In case you missed the news, here’s a roundup of headlines from the art world in the last two weeks.

TEXT: CoBo News
IMAGES: Courtesy of various

Save The Date Or Miss Out At Your Own Risk

The mother of art fairs, Art Basel—who also just launched its own podcast—has announced 273 galleries hailing from 33 different countries will be participating in its marquee Swiss fair at ​​Messe Basel this September.

London’s British Museum is hosting a comprehensive collection of renowned Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s works in the exhibition “The Great Picture Book of Everything” this September, featuring more than 100 unseen picture postcard-sized drawings.

Across the channel in Milan, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan—you might remember his duct-taped banana at Art Basel Miami Beach 2019—will soon be exhibiting a towering memorial of 9/11, of which he was a witness, in his solo exhibition “Breath Ghosts Blind” at ​​Pirelli HangarBicocca.

Although by then summer will be over, September continues to be a hot month for the arts in New York as the much-anticipated installation Sun & Sea, which made its debut at the 2019 Venice Biennale and took home the Golden Lion Award, will be unveiled at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Raunchy Masterpieces Setting Our Digital Sphere Ablaze

Museums including the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence are suing adult streaming site Pornhub due to its recent release of “Classical Nudes” initiative, an interactive website and app that highlights “naughty” works of art in museums around the world.

If it wasn’t enough that Pornhub has decided artworks are also fair game for its tech-savvy subscribers—the NFT bandwagon taking over the digital art arena continues.

British artist Damien Hirst has launched his new NFT project “The Currency” on HENI Leviathan’s new NFT platform Palm, which marks his first NFT-based collection consisting of 10,000 NFTs that correspond to 10,000 unique works on paper created back in 2016. Collectors are left to choose between the NFT and the physical work and will be given a year to decide. The corresponding artwork will be destroyed if they decide to keep the NFT.

Beeple has released his first physical collectible: a Kim Jong-Un robot figurine (or, in Beeple’s words, A Kim frigg’n lil’ robot dude to watch over when you sleep) originating from the digital work JONG v2.0, which he created in April last year. In collaboration with Youtooz, the limited 333 editions were completely sold out hours after its release on 14 July.

On the same day, Lehmann Maupin announced its partnership with crypto platform Gemini, which will enable collectors to acquire works in more than 40 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ether, and Gemini dollar. A number of the gallery’s artists are anticipating their crypto sales with Gemini, such as Alex Prager, Catherine Opie, Gilbert & George, Helen Pashgian, Robin Rhode, and Tony Oursler, with more joining in soon.

On 21 July, Swiss artist Urs Fischer’s first NFT art series, CHAOS—featuring pairings of quotidian objects floating in a blank space, while in continuous orbit of one another, occasionally colliding—went on view in an online exhibition hosted by Pace Gallery, which will run until 7 August. The series debuted in April, when Fischer partnered with Pace and launched the suite of works on the auction platform Fair Warning and NFT marketplace MakersPlace. ⁠⁠

All In The Spirit Of Giving

 A silver lining amid the recent resurgence of the pandemic and ongoing global economic woes, it appears the philanthropic spirit of giving may still run high. Two of the US’s largest philanthropic organisations—the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation—are donating US$5 million to the Latinx Artist Fellowship, in support of 15 Latin American or Caribbean artists in the country each with US$50,000 annually over the next five years.

Meanwhile 19 Institutions including the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk and the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland, will soon be receiving a from the Getty Foundation in the cause of initiatives focused on prints and drawings.

Announced on 15 July in a  press release, Louvre Abu Dhabi is teaming up with Swiss watchmaking brand Richard Mille to launch the annual exhibition “Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here” this November, alongside the creation of the annual Richard Mille Art Prize of US$50,000 cash reward, which will spotlight the best Emirati and UAE-based artists in the region.

Bloomberg Philanthropies announced its official launch of the Digital Accelerator Programme on 14 July, which will dedicate US$30 million to help organisations invest in tools and training to speed up economic recovery from the pandemic. While the Smithsonian has received the largest gift since its founding in 1846: a whopping US$200 million donation from the world’s wealthiest man and former CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos.

In Canada, the Royal Museum of Ontario is set to receive US$1 million from Korean Cultural Department as part of a five-year partnership, which aims to foster cultural exchanges between Korea and Canada.

The Art World Musical Shuffle And Painful Farewells

Best known for his monumental sculptures that ponder the representation of Black figures, leading British contemporary artist Thomas J. Price has joined Hauser & Wirth, in anticipation of a debut exhibition in Somerset in October and an artist residency commencing in July.

Also in the UK, Jessie Washburne-Harris, who has been elected the executive director of Marian Goodman Gallery for eight years, is assuming her new position as vice president at Pace Gallery this week.

In Mexico, interdisciplinary arts center, SFER IK, has appointed Brazilian curator Marcello Dantas as its new artistic director. In a press statement, Dantas explained he aspires to “invite artists who will feel inspired to create work in a very special context” when the museum resumes operation this November.

As the pandemic continues to cast its shadow over institutions, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) bids farewell to some of its longstanding programmes and publishing platform, which further leads to pandemic-related layoffs, salary cuts, and furloughs of the museum’s employees.

In profound sadness, Singapore’s pioneering non-profit arts centre The Substation announces its permanent closure this month after 30 years due to the loss of revenue.

On 21 July, Liverpool was stripped of its world heritage status by UNESCO, stating that the city has failed to preserve its historical Victorian docks. The decision will end the UN conservation funding and other benefits the city has been enjoying since 2004.

Art World Constructions Stopping For No One

The iconic 20th century metabolist masterpiece Nakagin Capsule Tower Building—a modular residential and office tower which was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa to accommodate traveling business people in Tokyo, will be dismantled into individual capsules and regenerated as housing units and museum installations across the world, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

In London, the major renovation of the National Gallery is set to go underway with newly appointed New York-based architect Annabelle Selldorf, who stood out among an international shortlist of six firms to lead a design team. The first phase of the work is estimated to be completed by May 2024 in conjunction with the museum’s 200th anniversary.

While in the US, Petzel Gallery is making a bold move, expanding and relocating to the Feil Organization’s revamped space in Manhattan, doubling its footprint with a ground floor gallery of 11,000 square feet and spacious office spaces of 7,000 square feet. However when it comes to Hirshhorn Museum’s redesign plan of its Sculpture Garden by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, though an approval was made through a split 5–2 vote by a committee, but none of whom are landscape architects.

Woeful Goodbyes

Renowned French conceptual artist Christian Boltanski passed away at the age of 76, announced on 14 July by his long-time gallery represent Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris.

Pulitzer prize-winning Photojournalist Danish Siddiqui was killed while covering a battle in Afghanistan on 16 July.