Arts news

• Hayv Kahraman Paints Resistance Against the Classification of Migrants and Refugees

  15-05-2024 17:01 via artnews.com
  
  Hayv Kahraman is an Iraqi–born refugee who escaped with her family and became a Swedish citizen. Informed by her experience with migration and assimilation, her solo exhibition “Look Me in the Eyes”—on view at ICA San Francisco through May 19—explores the connection between botanical classification and human subjugation.In her work—including the painting Loves Me, Loves Me Not (2023), pictured above—Kahraman draws on a personal interest in binomial nomen
  
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• Sidney Felsen, Cofounder of Printmaking Workshop Gemini G.E.L., Dies at 99

  10-06-2024 23:42 via artnews.com
  
  Sidney Felsen, cofounder of the famed printmaking workshop Gemini G.E.L., died of renal failure on June 9 in his Los Angeles home. He was 99. “Richard Serra once said, ‘Sidney prefers to hurry slowly,’ and we think that captured him perfectly,” Felsen’s family said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the news. Felsen, his fraternity brother Stanley Grinstein, and Kenneth Tyler founded Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited) in 19
  
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• Staff at American Folk Art Museum, Glenstone Museum Vote to Unionize

  10-06-2024 22:02 via artnews.com
  
  Staff at the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland, have voted to unionize. The election results among staff at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) were unanimously in favor on June 6. Voting with UAW Local 2110 occurred a month after workers at the institution announced their intention to organize for a variety of issues including fair wages and better benefits.AFAM was created in 1961 and changed its name from the Museum of Early American Folk Arts
  
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• Shahzia Sikander’s Luminous Art Explores East and West, Past and Present, Order and Chaos

  10-06-2024 21:51 via artnews.com
  
  On a surprisingly springlike day in late February, Shahzia Sikander was hard at work at Pace Paper Studio in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Having just sent off the artworks for her upcoming retrospective in Venice, she was now immersed in a new series of works on paper. She was also fielding calls about a controversy over her work that had just erupted in Texas. The dispute involved an 18-foot-high bronze sculpture recently installed in a plaza at the University of Houston. Titled Witnes
  
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• Auditing Body Warns Centre Pompidou’s Major Renovation Project is ‘Underfunded’

  10-06-2024 21:39 via artnews.com
  
  As the Centre Pompidou’s planned five-year renovation of its Paris flagship approaches its 2025 start date, new questions arise over the financial viability of the project.At the end of April, a critical report from France’s court of auditors, who assess the use of public funds, revealed that the Centre Pompidou‘s economic model is unsustainable. The report outlines the financial strain on the museum caused by its forthcoming renovation, as well as its establishment of a n
  
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• Kehinde Wiley Denies New Allegations of Sexual Assault from Activist Derrick Ingram

  10-06-2024 18:36 via artnews.com
  
  For a second time, Kehinde Wiley denied allegations of sexual assault after new claims emerged Monday morning.On Instagram, activist Derrick Ingram accused Wiley, a painter most widely known for doing Barack Obama’s official portrait, of having raped him in 2021. Ingram alleged that the assault happened in Wiley’s SoHo apartment.“Posting something to Instagram doesn’t make it true,” Jennifer Barrett, an attorney for Wiley, said in a statement to ARTnews. “Yet,
  
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• Hundreds Laid Off from Philadelphia’s UArts in Conference Call on Last Day of Operations

  10-06-2024 18:18 via artnews.com
  
  Some 600 staffers at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts were laid off on a conference call Friday, on what the college said was its final day of operations. According to local media reports, some staffers were given the option to work through the end of June. On May 31, the University of the Arts, commonly called UArts, informed its approximately 1,100 students and 700 staffers of the imminent closure. Confusion and outrage immediately erupted, as students scrambled for a means to
  
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• In New Exhibition Series, Curator Avi Lubin Centers Artists from Kibbutzim Along the Israel-Gaza Border

