Arts news

• Bernini, Coecke Set Records in $26.7 M. Hester Diamond Collection Sale

  29-01-2021 23:09 via artnews.com
  
  Following the record-breaking $92 million sale of a rare Botticelli portrait in New York, Sotheby’s ended the first segment of its Master Week with the sale of works from the collection of Hester Diamond, a late New York arts patron, dealer, and designer. The Diamond sale was slated with a pre-sale estimate of $23.3 million–$35.3 million with with buyers’ premium.
  So far, Sotheby’s New York Masters Week generated more than $148 million, showing that mid-pandemic market fo
  
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• In His Mardi Gras Suits and Beadwork Paintings, Demond Melancon Creates Compelling Tensions between Representation and Opacity

  04-06-2024 17:00 via artnews.com
  
  Before he considered himself an artist, Demond Melancon boiled lobster at the Louisiana chain restaurant Drago’s Seafood, washed dishes at Emeril’s, and poured concrete for Hard Rock Construction. He laid and smoothed the cement walkway in front of Arthur Roger, a gallery on Julia Street in downtown New Orleans. Over 10 years later, that same gallery now represents his work.“I used to work all day and bead all night. Now, I get to bead full-time. And this way is better,”
  
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• Ace Gallery Founder Convicted, Court Settles Restitution Confusion with MFA Houston, El Museo del Barrio Reveals Details for Trienal, and More: Morning Links for June 4, 2024

  04-06-2024 15:39 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.THE HEADLINESEMBEZZLEMENT CONVICTION. Douglas Chrismas, the 80-year-old, notorious founder of Los Angeles’s defunct blue-chip Ace Gallery, has been convicted of embezzlement by a jury. The May 31 ruling in a Los Angeles court means the once powerful dealer, who has been the defendant in over 55 lawsuits, some of which were for stealing artworks and not paying art
  
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• El Museo del Barrio Names Artist List for Its 2024 Triennial, with an Expanded, Global Focus

  04-06-2024 14:00 via artnews.com
  
  El Museo del Barrio has named the 33 artists that will take part in the second edition of its triennial, which will run at the museum from October 10, 2024, to February 9, 2025.This year, the exhibition will take the title “Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024” and be curated by El Museo’s chief curator Rodrigo Moura and curator Susanna V. Temkin, and guest curator María Elena Ortiz, who is a curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas.The exhibition includes
  
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• Phillips Leads Spring Auctions in Hong Kong With $12.6 M. Basquiat Painting

  03-06-2024 22:29 via artnews.com
  
  The recent results of Christie’s and Phillips modern and contemporary evening auctions in Hong Kong provided additional data indicating a shift in the art market after several years of blockbuster estate sales and high-profile consignments.The sales included plenty of guarantees and several works by artists whose momentum has cooled amidhigher interest rates, ongoing geopolitical conflict, and concerns over the upcoming US national election. While Phillips’ spring evening sale in Hon
  
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• Ansel Adams Estate Calls Out Adobe for Selling AI-Generated Art Using Photographer’s Name

  03-06-2024 21:37 via artnews.com
  
  In an unusually public conflagration between an artist’s estate and a tech giant, the Ansel Adams Trust hit back at Adobe for selling AI-generated images using the famed photographer’s name.Adams, a member of the famed Group f/64, is best known for his images of the American West, whose vast forests and mountains he photographed in sleek black and white. On its stock photography website Adobe Stock, the company was selling pictures produced using generative AI that recalled Adams&rsq
  
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• Artist Charged for Tagging Courbet’s ‘Origine du Monde’ with #MeToo

  03-06-2024 20:54 via artnews.com
  
  Performance artist Deborah De Robertis was charged with the damage and theft of “cultural property” after tagging five artworks, including Gustav Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde, with the slogan #MeToo. A French prosecutor announced the indictment of De Robertis, as well as two others, on Monday.In early May, the women entered the Centre Pompidou-Metz in northern France and graffitied the glass pane protecting Courbet’s 1886 painting of a women’s nude torso and e
  
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• Ancient Monument Seahenge May Have Been Built to Fight Climate Change

