Art Industry News: The US Park Service Fears Trump’s Border Wall Could Harm Archaeological Sites + 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 Friday, September
20.

NEED-TO-READ

Women’s Increased Representation in the Art World Is an
Illusion – Leading US art
museums still tend to acquire work by male artists even though
female artists are getting more solo shows. Research by artnet News’s executive editor
Julia Halperin and Charlotte Burns, the editor of Art Agency,
Partners’ In Other Words podcast, reveals that while curators
are pushing for female artists’ work, museum acquisition committees are “preoccupied
with name recognition,” and are still wedded to the male-dominated
art market. They found that female artists’ work amounted to only 2
percent of global art sales over the past decade.
(New York
Times)
(Guardian)

The Istanbul Biennial Makes a Splash Despite Political Unease
– Turkey’s increasingly
authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led a crackdown
against freedom of expression that’s caused greater artistic
self-censorship. This year’s Istanbul Biennial focused on
environmental concerns and explicitly political works are
conspicuously absent. But Istanbul’s new contemporary art space
Arter includes a few subtly critical works. Eyebrows were raised
when the new Odunpazari Modern Museum in the city of Eskisehir,
which Erdogan opened, included a text-based work of art by the
president himself. (New York
Times)

Park Service Is Worried Trump’s Wall Could Harm Archaeology
– President Trump’s
planned extension of the US-Mexico border wall could damage 22 archaeological sites in
the Sonoran Desert in
southwestern Arizona. An internal report by the National Park
Service, obtained by the Washington Post, reveals experts’ concerns about the Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument in particular. Archaeologists found
ceramic shards, stone tools, and other pre-Columbian artifacts when
they spent five days surveying the route of the wall and service.
In public, the Park Service has been more circumspect, saying it
works with the Department of Homeland Security to protect monuments
and [natural] resources. (The Art
Newspaper) 

Italy and France Settle Feud Over Leonardo and Raphael
Exchanges – Italy’s new
coalition government, and the return of Dario Franceschini as its culture minister, has
led to the restoration of friendly cultural relations with France.
Franceschini is due to sign a new agreement with his French
counterpart so that loans of works by Leonardo da Vinci from
Italy’s museums to the Louvre for its big show will go ahead after
all. (They had been thrown
in doubt by the former
culture minister, a member of a populist
party.) The new
agreement is expected to pave the way for French museums to lend
works by Raphael in 2020 when Italy marks the 500th anniversary of
the Renaissance artist’s death. (The
Guardian)

ART MARKET

Thieves Target a French Chateau – A gang of masked thieves tied up the elderly owners of the 17th-century
castle, Vaux-le-Vicomte, outside of Paris when they stole €2
million worth of valuables, including jewelry. The burglars ignored
the works of art hanging on the walls, however. (The
Local)

Camera From One of Marilyn Monroe’s Last Shoots Heads to
Auction – Christie’s is
auctioning the 1959 Hasselblad 500C camera used by the Hollywood
photographer Douglas Kirkland in one of Marilyn Monroe’s last photo
shoots. The sale, which includes prints of the star, has an upper
estimate of $300,000. (Press
release)

Controversial Pre-Columbian Art Auction Makes $1.3 Million
– A controversial sale of
pre-Columbian art went ahead although a Mayan sculpture was
withdrawn after protest from Guatemala. Mexico also objected to the
sale, alleging some works may have been looted. Alexandre Millon at Drouot shrugged off the
negative publicity, selling 93 percent of the lots in a sale that
totaled €1.2 million ($1.3 million). (TAN)

Grayson Perry Is Happy to Make Art for the 1 Percent –
The artist’s new show at Victoria
Miro gallery in London gently satirizes the taste of his super-rich
collectors. The
“tax-evading, equality-denying, planet-destroying ruling classes”
are an artist’s best friend when it comes to sales, he points out.
(Financial
Times)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Land Art Photographer Gianfranco Gorgoni Has Died
– The Italian photographer has died at age 77.
Gorgoni was renowned for capturing Land Art as it evolved in the
1970s and onwards, including his iconic aerial views of Spiral
Jetty by Robert Smithson, as well as for his
portraits of US avant-garde artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Bruce
Nauman, and Andy Warhol. (TAN)

Dia: Chelsea to Open in
2020 With Free Admission – When Dia:
Chelsea opens next fall with a project by Renata Lucas, it will
join the four other Dia sites in New York City that have free
admission. In fall 2022, it will open Dia: Soho, which will become
its sixth admission-free space. The hope is that visitors will
return multiple times to see the institution’s longterm projects.
(Press
release)

Blanton Museum Names Curator of Latin American Art
– Vanessa Davidson will be the Blanton Museum of Art
at the University of Texas’s new curator of Latin American art. She
comes to the institution from the Phoenix Art Museum, where she
worked as curator of Latin American art for eight years, and
succeeds Beverly Adams, who joined the staff of the Museum of
Modern Art in New York earlier this month. (Artforum)

FOR ART’S SAKE

National Portrait
Gallery Adds Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anna Wintour to Collection
– Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has
acquired portraits of some new faces, including Lin-Manuel Miranda,
photographed by Mark Seliger, featured in his full Alexander
Hamilton gear. A photograph by Annie Leibovitz captures
Vogue editor Anna Wintour—without her iconic
sunglasses. And Jeff Bezos looks on in a minimalist oil-on-canvas
portrait by Robert McCurdy. (Vanity
Fair)

Wes Anderson Brings His Kunstkammer to the Prada Foundation
– Wes Anderson’s first try at
curating is traveling to Milan. The exhibition, “Spitzmaus
Mummy in a Coffin and Other Treasures,” was first exhibited at
the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna last year, featuring an
astounding 538 artworks and objects selected by the film director
and his partner, the illustrator, designer, and writer Juman
Malouf. The show will be on view from September 20, 2019, to
January 13, 2020. (Art
Daily)

Fridays for Future Wants Your Art – Major
climate strikes take place the world over today as well as next
Friday, September 27. Fridays for Future is inviting artists
to submit works over social media with the hashtag
#ArtForFuture that they will share each day during the next week of
climate actions, and once a week after that.
(Instagram)

The post Art Industry News: The US Park Service Fears
Trump’s Border Wall Could Harm Archaeological Sites + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.