that with the benefit of hindsight, Blain’s ambitions were
unrealistic. (The Art
Newspaper)

Luhring Augustine Announces Opening of Tribeca Space –
TheLuhring Augustine gallery is
opening its new Tribeca space on May 1 with a solo show of works by
the late Brazilian artist Lucia Nogueira. It will be her first show in
the US. (Press release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Philanthropist Anne Marion Dies at 81 – The Texas-born arts patron, rancher, and oil
heiress died on February 11 from lung cancer at her home in Palm
Springs. Marion presided over the Burnett Foundation, meting out
grants to support arts and education initiatives. She also donated
$65 million toward the expansion of the Modern Art Museum of Fort
Worth, and supported local institutions like the National Cowgirl
Museum and Hall of Fame and the Kimbell Art Museum. In 1997, along
with her husband, John, who was the chief auctioneer at Sotheby’s
North America, she established the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa
Fe. (New York
Times)

Mary Weatherford Wins 2020 Aspen Award – The Aspen Art Museum has named artist Mary
Weathorford as this year’s winner. She will give a talk in August
ahead of the annual ArtCrush gala, where she will be honored for
her contributions to contemporary art. Past winners include Rashid
Johnson, Teresita Fernandez, Lorna Simpson, and Gabriel
Orozco. (Aspen
Times)

Studio in a School Names a New President – Agnes Gund’s New York nonprofit, Studio in a
School, which brings professional teaching artists into New York
public schools, has
named Alison Scott-Williams as its new president. Scott-Williams,
who will take up the new role on March 9, was previously vice
president at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. (Artforum)

FOR ART’S SAKE

What Can Museums Do for Immigrant Communities? –
NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture
is organizing a conference on Friday, February 28, to discuss how
local art institutions can positively impact immigrants. Culture
workers from the Brooklyn Museum, MoMA, and the Queens Museum,
among others, have been invited to share their existing initiatives
as well as discuss future possibilities. (Hyperallergic)

Smithsonian Releases Images Online – The Smithsonian has launched a new open-access
platform placing some 2.8 million high-resolution images from all
19 of the organization’s museums in the public domain. Over the
course of the rest of the year, the Smithsonian plans to digitize a
further 200,000 images to continue “being a relevant source for
people who are learning around the world.” See more of the newly
released images below. (Smithsonian)

The post Art Industry News: A Longtime LACMA Donor Severs
Ties With the Museum Over Fears Its Gifts May Be Buried in Storage
+ Other Stories appeared first on artnet News.