Arts news

• National Archives Accused of Censoring Images of Civil Rights Leaders and Forced Relocation of Indigenous Peoples

  07-11-2024 22:18 via artnews.com
  
  The Biden-appointed Archivist of the United States, Colleen Shogan, directed the National Archives to alter photographic exhibits to obscure certain parts of US history, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal.According to the Wall Street Journal, since taking office in May 2023, Shogan has ordered changes to displays of photographs to make the exhibits more widely appealing to the D.C. institution’s audiences. Among the displays reportedly altered were ones featuring image
  
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• Frieze’s Owner Endeavor Reports Higher Q3 Losses After Disclosing Potential Sale of Art Fair

  12-11-2024 23:04 via artnews.com
  
  Endeavor Group Holdings, the Hollywood entertainment company that owns the Frieze art fair and media franchise, reported a loss of $420.36 million for the third quarter, a sharp increase from the $116 million loss recorded in the same period last year.Despite this, the company saw growth in revenue, generating $2 billion this year, compared to $1.34 billion during the same quarter last year, according to an investor report released last week.The report also revealed that the company’s Even
  
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• Pompeii Will Soon Limit the Number of Visitors to its Archaeological Park

  12-11-2024 21:39 via artnews.com
  
  The ancient city of Pompeii, it seems, has taken a liking to the recently implemented “day tripper” tax in Venice, or at least the theory behind it, and will soon put in place restrictions on the number of visitors allowed to visit the well-preserved city per dayUnlike in Venice, which has seen “mixed results” with its new €5 day pass, Pompeii will simply cap the number of people that can visit the site in a day at 20,000. The new policy begins on
  
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• Sotheby’s Will Auction Oldest Inscribed Tablet of the Ten Commandments

  12-11-2024 20:15 via artnews.com
  
  Sotheby’s will sell the oldest inscribed tablet of the Ten Commandments in a single-lot sale in December.The 115-pound, two-foot tall marble tablet is approximately 1,500 years old and inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew script. It has an estimate of $1 million to $2 million and will be offered by the auction house’s books and manuscripts department on December 18.“We understood how powerful the object was and we were really thrilled to be able to offer it for sale to the public,”
  
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• Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Sale in Hong Kong Yields $52.6 M. Led by Rothko at $32.5 M.

  12-11-2024 19:25 via artnews.com
  
  The first two evening auctions following the US national election took place in Hong Kong and Shanghai, with mixed results.The Sotheby’s Hong Kong Modern and Contemporary evening auction took place November 11 at the new Landmark Chater location, bringing in $409.5 million HKD ($52.6 million), within the estimate of $377.8 million HKD–$509 million HKD ($48.6 million–65.5 million). Out of 27 lots, 5 did not sell, for a sell-through rate of 81.5 percent. The unsold lots included
  
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• Miren Arzalluz Named Director of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

  12-11-2024 18:14 via artnews.com
  
  Art historian and curator Miren Arzalluz has been appointed director general of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the institution announced in a statement. She begins her tenure on April 1.Arzalluz was selected by the museum’s board of trustees following an international selection process over the last few months. She comes to the museum with international experience, including her current position as director of the Fashion Museum–Palais Galliera in Paris, which she has held fo
  
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• Producer and Collector Benny Blanco, and His George Condo Painting, Featured in People’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ Issue

  12-11-2024 18:05 via artnews.com
  
  Benny Blanco, the Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer, was recently featured in People Magazine‘s 2024 “Sexiest Man Alive” issue, along with his art collection.Blanco was photographed by the magazine in his home in Los Angeles. In one photograph, Blanco is featured on his dining room table next to a plate of nachos, framed front of the George Condo portrait, The Musician.“I kind of think it looks like me,” he told Architectural Digest earlier this year, in refe
  
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• Scott Burton’s Retrospective Offers Quality People Watching

  12-11-2024 17:36 via artnews.com
  
  A fun thing to do at “Scott Burton: Shape Shift,” a judiciously curated if unavoidably diffuse retrospective of the late artist at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, is to watch people maneuver themselves into Two-Part Chaise (1989), a low granite lounger installed on the concrete outside the museum. It’s one of the few furniture sculptures in the show that visitors are invited to sample, and they do—warily. They size up the chaise’s whipsaw ergonomics and d
  
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• Frank Auerbach, Painter Who Redefined Portraiture, Dies at 93

  12-11-2024 17:28 via artnews.com
  
  Frank Auerbach, a towering figure of British art history who plotted new paths for painting with his thick, smeary portraits, died on Monday in London at 93. His passing was announced on Tuesday by Frankie Rossi Art Projects, which did not state a cause of death.Auerbach’s paintings of a select group of models redefined portraiture, a genre that has traditionally lent itself to psychological clarity and close attention to detail. But starting in the 1950s, Auerbach began making portraits o
  