  10-06-2024 17:33 via artnews.com
  
  In his 1968 print Remaining Words, Israeli artist Dov Heller wrote in blocky Hebrew letters: “I finished reserve duty on Friday/I was in Gaza they threw rocks there/Today I want peace more than ever.” The work, created not long after the 1967 Six-Day War, was never exhibited during Heller’s lifetime—he died in 2018. The print, along with numerous other works, was found tucked in a drawer at his home in Kibbutz Nirim, a community along the border with Gaza, where he l
  
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• Mass Layoffs at Philly’s UArts, New Museum Set for Naples, Glenstone Workers Vote to Unionize, and More: Morning Links for June 10, 2024

  10-06-2024 16:31 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.THE HEADLINESCLOSED FOR BUSINESS. More details are emerging about the sudden closure of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts (UArts), whose last day of operation was on June 8. Students and faculty only learned of the shuttering days one week prior. Local publications report that 600 staffers were laid off during a conference call that Friday, with some giv
  
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• Glenstone Workers Vote to Unionize, Mass Layoffs at Philly’s UArts, New Museum Set for Naples, and More: Morning Links for June 10, 2024

  10-06-2024 16:31 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.THE HEADLINESCLOSED FOR BUSINESS. More details are emerging about the sudden closure of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts (UArts), whose last day of operation was on June 8. Students and faculty only learned of the shuttering days one week prior. Local publications report that 600 staffers were laid off during a conference call that Friday, with some giv
  
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• Former Staff at Carpenters Workshop Gallery Allege Sexual Misconduct, Questionable Accounting

  09-06-2024 01:24 via artnews.com
  
  A report published in Air Mail features allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior, questionable accounting, and more at Carpenters Workshop Gallery.The weekly newsletter’s report, published on Friday, draws on “more than a dozen interviews” with former employees of the prestigious design firm cofounded by Julien Lombrail and Loïc Le Gaillard 18 years ago. ARTnews’s attempts to reach Lombrail and Le Gaillard by phone were not successful. When ARTnews reached out to
  
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• Christie’s Hit With Class-Action Lawsuit Over Client Data After Cyberattack Shuts Down Website

  07-06-2024 23:25 via artnews.com
  
  If there’s one thing wealthy people have access to, it’s lawyers. As a result, a client of Christie’s recently filed an class-action lawsuit against the auction house after it experienced a cyberattack in May. The incident, which Christie’s had previously referred to as a “technology security incident,” shut down its website for ten days before and during the house’s marquee New York sales. The cyber-extortion group RansomHub claimed responsibility for t
  
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• Mastermind of ‘Canada’s Largest Art Fraud’ Guilty of Peddling Fake Norval Morrisseau Works

  07-06-2024 22:17 via artnews.com
  
  A second suspect has plead guilty to charges of fraud in the case dubbed by investigators as “Canada’s largest art fraud investigation,” according to CBC News. On June 6, David Voss plead guilty to one charge of forgery and one charge of uttering forged documents, in this case the fake provenance materials he used while operating an art fraud ring between 1996 and 2019. Based in the northern Ontario city of Thunder Bay, Voss oversaw the production of thousands of artworks false
  
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• French Museum Calls Report on Vincent Honoré’s Suicide ‘Exploitation of a Tragic Event’

  07-06-2024 22:02 via artnews.com
  
  MO.CO, a contemporary art museum in Montpellier, France, accused a French art publication of “exploitation” on Friday after it ran a report on the suicide of Vincent Honoré, who formerly served as the institution’s head of exhibitions.Le Quotidien de l’Art reported last week that Honoré’s suicide had been determined a “work accident” by French social security and featured allegations from unnamed MO.CO workers who claimed Honoré had
  
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• Lawsuit Over Allegedly Nazi-Looted Van Gogh Dismissed

  07-06-2024 21:14 via artnews.com
  
  A federal court earlier this month dismissed a lawsuit against the Japanese company Sompo Holdings surrounding Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888), which the heirs of a German Jewish banker said had been looted by the Nazis.The company bought the work from Christie’s London in 1987 for $39.9 million, a record at the time. The heirs of its previous owner, Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy had sought to get it back, claiming that it had been stolen during World War II.According
  