  03-06-2024 17:48 via artnews.com
  
  A prehistoric timber circle on the Eastern coast of England’s country Norfolk known as “Seahenge” may have been constructed to perform rituals intended to curb severe weather, according to Heritage Daily.The article cites a study recently published by the international academic journal GeoJournal, which posits that the monument, along with its larger sister structure Holme II, located just 109 yards away, was built during a time when abnormally long and severe winters
  
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• Philadelphia’s University of the Arts Abruptly Closes: ‘We Could Not Ultimately Identify a Viable Path’

  03-06-2024 17:22 via artnews.com
  
  Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, a school that dates back more than a century, abruptly announced its permanent shuttering last Friday, leaving the future of current students there uncertain.The University of the Arts, or UArts as it is known for short, was founded in 1876, and has been considered one of the top art schools in Philadelphia. Its alumni include Harlem Renaissance sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Precisionist painter Charles Sheeler, photographer Irving Penn, video ar
  
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• Monet Vandalized in Paris, Philadelphia Art School Closes, Christie’s Hackers Threaten to Auction Stolen Data, and More: Morning Links for June 3, 2024

  03-06-2024 14:50 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.THE HEADLINESMONET’S POPPIES VANDALIZED. Claude Monet’s famous 1873 bucolic Impressionist painting of a woman and child walking through a field of red poppies that all but engulfs them was vandalized Saturday at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris by a climate activist from the group Riposte Alimentaire [Food Response], reports Francesca Aton for ARTnew
  
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• 15 Important Women Surrealists

  03-06-2024 14:35 via artnews.com
  
  The founding French Surrealists loved the subconscious. They also loved women—as muses, as subjects of erotic desire, as sources of inspiration, but not necessarily as artists at first. Women weren’t present at the birth of the movement when poet André Breton published his Surrealist Manifesto in 1924. But inevitably women were attracted to the movement and its revolutionary ideas—interpreting dreams as expressions of subconscious thought, fusing the familiar with the un
  
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• Monet Painting at the Musée d’Orsay Vandalized by Climate Activist

  02-06-2024 00:10 via artnews.com
  
  A climate activist affixed an adhesive poster to a Monet painting at the Musée d’Orsay Saturday. The woman, who said she intended to raise awareness for climate change, was arrested.The stunt was carried out by a member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response), a group of environmental activists and defenders of sustainable food production in response to the climate crisis. The group has been targeting museums across Europe for years, including most recently a protest at the Louvre la
  
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• Pro-Gaza Protestors Stage Action at Brooklyn Museum, Calling for Divestment from Israel

  01-06-2024 01:05 via artnews.com
  
  As afternoon dimmed into evening Friday, the Brooklyn Museum became the stage of one the most fervent Gaza solidarity actions yet to descend on a New York City art institution. Starting at 4:30 p.m. inside the lobby, a group of cultural workers, artists, and New York City community members brandished banners, beat drums, and blew whistles, calling for the museum to condemn the killing of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as disclose and divest its financial ties to Israel. Outside the muse
  
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• Pro-Gaza Protestors Occupy Brooklyn Museum, Calling for Divestment from Israel

  01-06-2024 01:05 via artnews.com
  
  As afternoon dimmed into evening Friday, the Brooklyn Museum became the stage of one the most fervent Gaza solidarity actions yet to descend on a New York City art institution. Starting at 4:30 p.m. inside the lobby, a group of cultural workers, artists, and New York City community members brandished banners, beat drums, and blew whistles, calling for the museum to condemn the killing of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as disclose and divest its financial ties to Israel. Outside the muse
  
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• Basquiat Painting Sells for $12.6 M. at Phillips Hong Kong

  31-05-2024 22:46 via artnews.com
  
  Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 work Native Carrying Some Guns, Bibles, Amorites on Safari sold for $12.6 million at a Phillips modern and contemporary art evening sale in Hong Kong this week. That figure, which includes premium, means the work sold for just above its low estimate of $12 million, but it also makes the picture is the most expensive piece to sell this season in Hong Kong.That record follows the sale of Basquiat’s Untitled (ELMAR), also from 1982, at&nbs
  