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• Italian Police Smash Art Forgery Ring, Mark Rothko’s ‘Ukrainian Flag’ Painting Hammers for $32.5 M., Social Media Accounts Are Targeting Paris While Promoting Azerbaijan, and More: Morning Links for November 12, 2024

  12-11-2024 14:46 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The HeadlinesBUSTED ART FORGERY NETWORK. Italian authorities have uncovered a pan-European, multi-million-dollar art forgery network, reports Tessa Solomon for ARTnews. A total of 38 suspects from Italy, Spain, France, and Belgium are under investigation so far, for conspiracy to create and sell fake works attributed to Banksy, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol, among oth
  
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• The Restoration of Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ Painting is Finally Underway in a Specially Designed Glass Chamber at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum

  12-11-2024 12:06 via artnews.com
  
  The second phase of the Rijksmuseum’s Operation Night Watch, the largest research and restoration project ever undertaken for Rembrandt’s 1642 masterpiece – The Night Watch – is in motion.On Tuesday, a team of eight restorers at Amsterdam’s national museum started removing the varnish from the oil painting, measuring 363 x 437 cm. The move follows the first stage of the operation: five years of investigation and analysis using advanced
  
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• Restoration of Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ is Underway in a Glass Chamber at the Rijksmuseum

  12-11-2024 12:06 via artnews.com
  
  The second phase of the Rijksmuseum’s Operation Night Watch, the largest research and restoration project ever undertaken for Rembrandt’s 1642 masterpiece – The Night Watch – is in motion.On Tuesday, a team of eight restorers at Amsterdam’s national museum started removing the varnish from the oil painting, measuring 363 x 437 cm. The move follows the first stage of the operation: five years of investigation and analysis using advanced
  
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• Meet mandla—A Self-Professed Liar

  11-11-2024 23:00 via artnews.com
  
  We spent a day together in Manchester. The cloudy sky threatened rain as we walked throughout the postindustrial city, discussing mandla’s multidisciplinary practice, the collaborative energy of the local queer arts community, the potential of museums, and the realities of citizenship … or lack thereof. Mandla was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in the UK—a seemingly unending journey across continents, histories, and legalities that have shaped the infinitely complex and viscer
  
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• Newsmakers: Dealer Emmanuel Di Donna on Surrealism’s Expanding Canon and Market

  11-11-2024 22:48 via artnews.com
  
  Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, a new ARTnews series where we interview the movers and shakers who are making change in the art world.Emmanuel Di Donna has cultivated a unique presence in the blue-chip art world, standing out for his scholarly interest in Surrealism. He began his career at Sotheby’s, where he eventually climbed to worldwide vice-chairman, and went on to establish his own New York gallery in 2010. That gallery is known for organizi
  
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• Mysterious Monument Linked to King Arthur is 4,000 Years Older than Long Believed, UK Archaeologists Say

  11-11-2024 21:01 via artnews.com
  
  An inconspicuous stone and turf monument on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, southwest England, is likely 4,000 years older than first thought, according to local archaeologists. The rectangular structure, coined King Arthur’s Hall and previously recorded as a Medieval animal pen by the UK government, is now believed to be Neolithic, dating back 5,500 years.Its purpose, though, remains a mystery. According to archaeologists, nothing like it has been found anywhere in the world.Cornwall National La
  
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• Vincent Valdez: the controversial artist tackling racism, violence and America

  11-11-2024 20:18
  
  Artist rose to prominence for his Ku Klux Klan painting and now his provocative, powerful work is on exhibitionIn 2015, artist Vincent Valdez released his imposingly large painting The City I. The controversy that swiftly ignited upon its release had long been brewing even as Valdez was painting it. The 30ft black and white work shows over a dozen hooded Klansmen gathering rather portentously in the middle of the night. The painting, which many initially critiqued for unnecessarily referencing a
  
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• Following a Trail of Banksy Forgeries, Italian Police Uncover $215 M. Pan-European Forgery Network

  11-11-2024 19:59 via artnews.com
  
  38 people across Europe are suspected of involvement in a sweeping scheme to create and sell fake works attributed to Banksy, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol, among other marquee 19th, 20th, and 21st century artists, Italian authorities revealed on Monday.The investigation so far spans Italy, Spain, France and Belgium, with suspects under investigation for conspiracy to handle stolen goods, forgery and illegal sale of artworks. News of the investigation was jointly announced by the paramilitary C
  
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• At MASS MoCA, Osman Khan Marries ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ with an AI-Generated Storyteller and Flying Carpet Drones

  11-11-2024 18:00 via artnews.com
  
  Drone-operated flying carpets held captive inside a Taj Mahal–shaped cage; a mammoth head of the British colonialist Sir Cyril Radcliffe moonlighting as a djinn in charge of border control; and a robotic Scheherazade narrating AI-generated fantastical immigrant success stories. These are just a few of the many amusing elements in Detroit-based Osman Khan’s exhibition, “Road to Hybridabad,” at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. The Pakistani-born artist’s first
  
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• Pérez Art Museum Miami Gets $10 M. Gift from Kenneth Griffin

