Art Industry News: It Turns Out Pop Star the Weeknd Is an Art Collector (and He Has Decidedly Cool-Kid Taste) + 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, January
15.

NEED-TO-READ

Notre-Dame Is at Risk of Further
Collapse – The beloved
cathedral is not out of the woods yet, according to Barbara
Schock-Werner, the former master builder at Cologne Cathedral who
is advising on the reconstruction of Notre-Dame after last
year’s devastating
blaze. While the
building is still being assessed, Schock-Werner says it
remains at risk of
collapse because the fire may have damaged the stone more than
is currently known. The building will also be particularly
vulnerable after scaffolding that was welded to its interior by the
heat of the fire is removed. (Deutsche
Welle)

Why Don’t Museums Serve as Polling
Places? – Dozens of art
institutions refused to open their doors to voters as early polling
sites last year, including the New-York Historical Society and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the grounds that doing so would
“unreasonably interfere” with the building’s usual function or
serve as “an extreme hardship.” Fifty other organizations,
including the Bronx Museum, MoMA, the Whitney, and the Shed,
similarly wrote to the Board of Elections for exemption. Museums,
which receive tax benefits, should be legally obligated to provide
space for voters, especially as a high turnout is anticipated for
this year’s election. Without their help, more pressure will be
placed on public schools, which cannot object to being poll sites.
(Gothamist)

Apparently the Weeknd Is an Art
Collector – ARTnews teamed up with producer
and art collector Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean to pull together a
list of artists, curators, and other influential people who will
shape the art world in 2020. One of the most surprising inclusions:
Grammy Award-winning performer the Weekend. Apparently, in between
collaborating with the likes of Daft Punk and Drake, the
29-year-old Toronto-born musician has been collecting art. His
collection at home in Los Angeles includes work by Julie Mehretu,
Danny Fox, and Joyce Pensato. He also reportedly has a life-size
golden sculpture by Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama.
(ARTnews)

Ai Weiwei on the Dark Side of
Cultural Difference – The
Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has penned an op-ed in the
New York Times titled “Capitalism and
‘Culturecide.’” In it,
Ai argues that some of humanity’s worst crimes have often been
justified by the idea of “cultural differences.” He warns that
traditional democratic values are slipping away as predatory
commerce learns to co-opt, and profit from, authoritarian politics.
“China and Russia have shown how legacies of Communist
authoritarianism can combine with predatory capitalism to build new
political structures of daunting power,” Ai writes. As economic
trends start to align with political ones, it places the values and
ideals human societies have evolved over centuries at risk, he
says. “The great challenge facing German and other Western
governments is whether they can find a way to exit the carnival of
profit-making with their moral integrity intact.” (New York
Times)

ART MARKET

Frieze New York Releases Exhibitor
List – Frieze New York announced the lineup of 200
participating galleries in its ninth edition, which runs May 6 through 10 at Randall’s Island
Park. The fair will also host a special section dedicated to the
art and gallery scene in Chicago and a presentation of Latinx art
organized by curators from New York’s El Museo del Barrio.
(Press
release)

Art Basel Hong Kong Announces “Encounters”
– The fair, which is forging ahead despite protests
in the region, has announced plans for its Encounters section,
which focuses on large-scale art. The section, organized by Alexie
Glass-Kantor, will include 12 works by artists including Lim
Oksang, Marion Baruch, and Lee Bae, nine of which will
make their world premiere at the fair. (Press release)

Art-Collecting Billionaire Yusaku
Maezawa Has a New Stunt – The
headline-loving Japanese billionaire art
collector has posted an online ad for a girlfriend to accompany
him into space on the first SpaceX flight around the moon. The
ideal companion for the 44-year-old fashion mogul is over 20 years
old, with a “bright and positive” personality and an interest in
space travel (and, of course, world peace). The deadline for
applications is January 17. May the odds be ever in your favor.
(New York
Times)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Keith Haring Foundation Awards a $1
Million Grant – The Keith
Haring Foundation has awarded a $1 million grant
to Performance Space
New York, the East Village performance venue dedicated to
lesser-known artists. In recognition of the significant gift, the
nonprofit will name its theater after the late artist and host a
free Keith Haring lecture series. (Artforum)

FRONT Triennial Reveals Details for
2021 Edition – The artistic
directors of Ohio’s FRONT Triennial, which will take place in
Cleveland and two other cities in northeast Ohio, have announced
plans to focus on labor, the
environment, and the “alienation” caused by capital. The 2021
edition is titled “Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows,” after a poem by
Langston Hughes. (Artforum)

Tourists Arrested at Machu Picchu
– Six tourists face
four years in prison if found
guilty of damaging Machu Picchu in Peru. They are accused of
defecating (yes, really) in the Sacred Temple of the Sun in the
mountaintop ruins. (Courthouse
News)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Photography Was Andy Warhol’s
Secret Weapon – Jack Shainman
gallery has filled its two Chelsea spaces with 193 photographs
by the shutterbug Pop
artist. Works range from Warhol’s Polaroid portraits to
still-lifes and nudes. Over the course of his career, Warhol took
an estimated 170,000 images with his 35mm Minox camera—but he only
printed around 17 percent of the film rolls. (NYT)

Russian Artist Arrested for Sharing
Feminist Art Online – A Russian
theater director who shared feminist and LGBTQ-friendly art on
social media has been fined and faces six years in prison. Yulia
Tsvetkova, age 26, is accused of distributing “propaganda of
non-traditional sexual relations among
minors.” She previously
lost her job for staging a play accused of promoting “homosexual
propaganda” because students
played roles that challenged gender stereotypes.
(Hyperallergic)

Inside
a Fiery Anti-Trump
Sculpture – The Australian artist Callum Morton’s Monument #32:
Helter Shelter is a
giant head of Donald Trump that doubles as a shelter, complete with
bench seating. Made in 2018, the work’s protective interior seemed
prescient as it arrived at the Art Gallery of Ballarat this week as
part of an extended Australian tour. Morton, who is a professor of
art at Monash University in Melbourne, drove through the ash caused
by ongoing bush fires to attend its unveiling. He told the
Guardian: “This figure [Trump] can create these
circumstances via climate change denialism… We are living in the
smoke haze.” (Guardian)

The post Art Industry News: It Turns Out Pop Star the Weeknd
Is an Art Collector (and He Has Decidedly Cool-Kid Taste) + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.