Art Industry News: Louvre Staffers Join Pension Strikers to Shutter the Paris Museum + 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 Monday, January
20.

NEED-TO-READ

US National Archive Apologizes for Blurring Anti-Trump
Slogans – The National Archives
has removed from its display a 2017 Getty photograph of the Women’s
March after it was called out for blurring signs referencing
women’s anatomy and President Trump’s name. “We made a mistake,”
the National Archives said on Twitter, promising to return
unaltered images to the display as soon as possible. The archive in
Washington, DC, pledged to have an internal review into how it
happened. (CNN)

Berlin Returns a Painting to the Heirs of a “Degenerate”
Artist – An Old Master painting
that had been in the collection of German artist Hans Purrmann has
been returned to his heirs. Documents show that Purrmann probably
received the market value for a portrait by Hans Baldung
Grien depicting the Biblical figure Lot from 1537 when he sold it
in 1937 to the National Gallery. But the Prussian Cultural
Foundation deemed the sale to have been effectively forced due to
the Nazi’s persecution of Purrmann, whose art the regime declared
“degenerate.” (The Art
Newspaper)

Pension Strikers Shut Down the
Louvre – Around 100 protesters,
who included Louvre staffers, blocked the entrance to the Paris
museum on Friday to protest President Macron’s proposed pension
reforms. Strikes have been ongoing throughout the city for the past
few weeks. Dismayed Louvre visitors who had paid for their tickets
online were told they get their money returned. Today, the museum
warns that some rooms may be closed due to ongoing strike
action. The protesters also voiced concerns over the labor
conditions at the museum due to staff and funding cuts.
(New York
Times)

US Companies Enabled Billionaire
African Couple’s Alleged Corruption – Some 120 reporters across 20 countries have
traced how Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, and her art
collecting husband, Sindika Dokolo,
allegedly transferred millions of dollars of public money out of
Angola with the help of Western private firms. The
couple’s assets in Angola have been frozen while the country tries to reclaim an alleged
$1 billion in state-loans from the duo. Leading banks declined to
do business with the politically connected couple. Dos Santos’s
father ruled the country for 38 years. But the investigation,
dubbed the #LuandaLeaks, shows how US private consulting firms
helped the family manage their financial empire.
 (New York
Times)

ART MARKET

Alice Walker’s Bill Traylor
Painting Sells Over Estimate for $507,000 – A painting that Steven Spielberg gave to Alice
Walker blew past its original high estimate of $400,000 at
Christie’s Outsider Art sale last week. The work by self-taught
artist Bill Traylor, Man
on White, Woman on Red / Man with Black Dog, double
sided, sold for
$507,000. (Christie’s)

Simone Leigh Joins Hauser & Wirth
– The US sculptor known for her
portrayal of black females is the tenth artist the gallery has
signed on since 2019. Other recent additions to the mega-gallery’s
roster include Avery Singer, Nicole Eisenman, Henry Taylor, George
Condo, and Nicholas Party. (ARTnews)

COMINGS & GOINGS

The National Gallery of Australia’s
Founding Director Has Died – James Mollison, who has died aged 88, oversaw
the historic purchase of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles in 1973. The founding director of the National
Gallery of Australia in Canberra, Mollison went on to lead the
National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. (Guardian)

Gallerist Robert William Burke
Junior Has Died – The Paris-
and New York-based art dealer and collector, Robert William Burke Junior, has died, aged 71.
A former member of Warhol’s Factory, Burke dealt privately after he
closed La Remise du Parc gallery in Paris in 1983.
(Artforum)

Austrian Artist Oswald Oberhuber
Has Died – The well-respected
sculptor, painter, and curator died in Vienna at the age of 88.
Oberhuber was a central figure of post-war Austrian art scene.
(Monopol)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Guggenheim Plans an Alex Katz
Retrospective – The 92-year-old
painter will get a retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York in
2022. Alex Katz’s exhibition
will be co-organized by Katherine Brinson, Nancy Spector, and Levi
Prombaum. (ARTnews)

How Artist Get Past China’s Censors
– Destination, a cultural
center that began as a gay nightclub includes an edgy art
gallery called ART.Des. Artists are able to show homoerotic
works that would
probably be censored elsewhere, partly because of its low profile.
“Perhaps [Beijing’s] not as free as the West; but it’s not as
closed as people think, either. We’re not North Korea,” said an
artist who wished to remain
anonymous. (New York
Times)

Dasha Zhukova and Stavros Niarchos
Throw a $6.5 Million Wedding Party – The founder of Moscow’s Garage Museum,
art collector, and
magazine owner, Dasha Zhukova, and her new husband,
Greek shipping heir Stavros
Niarchos, held their glitzy
wedding party in St. Moritz on Friday. It was a day earlier than
the paparazzi expected. Art dealer Vito Schnabel and Artsy
co-founder Wendi Deng were spotted among the A-list guests at the
event reported to have cost $6.5 million. (Vanity
Fair)

How One Painter Plotted Her Midcareer Comeback –
Shannon Cartier Lucy had highs and
lows in the New York art world in the early 2000s before she
retreated to her home state of Tennessee, to overcome a drug
addiction. Now, aged 40, the artist is back for a solo show of her
surreal paintings at Lubov Gallery in Chinatown. The show is
called: “Home Is a Crossword Puzzle I Cannot Solve.”
(Vulture)

Guggenheim Curator Nancy Spector
Gets an Art Tattoo – The
Guggenheim’s artistic director and chief curator is understandably
proud of her new tattoo. No ordinary ink art, Nancy Spector’s
circle of dolphins is a work by the late Feliz Gonzalez-Torres, the
Cuban-American artist’s 1992 untitled design for a tattoo. The
curator showed off her body art, which she describes as an
“acquisition,” on Instagram, with a thanks to the artist’s estate
for giving its blessing. (Instagram)

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Strikers to Shutter the Paris Museum + Other Stories appeared
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