  11-11-2024 17:55 via artnews.com
  
  Collector Kenneth C. Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, has donated $10 million donation to the Pérez Art Museum Miami, which will use the funds to maintain its collection and which will now establish a gallery in his name.Griffin, who appears regularly on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list, has been expanding his presence in Miami since relocating Citadel’s headquarters to South Florida in 2022 from Chicago, where the company was originally founded in the 1990s.Alongside news of
  
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• Huge crime network forging Banksy, Warhol and Picasso uncovered in Italy

  11-11-2024 17:37
  
  Art police and Pisa prosecutor say 38 people being investigated, with about 2,100 fake artworks seizedItalian police have dismantled a Europe-wide forgery network suspected of producing sophisticated replicas of works by some of the world’s most famous artists, including Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Gustav Klimt.Thirty-eight people had been placed under investigation in Italy, Spain, France and Belgium on suspicion of conspiracy to handle stolen goods, forgery and illegal sale of
  
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• Jadé Fadojutimi Explains Why She Left Her London Gallery for Gagosian: ‘It Was Too Personal’

  11-11-2024 16:40 via artnews.com
  
  In a new profile published this week by the New Yorker, Jadé Fadojutimi, a fast-rising painter, explained her reasons for departing Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, the London-based gallery that made her famous, for the mega-gallery Gagosian.The move, she told Rebecca Mead, was meant to ensure she had more resources. Fadojutimi, 31, said she “outgrew” Pippy Houldsworth by the time she inked her Gagosian representation deal in 2022.“It was too personal,” Fadojutimi said.
  
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• South Korea’s Art Market to Benefit from New Laws, Dancer Judith Jamison Dies, Nico Williams Wins 2024 Sobey Art Award, and More: Morning Links for November 11, 2024

  11-11-2024 13:37 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The HeadlinesKOREAN ART MARKET TO BENEFIT FROM EASED REGULATIONS. The South Korean art market is expected to get a welcome boost due to new legislation, observers told The Art Newspaper. The first is a Korean heritage law that eases restrictions on exporting post-war Korean art, and the second is a new Art Promotion Act that ensures greater transparency, while addressi
  
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• Artist Kenny Scharf: ‘I’m carrying the torch for friends who couldn’t keep it going’

  11-11-2024 09:42
  
  He worked alongside Keith Haring and Andy Warhol in 1980s New York and now gets his first major institutional show in the same cityIn the mid-1980s, Kenny Scharf biked from his Queens studio to his East Village apartment every night at around 3am. The ungodly hour would allow the young artist to “bomb” the walls of Manhattan’s east side with his energetic cartoonish figures. He had grown up making oil paintings outside Los Angeles, but upon moving to New York at age 19, he was
  
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• You Can Partly Blame TV For The Demise Of Yellowstone National Park

  10-11-2024 16:30 via nytimes.com
  
  Development – driven in part by remote work and the pandemic, and also by the TV show Yellowstone, is driving development. That is “a grave threat because of how it is carving up an ecosystem that must stay relatively intact to function.” – The New York Times
  
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• Judith Jameson, Who Danced With Ailey And Later Led The Company Out Of Debt, Has Died At 81

  10-11-2024 16:00 via nytimes.com
  
  “She was a performer of great intelligence, warmth and wit” who became an international star, and later built the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater “into the most successful modern dance company in the country.” – The New York Times
  
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• The Spoils director says film forces art world to confront ‘loaded issue’ of restitution

  10-11-2024 15:41
  
  Documentary shows the fight to recover paintings that Jewish art dealer was forced to sell by the NazisFrom the Benin bronzes to the Parthenon marbles, debates over the restitution of cultural artefacts are now a fact of life in an international art world forced to reckon with the often controversial history of its treasures.Museums around the world are having to consider implications of retaining items many argue were taken from their owners under persecution or duress. Continue reading...
  
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• AI Is Killing Our Curiosity

  10-11-2024 15:30 via theatlantic.com
  
  “The rabbit holes and the unexpected obsessions are what’s beautiful about searching the internet; but AI, like the tech companies developing it, is obsessed with efficiency and optimization.” – The Atlantic
  
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• St Thomas Church In Manhattan To Outsource Its Famous Choir School

  10-11-2024 15:00 via artsjournal.com
  “St. Thomas’s leaders warned earlier this year that the church was considering closing the choir school, one of only a few remaining boarding schools for young choristers in the world.” – The New York Times
  
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• Granta’s Editor On Working While In Deep Grief

  10-11-2024 14:30 via theguardian.com
  Sigrid Rausing: “When you’re working on a text there’s always a sense of loss when it’s done. But finishing the translation of a book by my best friend who had just died brought a much greater sense of loss, because I was no longer with her.” – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• A Musical That’s Profitable Before It Even Opens? How?

  10-11-2024 14:30 via msn.com
  Turns out star power helps a lot – and so does having a city own the theatre and fund its costs. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
  
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