Art Industry News: Banksy’s Legendary Former Dealer Quits the Gallery Biz, Lamenting the Art World’s ‘Snobbery’ + 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 Tuesday, September
10.

NEED-TO-READ 

Dread Scott Will Reenact America’s Largest Slave Rebellion
– The artist Dread Scott’s
longstanding plan to recreate America’s largest slave revolt will
become a reality in November. He will lead 500 costumed rebels as
they re-stage the 1811 uprising against plantation owners at a site
north of New Orleans. A work in progress
since 2013, Scott’s
two-day artistic reenactment will be filmed by fellow artist John
Akomfrah. The project has become something of popular undertaking
for many in the city: all year, sewing circles have been creating
costumes; a professor at Xavier University of Louisiana is teaching
a course on the uprising. “The legacy of slavery should be in the
way and causing trouble,” Scott says. (Vanity Fair)

Boy Thrown From Tate Modern Balcony Is Recovering –
The six-year-old boy who was thrown
from Tate Modern’s viewing platform is making “amazing progress,” his family says. They have
posted an update on a Go Fund Me page to raise money for his
recovery informing the public that although he is still unable to
speak or move his body, he can understand them. The boy, who is
from France and was visiting the London museum with his parents,
was allegedly pushed from the 10th-story balcony on August 4 by a
teenager who faces a charge of attempted murder.
The teenager’s mental health
is being
assessed ahead of his
next court hearing. Tate
Modern has reopened the balcony to the public. (New York Times)

Banksy’s
Former Dealer Quits His Gallery – Steve Lazarides is quitting
art dealing two years after opening the contemporary art
gallery Lazinc in London’s Mayfair. His first project as a solo
advisor will be sorting through the around 12,000 photographs he
took of a young Banksy and publishing a book called Banksy
Captured next month. Lazarides predicts that 75 percent of all
galleries will be forced to close in five years. “It’s too
expensive,” he says. (The Art
Newspaper)

Thomas Heatherwick Defends Vessel –
The designer of the controversial
16-story-tall staircase at the heart of Hudson Yards has hit back
at its many critics. Heatherwick says the whole point of the
sculpture near the Shed in New
York is to increase
public access, calling it a “recreation space,” like Central Park
or the High Line, rather than a strictly public space. Heatherwick
also defends the ban against holding protests in the space, as well
as eating and drinking, saying: “We forget that you’re not allowed to protest
on many parts of local authority land; you’re not allowed to drink
on the streets; there are surveillance
cameras.” (Dezeen)

ART MARKET

Read artnet’s Fall 2019 Intelligence Report – A special
edition of the artnet Intelligence Report marking the 30th
anniversary of artnet breaks down how the art world has transformed into a
full-blown industry over the past 30 years. It also includes a
primer on the contemporary African art market, a look at the
decline in third-party auction guarantees, and much, much more.
(artnet
News)

Mariane
Ibrahim Clashes With Shipper Over Lost Art – The artist
Clotilde Jimenez and his Chicago-based dealer are determined to
pursue a complaint against the London-based shipping company
British Shop for the loss of Jimenez’s collage. Mariane Ibrahim was
due to show the work at her booth at Expo Chicago this month. The
shipper says the work “appears to have been the unlucky victim of
an extraordinary set of events,” but has not offered any
compensation or detailed explanation. (ARTnews)

Sprüth Magers
to Represent the Darboven Estate – The gallery will
rep the German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven, who died in 2009,
worldwide. The gallery’s first solo show with the artist opens at
Sprüth Magers Berlin on September 12. She was renowned for her
large-scale minimalist installations featuring handwritten tables
of numbers and musical arrangements. (Press
release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

FBI Returns Stolen
Ukrainian Painting – A painting stolen by the Nazis
during World War II has been returned by the FBI’s art crime team
to the Ukrainian Embassy. The painting, Secret Departure of
Ivan the Terrible Before the Oprichina by Mikhail N.
Panin, was located in the Dnepropetrovsk Art Museum before the Nazi
regime occupied Ukraine and stole the artwork in 1941. (Press release)

Steve Cohen Donates $5
Million to the Bruce Museum – The Bruce Museum in
Greenwich, Connecticut has received a $5 million donation from the
Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation. The money from the
hedge-fund billionaire and his wife will support the museum’s
education program and planned expansion. (Press release)

FOR ART’S SAKE

The Met’s Maintenance Workers Win a Big Raise – As many
museums face off with union
workers, the Met has quietly reached an agreement with its own.
The workers who keep the Met’s air
conditioning going at its three sites have won a 63 percent raise.
After a year of negotiations, the museum has agreed to pay
assistant engineers $35 per hour,
up from $22. Rawle Campbell, the union head of Local 1503, said:
“HVAC workers at the Met are very happy,” though they will still be
paid less than the $42 industry standard. Campbell revealed that
the Met originally considered contracting out the work when it had
trouble retaining staff, but ultimately decided to improve pay and
training instead. (Hyperallergic)

Another Art Bro Gets
Engaged to a Celebrity – Is 2019 officially the year
of the art bro? Actress Jenny
Slate has revealed she is now engaged to her boyfriend, the artist,
curator, and writer Ben Shattuck. “He took me to France and made a
picnic and made me feel happy and free and then he asked me to
marry him and i screamed YES,” announced the bride-to-be on
Instagram. (Vulture)

Gus Van Sant on
Art-World Snobbery – Gus Van Sant—not only an
acclaimed film director but a painter, too—is
presenting his first New York solo show of large watercolors at
Vito Schnabel Projects on September 12. But the filmmaker finds the
art world unwelcoming: “When you’re anchored to the world as a
filmmaker, people are like, ‘Well, they’re a filmmaker,’” he says.
“So their attitude is to disregard what you’re doing.”
(Hollywood Reporter)

The 9/11 Tribute Lights
Altered to Protect Migrating Birds – Every year on
September 11, two beams light up the sky in New York as a glowing
tribute. Unfortunately, the anniversary of 9/11 coincides with the
migration of several bird species and, as a recent study shows, the
beams are luring birds off their normal flight paths and
endangering up to 160,000 a year. To protect the birds, memorial
organizers are working with scientists to shut the lights off for
20 minute intervals when the number of birds trapped in the light
reaches 1,000. (NYT)

The post Art Industry News: Banksy’s Legendary Former Dealer
Quits the Gallery Biz, Lamenting the Art World’s ‘Snobbery’ + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.