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• Following Calls to Remove ‘Unflattering’ Portrait from Australia’s National Portrait Gallery, Billionaire Gifted A Different Portrait of Herself

  31-05-2024 20:51 via artnews.com
  
  If you can’t beat them, join them—as the old saying goes—or, perhaps, give them something else to discuss. This seems to be the attitude of Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, who gifted a portrait of herself to Australia’s National Portrait Gallery, following calls to remove an unflattering painting of her from the institution. Rinehart, who is the richest person in Australia and a major donor to the National Gallery of Australia, previously requested that a pai
  
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• Curator Vincent Honoré’s Suicide Labeled a ‘Work Accident’ by French Social Security

  31-05-2024 20:42 via artnews.com
  
  The suicide of Vincent Honoré, a well-known French curator who served as head of exhibitions at the MO.CO Montpellier museum, was the subject of a three-month investigation, according to Le Quotidien de l’Art.The French art publication reported that Caisse primaire d’assurances maladie, a public health organization that is part of the nation’s social security system, has now concluded that inquiry, and deemed Honoré’s suicide a “work accident.” T
  
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• Iraqi Government Recovers 6,000 Looted Artifacts

  31-05-2024 19:05 via artnews.com
  
  More than 6,000 historical artifacts smuggled out of Iraq after the fall of Mosul in 2014 have been recovered, according to the publication Al-Monitor.The announcement was made on Wednesday by Ali Obaid Shalgam, the head of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, during a conference on Iraqi cultural heritage in the Mosul province.A majority of the recovered works were stolen by the Islamic State beginning in 2014. During their control of Iraq and parts of Syria, ISIS destro
  
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• 6,000 Looted Artifacts Recovered by Iraqi Government

  31-05-2024 19:05 via artnews.com
  
  More than 6,000 historical artifacts smuggled out of Iraq after the fall of Mosul in 2014 have been recovered, according to the publication Al-Monitor.The announcement was made on Wednesday by Ali Obaid Shalgam, the head of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, during a conference on Iraqi cultural heritage in the Mosul province.A majority of the recovered works were stolen by the Islamic State beginning in 2014. During their control of Iraq and parts of Syria, ISIS destro
  
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• John Lennon’s ‘Help!’ Guitar Just Sold for a Record $2.9M. at Auction

  31-05-2024 17:34 via artnews.com
  
  John Lennon’s guitar needed no help setting a new world record on Wednesday.The famous “Help!” Framus Hootenanny hammered down an astonishing $2.86 million during Julien’s two-day Music Icons sale at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York, making it the most expensive Beatles guitar ever sold at auction. (The record was previously held by Lennon’s J-160E Gibson, which sold for $2.41 million in 2015.) The instrument was initially expected t
  
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• Why Carla Accardi Abandoned Abstraction for Activism—and Then Came Back

  31-05-2024 13:00 via artnews.com
  
  In the early 1970s, Carla Accardi began to doubt the scrawling, colorful abstractions for which she had become known. Wanting to impact the world in more tangible ways, she cofounded Rivolta Femminile (Women’s Revolt), a Rome-based feminist group whose formative publishing house served as a model for how women might obtain both editorial and economic independence from men. While focused on the group, Accardi scaled back her artistic output. The few paintings she produce
  
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• When El Anatsui Isn’t Busy Being One of Africa’s Biggest Artists, He’s Collecting Vinyl

  31-05-2024 13:00 via artnews.com
  
  El Anatsui may be known best for his metallic tapestries made from bottle caps, but he is also a musician.In his university days, he played trumpet, performing music by Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington in a school band guided by an American music director. The band’s leader, Anatsui once said, introduced him to the music of Fela Kuti, founder of the Afrobeat genre. The band would later meet the Nigerian musician when he toured Ghana, Anatsui’s homeland—and even ended opening fo
  
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• Joyce C. Scott’s Beaded Sculptures Confront Racist Tropes