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• Philadelphia’s UArts Hit with Class-Action Lawsuit Amid Sudden Closure

  07-06-2024 21:03 via artnews.com
  
  Just days after announcing its sudden closure, Philadelphia’s University of the Arts was hit with a class action lawsuit by nine of its employees, including several professors and department directors. The news was first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer.The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the city’s federal court and accuses the school, commonly called UArts, of violating the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act), a 1988 law that requires most em
  
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• Dealer Tif Sigfrids Closes Her Gallery, Joins Canada as Partner

  07-06-2024 17:54 via artnews.com
  
  Tif Sigfrids, a dealer who has run a gallery in Athens, Georgia, for more than a decade, has closed up her art space and joined Canada, a blue-chip New York gallery that is well-regarded for its painting shows, as a partner.Sigfrids had since 2021 operated a gallery in New York, making her the second dealer in the city to announce a closure this week, after Simone Subal, who will shutter her 12-year-old Lower East Side gallery this month. News of the closure of Sigfrids’s gallery and her h
  
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• Why Are Robert Mapplethorpe’s Provocative Images Seemingly Everywhere These Days?

  07-06-2024 17:00 via artnews.com
  
  When photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 at 40, his immediate reaction was to destroy the work he would leave behind. After overcoming the initial shock, however, he settled on the idea of planning his estate, which led to the establishment of Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in 1988, the year before his passing.Related ArticlesFrom the Archives: Read What ARTnews Critics Said About Robert MapplethorpeLGBTQ+ Artists Having Institutional Shows This Pride Month
  
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• Despite Economic Uncertainty, Gallery Weekend Beijing Left Dealers Feeling Optimistic

  07-06-2024 16:53 via artnews.com
  
  Toward the end of a particularly turbulent May, China made global headlines for its military drills around Taiwan, done in response to the island’s newly elected leader. This past weekend, China’s defense chief affirmed the “threats of force” at Asia’s biggest defence summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. This did little to mitigate growing concerns about the economic and security implications of rising tensions between China, the US, and Taiwan.But back in
  
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• After More Than 75 Years, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Eyes Its Future with an Expansion

  07-06-2024 16:00 via artnews.com
  
  Despite being the country’s fourth most-populated city, Houston is in many ways a very well-kept secret when it comes to its art scene. What outsiders often misunderstand as a lack of culture here is rather a lack of a centralized culture. With a kind of schizophrenic miasma, its seemingly endless snarl of concrete and shopping centers and no-zoning laws lend the metropolis a simultaneous feeling of culture-less sprawl while also brimming with a sincere, can-do spirit for limitless possibi
  
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• Navajo Artist Melissa Cody Reclaims a Sacred Symbol That the Nazis Weaponized

  07-06-2024 13:00 via artnews.com
  
  A version of this essay originally appeared in Reframed, the Art in America newsletter about art that surprises us and works that get us worked up. Sign up here to receive it every Thursday.In Melissa Cody’s 2014 weaving Good Luck, a figure known as Rainbow Man is represented as an electrical cord, his lower half culminating in a two-pronged plug. His tubular body encircles the phrase GOOD LUCK, and beneath those words, there’s a somewhat unexp
  
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• Orlando Museum of Art Responds to Amended Countersuit from Ex-Director

  06-06-2024 21:31 via artnews.com
  
  The Orlando Museum of Art has responded to an amended lawsuit filed by its former director, Aaron De Groft, denying his allegations of defamation. The museum has also voiced support for its board chair, whose public statements regarding De Groft’s involvement in the 2022 Basquiat forgery scandal were cited in the lawsuit.“OMA denies it committed any of the unlawful actions alleged in the Amended Counterclaim and denies De Groft is entitled to any of the relief sought,” reads th
  
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• Blue Shrine Room with Frescos Depicting Female Figures Unearthed at Pompeii

