Art Industry News: A Wheelchair User Slams Olafur Eliasson’s Tate Show for Inaccessibility + Other Stories

Art Industry News is normally a daily digest of the most
consequential developments coming out of the art world and art
market. Here’s what you need to know this Tuesday, August
13.

NEED-TO-READ

How to Get a Sneak Peek of the Grand Egyptian Museum –
Can’t wait to lay eyes on the
20,000 Ancient Egyptian relics set to populate the Grand Egyptian
Museum? Never fear. The highly anticipated new museum is offering
private tours of its 5.2 million-square-foot space for a cool $250
before it opens to the public next year. If you can wait till 2020,
however, tickets to the museum will run you just 60 cents.
(Travel and Leisure)

The Mayor of London Backs a Slavery Museum – London’s
mayor, Sadiq Khan, has welcomed a
proposal to create a museum in London about Britain’s role in the
slave trade. Traditionally, UK history museums have preferred to
focus on the abolition movement and its leading advocates. The idea
for an alternative institution has been put forward by the British
socialist organization the Fabian Society, which argues that an
honest and accurate accounting of the city and the nation’s role in
the slave trade could help combat modern-day racism and
inform the debate about
reparations in the UK. “It’s right and fair that all Londoners
see themselves and their history reflected in our city’s museums
and cultural institutions,” Khan said. (Guardian)

Wheelchair User Decries Eliasson’s Tunnel at the Tate –
A Twitter thread posted by a museum
visitor who uses a wheelchair about her frustrating visit to Tate
Modern’s Olafur Eliasson exhibition has prompted a broader
conversation about accessibility for disabled people. Ciara
O’Connor, who writes for the Irish Sunday Independent newspaper, recounted having been unable to
enter the mirrored tunnel Your Spiral View (2002), a highlight of the artist’s survey
show that is accessible only via stairs. The Tate
says there is currently
no ramp available because the mirrored walkway itself is too narrow
to be safe for wheelchair use. Eliasson says his studio is
exploring ways to make the work fully
accessible. (The Art Newspaper)

Chinese Police Crack Down on Protest Art – Chinese authorities questioned a performance
artist who goes by the name Nut Brother after he mounted a
demonstration against the forced relocation of more than 1,000
households in Shenzhen. In the performance, a crane picked up
hundreds of dolls donated by the residents to highlight their fears
that their children would not get a spot in school once they move.
(SCMP)

ART MARKET

African Women Lead the Continent’s Market
– Women, it turns out, boast the four highest auction
records for African artists: Marlene Dumas ($6.3 million),
Julie Mehretu ($5.6 million), Irma Stern ($4 million) and Njideka
Akunyili Crosby ($3.4 million). These prices far exceed such
prominent Africa artists as El Anatsui and William Kentridge (both
$1.5 million). Work by African women is in demand because buyers
are “looking to fill gaps in the market,” says Sotheby’s Hannah
O’Leary. (The Art
Newspaper)

Acquavella Plans Wang Yan Chen Show – A growing number of
elite New York galleries are looking to promote lesser-known
Chinese painters, and now Acquavella is getting in on the
trend. The Beijing- and
Paris-based Chinese artist Wang Yan Chen will get his first solo
show in New York in
September, when he debuts 20 new paintings at Acquavella.
(Press release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Cultural Landscape Foundation Launches Major Prize –
The Cultural Landscape Foundation
is launching a $100,000 biannual prize for landscape architects,
artists, urban planners, and designers. The first winner of the
award, which comes with two years of public engagement
opportunities and aims to promote broader understanding of this
often misunderstood art form, will be chosen in 2021.
(Architect’s
Newspaper)

Conceptual Artist Ronald Jones Dies at 67 – The interdisciplinary artist Ronald Jones, best
known for blending sculptures of recognizable cultural objects with
text, has died. The artist, who has work in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art and the Whitney Museum collections, among other
institutions, was also a critic and scholar who worked as a senior
tutor in service design at the Royal College of Art in London.
(ARTnews)

How Many Objects Did UK Museums Lend Last Year? –
Museums in Britain lent 450,000
objects to exhibitions around the world last year, according to the
UK government’s most recent Museum Partnership Report. Many of
these were scientific materials loaned for research purposes, but
69,000 went on display in cultural institutions—though just 9,000
of these went on view outside the UK. (TAN)

Joslyn Art Museum Names Native Art Curator – Nebraska’s Joslyn Art Museum has appointed
Annika K. Johnson as its first-ever associate curator of Native
American art. The position has been endowed by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation for the next four years. (Artforum)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Princeton Works to Diversify Museum Leadership –
The university’s museum has teamed
up with historically black colleges and universities
across the US in an effort to diversify museum leadership. The
director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, Thelma Golden, was a guest
speaker during the week-long program for students, which offered
classes with art museum staff, studio visits, and research trips to
New York. “The art museum field simply doesn’t look like the people
of this country,” says James Steward, the director of the
Princeton University Art Museum. He hopes that “museums and the
humanities [will] remain relevant” by encouraging students from
diverse backgrounds to consider a career at a museum administrator
or director. (Princeton)

Trisha Brown Dance Company Gets Rave Reviews at Jupiter
Artland – Critics are
raving about a recent performance by Trisha Brown’s dance company
at Jupiter Artland, a sculpture park in Scotland. The 90-minute
performance, titled “In Plain Site,” spanned the verdant grounds,
including a pond where Brown’s company staged a “breathtaking and
unforgettable” recreation of Raft Piece, originally performed on the Hudson
River. (Scotsman)

The post Art Industry News: A Wheelchair User Slams Olafur
Eliasson’s Tate Show for Inaccessibility + Other Stories
appeared first on artnet News.