Art Industry News: Could Stonehenge Be the Most Important ‘Room’ in the History of the World? + Other Stories

by admin

Dec 13, 2019

artnet

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 Friday, December
13.

NEED-TO-READ

Here’s How Much It Costs to Help
Save Venice – Venice is still working to recover
from devastating floods last
month, the worst the city has seen since 1966. Want to
help? Bloomberg takes a look at the various
funding options offered by the Save Venice foundation. For $500,
you can fund a day’s pay for a conservator, while for $2,200, you
can help install, repair, or replace stainless steel flood
barriers. And if you’ve got $1.1 million lying around, you can
single-handedly help preserve Santa Maria Assunta, one of the
oldest churches in Venice’s lagoon. (Bloomberg)

Solange Releases Surprise Extended Cut of Her Visual Album
– The Grammy Award-winning
singer-songwriter and artist Solange Knowles, who recently closed out the Venice
Biennale with a mesmerizing performance, has just dropped an
extended cut of the interdisciplinary performance art film for her
latest album, When I Get Home, which includes a new song
and new scenes at the Rothko Chapel. The original album, which saw
the artist collaborate with
the artist Jacolby Satterwhite, among others, has toured museums and
institutions worldwide, including LACMA, the Brooklyn Museum, and
the V&A. (Press
release)

Is Stonehenge the Most Important Room of All Time? –
Stonehenge is history’s most
influential room, according to a jury of designers and architects
assembled by T
Magazine. They were
tasked with identifying 25 spaces that have changed the way we live
and the way we think about beauty pegged the ancient stone circle
in the South of England as their top choice. The judges determined
that to qualify as a room, something needed walls, but not a
ceiling, and a monumental gathering place like Stonehenge seemed to
fit the bill. The open-air chamber “stands as an indelible template
for enclosure, space and ambitious monumentality.” (Bonus: check
out these surreal photos of
families on vacation at
Stonehenge.) (T
Magazine)

V&A Acquires Controversial Rodin Bronze –
The V&A in London has been
gifted an erotic sculpture of the ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky in
memory of the late modern dance patron Robin Howard. The sculpture
was widely understood to be a defense of a controversial production
featuring a young amorous faun that was hailed at the time as both
“filthy” and “revolutionary.”(Guardian)

ART MARKET

Art and Tax Fraud Lawsuits Are on
the Rise – Lawyers were
busy in 2019, as the number of cases in which art dealers appear to
have acted fraudulently was on the rise. Among them: veteran
gallerist Mary
Boone, who went to
jail for tax evasion, and Inigo
Philbrick, who is facing a wave of suits for allegedly
selling works he did not own or selling works more than
once. Rising prices at the
top of the market offer great
opportunities, notes Georgina Adam, but demand equally huge
investments—so when things go wrong, an unprincipled actor can
spiral fast. (TAN)

How the Top 200 Collectors Are
Changing – Over the past
30 years, ARTnews has been assembling an annual list
of top collectors and their blue-chip preferences. But the list
itself, and what qualifies as the most sought-after art, has begun
to change. Relatively new additions to the list include Pamela
J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida; Raymond J. McGuire and Crystal
McCrary; and Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean and Alicia Keys.
(ARTnews)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Princeton Museum Names Associate Director – Beginning
January 27, Chris Newth will
become the associate director for collections and exhibitions at
the Princeton University Art Museum, which is currently being
redesigned by architect David Adjaye. Newth joins the institution
from the MFA Boston, where he served as senior director for
exhibitions strategy and gallery display. (Artforum)

The Registrar of the Year Works at the Hirshhorn –
The Hirshhorn’s chief registrar,
Rajshree Solanki, won Atelier 4’s new $5,000 registrar of the year
prize, and has decided to give the money to the Smithsonian
Institution’s Office of Fellowships and Internships. Solanki says
she wants to support the Smithsonian’s minority internship program,
where she got her start. (ARTnews)

Rhizome Names a New Editor and Curator – The New Museum has named the 26-year-old
critic, artist, and curator Aria Dean as the new editor and curator
of its art and tech nonprofit, Rhizome. Dean was previously an
assistant curator of net art and digital culture at the
organization. (ARTnews)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Schnabel’s Old House Is for Sale – If you
want to live like an artist, consider putting in a bid for the
Greenwich Village townhouse previously owned by artist Julian
Schnabel (and now owned by his first wife, collector
Jacqueline Schnabel). The five-story Italianate townhouse is
about 6,600 square feet, with four bedrooms and an art studio.
While it’s no Palazzo Chupi, the artist did design the elaborate
fireplace and dining room table himself. It’s on the market for
$18.5 million. (Wall Street
Journal)

See JR and Jerry Saltz Bro-ing Out – The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jerry Saltz
sits down with the French street artist JR for an in-depth
interview at the Brooklyn Museum, where JR is the subject of
his largest exhibition to
date. The 36-year-old street artist and the prominent art
critic have more in common than you might think: both are
self-taught outsiders. (The artist grew up living with his
grandmother in the projects outside Paris; Saltz was a truck driver
until age 41.) The artist explains that he didn’t even know there
was an art world until he was in it, and to this day, he
doesn’t work with big brands because of a disdain for advertising,
which is also the reason for his black and white color palette. He
also explains why he always dons his trademark fedora and shades—he
hasn’t taken a photo without them since he was 13: the anonymity
helps him to cross borders to do projects in places like Mexico and
the Middle East. The interview will be in Playboy‘s
upcoming Equality issue, on newsstands December 17.
(Playboy)