  31-05-2024 13:00 via artnews.com
  
  In the 1970s, when the artist Joyce J. Scott was starting out, she crafted one-of-a-kind garments—glamorous and earthy looks made of materials including fur, snakeskin, and safety pins. She also plied her wild style in works of jewelry and sculpture that took on abstract and figurative forms, many of them ornamented by her signature beadwork. Her “Mammy/Nanny” sculpture series from the 1980s and ’90s includes Mammie Wada (1981), a doll-size figure of a Black woman seeming
  
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• 44 Museum Shows to See This Summer

  31-05-2024 10:00 via artnews.com
  
  Perhaps you seek more at a museum this summer than just strong AC and a good permanent collection? You’re in luck. The summer, typically a slow period for institutions, is livelier this year than usual, filled with the kinds of big shows that normally mark the spring and fall seasons.Anne Imhof, who won the Golden Lion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, is set to take over Austria’s Kunsthaus Bregenz with her latest creations while Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie is mounting an Andy Wa
  
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• Dutch Police Recover Two Diamonds Stolen from TEFAF Maastricht

  30-05-2024 21:31 via artnews.com
  
  Authorities have recovered two diamonds stolen from TEFAF Maastricht in 2022 in a brazen daytime heist. That year, in plain view of astounded visitors, several armed and disguised men absconded with jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars, spurring concerns over security at the fair, which is renowned for its luxe spread of art and antiquities. The Netherlands Times reports that, in addition to the recovery of the two diamonds, at least one suspect, a woman, has been linked to the crime, thoug
  
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• Art Collector Ron Perelman’s $410M Insurance Claim Will Head to Trial

  30-05-2024 21:10 via artnews.com
  
  During a summary judgement hearing Wednesday in Manhattan, New York State Supreme Court Justice Joel Cohen ruled that the case betwen businessman Ron Perelman, who has appeared on ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list several times, and a group of insurance companies will go to trial.During the hearing the judge considered three motions in the lawsuit filed by Perelman, through a holding company called AGP Holdings, against a group of insurers that includes underwriters at Lloyd’s of London and
  
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• ‘Niki’ Review: Charlotte Le Bon Stars in a Pretty but Flimsy Portrait of an Artist Minus Her Art

  30-05-2024 20:30 via artnews.com
  
  It is an ongoing mystery why so many artists’ biopics, though undoubtedly coming from a place of deep admiration, choose to ignore the very thing that makes their subjects extraordinary — their art — in favor of outlining the less extraordinary (however torrid) circumstances of their private lives and loves. The latest example: the attractive but slight directorial debut of French actress Céline Sallette (“House of Tolerance,” “Rust and Bone”). He
  
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• Chanel and Shanghai’s Power Station of Art Sign Long-term Partnership

  30-05-2024 20:18 via artnews.com
  
  Just in time for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of China-France diplomatic relations and the Year of Cultural and Tourism exchange between the two countries, Chanel and Shanghai’s Power Station of Art signed a strategic partnership on Monday to restore the museum and enrich its collection and research capacity.The French luxury brand first launched a partnership with PSA in 2021 as a part of the “Next Cultural Producer” initiative. The two-year
  
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• Venice Biennale Artist Jeffrey Gibson On Painting and Paying Tribute to Indigenous Cultural Legacies

  30-05-2024 19:01 via artnews.com
  
  Jeffrey Gibson—who was profiled for the Summer 2024 “Icons” issue of Art in America and whose work features on the issue’s cover—is a painter, sculptor, video artist, and proponent of various forms of craft and performance that pay tribute to his Native American heritage. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, Gibson was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and grew up in Germany, New Jersey, South Korea, and Maryland. This year,
  
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• Tomashi Jackson Probes American Democracy in Her Multilayered Work

  30-05-2024 18:03 via artnews.com
  
  Tomashi Jackson’s midcareer survey “Across the Universe” at the ICA Philadelphia probes the histories of culturally resonant people and places as they relate to sociopolitical issues surrounding matters of race and the state of democracy in the United States. Jackson’s multilayered surfaces feature materials like quarry marble dust and Colorado sand, as well as screen prints from film stills and photographs, which highlight notable historical moments. Her work—
  
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