  06-06-2024 20:17 via artnews.com
  
  An ancient Roman shrine room was discovered during recent excavations by archaeologists at the Pompeii Archaeological Park.The 86-square-foot sacrarium features painted blue walls decorated with female figures depicting the four seasons of the year, along with allegories of agriculture and shepherding. The room’s color is notably rare, and would have demarcated it as a place of importance for ritual activities and storing sacred objects.“Pompeii is truly a treasure chest that never c
  
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• An Exhibition in Mumbai Looks at India’s ‘Liminal Gaps’

  06-06-2024 18:00 via artnews.com
  
  At the center of Mumbai is a sterilized development called the Bandra-Kurla-Complex (BKC) that was built over marshy land and surrounded by (now) depleted rivers. Today, it commands the highest real estate rates in India, and continues to develop as the commercial colossus within the country’s financial capital, home to the largest number of billionaires in Asia.And at the center of the BKC is the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, opened last year by art patron Nita Mukesh Ambani, whose
  
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• New York’s 47 Canal, a Longtime Chinatown Gallery, Decamps for SoHo

  06-06-2024 17:36 via artnews.com
  
  New York’s 47 Canal, a gallery that was founded in Chinatown in 2011 and has remained there ever since, will leave the neighborhood it has long called home, reopening in SoHo next month. The gallery announced the news in an email blast Thursday.Founded by Margaret Lee and Oliver Newton, the gallery, one of the most closely watched commercial art spaces in Chinatown, has been located at 291 Grand Street since 2014. It officially opened in 2011 on Canal Street, though the gallery grew out of
  
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• Disputed Malevich Painting Tied to Disgraced Dealer Itzhak Zarug Presented as Genuine in Private ‘Exhibition’ at Centre Pompidou

  06-06-2024 16:30 via artnews.com
  
  A highly disputed painting attributed by some to Russian modernist Kazimir Malevich was presented as genuine this past January at a private event at France’s top modern and contemporary art museum, the Centre Pompidou.Organized by the Paris-based business network Groupement du Patronat Francophone (GPF), the event was billed in promotional materials as an “exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Paris” celebrating Malevich. No such museum exists, though the Centre Pompidou is ge
  
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• Armory Show Names Exhibitors for Upcoming 30th Anniversary Edition

  06-06-2024 16:00 via artnews.com
  
  The Armory Show has named the more than 235 galleries that will take part in its upcoming 30th anniversary edition, scheduled to run at the Javtis Center from September 6–8, with a VIP preview day on September 5.Several changes will be introduced to this year’s fair, including a new floor plan and a new lead sponsor, American Express. The 2024 edition also marks the second iteration since the fair was acquired, alongside Expo Chicago, by Frieze and the first to be planned completely
  
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• New York’s Simone Subal Gallery to Close After 12 Years

  06-06-2024 15:00 via artnews.com
  
  Simone Subal Gallery will shutter later this month, becoming the latest New York gallery to announce its permanent closure this year.Founded in 2011, the Lower East Side gallery currently represents artists such as Julien Bismuth, Baseera Khan, Anna K.E., Florian Meisenberg, and the late Brain O’Doherty. Its current show, a solo exhibition for painter Nova Kiang that closes on June 22, will be the gallery’s last.“I personally came to the conclusion that this was the right time
  
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• A First Look at the Big Ticket Artworks that Galleries Are Bringing to Art Basel

  06-06-2024 14:40 via artnews.com
  
  Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.If one were to liken the marquee New York auctions in May to the homecoming game between rival high schools, then Art Basel is certainly the art world’s prom. Next week, 287 galleries from around the world, including the four biggest, will jet to Switzerland, closely followed by the traveling circ
  
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• Claire Bishop’s New Book Argues Technology Changed Attention Spans—and Shows How Artists Have Adapted

  06-06-2024 13:00 via artnews.com
  
  IT’S AN EPIDEMIC. Umpteen open browser tabs, endless push notifications, and a relentless news cycle are inducing widespread symptoms of ADHD in even the most chemically balanced of brains. It’s changing everything, including the ways we look at art.This is the subject of a new book by art historian Claire Bishop, titled Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today. Bishop posits that our phones have become a kind of “prosthesis for viewing” art, and her
  
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