Art Gallery & Decor

Erich Marx, a well-known art collector and patron whose decision in the 1990s to donate the bulk of his esteemed collection of contemporary art to the German state transformed the public display of contemporary art in the country, died on Wednesday, September 9, at age 99. The news was announced by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which runs Berlin’s art museums, and was first reported by the Art Newspaper.

Marx, who was named on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list each year between 1990 (when it launched) and 1996, might best be remembered for his decision to give the Nationalgalerie (also known as the Berlin State Museums) much of the work in his key collection of postwar art, centered around the work of Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol, whom Marx collected in depth.

When Marx gave the works to the … Read the rest

With some 50 days until the presidential election in November, one artist group has announced its latest project—an open call to artists and everyday citizens alike to get involved, not just in the upcoming vote but beyond. The organization For Freedoms, cofounded by artists Hank Willis Thomas, Eric Gottesman, and Michelle Woo, as super PAC in 2016, has released “Infinite Playbook,” a digital publication intended to spur its readers to action using arts and culture.

In this handsome online publication, For Freedoms writes, “Now, we invite you to awaken with us. This fall presents us with imminent possibility, a chance to commit to a world of healing, listening, and justice. The first step is to participate in political processes now, to count yourself in the census, and to vote or to help someone to vote.”

In an interview with ARTnews, Willis Thomas … Read the rest

Curator José Roca, who serves as artistic director for the Bogotá-based nonprofit contemporary art space Flora Ars+Natura, has been named artistic director of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney in Australia. Set to take place from March 12 to June 13, 2022, the exhibition will have a “strong focus on sustainability and collaboration,” according to a release.

From 2012 to 2015, Roca worked as adjunct curator of Latin American art for the Tate in London, and he previously helmed the arts program at the Museo del Banco de la República in his hometown of Bogotá. He has also served as chief curator of the 8th Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2011; co-curator of the I Poly/graphic Triennial in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2004; and the 27th Bienal de São Paulo in 2006. He was also artistic director of Philadelphia’s triennial Philagrafika in 2010.

The team of curators … Read the rest

For the first time in its 150-year history, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has hired a full-time Native American art curator. Staring on September 14, Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha) will be the Met’s inaugural associate curator of Native American art. She will work in the museum’s famed American Wing and report to Sylvia Yount, who oversees the presentations put on in that department of the Met.

Norby has previously served as senior executive and assistant director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian-New York. She has also been the director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry, a research library in Chicago, and written scholarship on self-representation in Indigenous art.

“Historical and contemporary Native American art embodies and confronts the environmental, religious, and economic disruptions that Indigenous communities have so powerfully negotiated—and still negotiate—through a balance of beauty, … Read the rest

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News

The Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse New York will deaccession Jackson Pollock’s 1946 painting Red Composition, which is valued between $12 million and $18 million, as part of an effort to diversify its collection. [Art Market Monitor]

Following a pause due to the pandemic, a New York residency for Russian artists is planning for its fall cycle. The initiative was organized in a collaboration between the Moscow-based art collective AES+F and the International Studio & Curatorial Program. [The Art Newspaper]

The contemporary art scene in Athens is flourishing, according to a new report by the Financial Times. [Financial Times]

Collectors

Vanity Fair has a piece on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2018 deposition of Leon Black, who has appeared on ARTnews‘s … Read the rest

In 1957, art critic Irving Sandler paid a visit to the studio of painter Joan Mitchell, an Abstract Expressionist known for her brushy images capturing nature. The result of that visit, printed in the October 1957 issue of ARTnews, became one of the most famous essays in this magazine’s “Paints a Picture” series, in which an artist illuminates the process behind one of his or her artworks. With an upcoming traveling retrospective of Mitchell’s work at the Baltimore Museum of Art in mind, ARTnews enlisted Mary Weatherford, an artist who has spoken of being inspired by Mitchell, to discuss Sandler’s article. “He’s a beautiful writer, so clear, so easy to read,” Weatherford said of Sandler’s writing. “I want to be the equivalent when I’m talking about this.”

Irving Sandler on Joan Mitchell: She finds particularly distasteful moral insinuations concerning “good” versus “bad” criteria, and insists that … Read the rest

The Tate museum network in England said it has cut ties with Anthony d’Offay, a dealer who was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women in 2018. The museum network has faced pushback from the British art community over the past year after it quietly resumed contact with d’Offay following a brief period in which Tate said it would not work with d’Offay.

“Tate and Anthony d’Offay have agreed to end their relationship,” Tate and d’Offay said in a statement released on Friday. Tate also said it would return works that were on loan from d’Offay and a company registered in his name.

A 2018 Observer report first revealed the allegations of sexual harassment. The accusations came from several women—all of whom were not named in the report—who had worked with d’Offay; two had been employed by his London gallery, which closed in 2001. The women described alleged instances of … Read the rest

After just 10 months as director, Christian Rattemeyer has departed New York’s SculptureCenter. Artforum first reported news of his departure on Friday morning.

According to Artforum, SculptureCenter, which is located in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, did not provide a reason for Rattemeyer’s departure. “I want to thank the incredibly talented staff and leadership at SculptureCenter,” Rattemeyer said in a statement. “I have enjoyed being part of an independent and artist-driven institution leading the conversation on contemporary art.”

Artist Carol Bove, the chair of SculptureCenter’s board, said in a statement, “On behalf of the entire board and staff of SculptureCenter, we thank Christian for his leadership, curatorial excellence, and global perspective. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”

On SculptureCenter’s website, Kyle Dancewicz, the institution’s director of exhibitions and programs, is listed as interim director.

Rattemeyer was named director of SculptureCenter in June … Read the rest

Jean Dubuffet, one of the most famous European artists of the postwar era, had an imagination that knew no bounds. In his rough-hewn paintings, drawings, and sculptures ranging from abstraction to childlike figuration, he envisioned altered states in which humanity existed in a form that he believed was closer to its origins. A ceaseless experimenter in the way of materials and forms, he advocated for self-taught or “outsider” practitioners in the field.

These days, Dubuffet may be best known for his large-scale sculptures, which resemble masses of white organic forms sharply outlined in black. He had intended for Le cirque (1970) to be among his monumental ones, but it was never fully realized in a large-scale format—until now. Starting on September 18, Pace Gallery will show a newly fabricated version of Le cirque in its New York gallery. “He both imagined that these things eventually would become physically real … Read the rest

The organizers of Art Basel Miami Beach announced today that they had been forced to cancel the scheduled 2020 edition of the fair, which was set to take place during the first week of December in Florida. The news was announced after trading closed on the Swiss stock exchange, where the fair’s financially embattled parent company, MCH, is publicly traded.

“It is with great regret and disappointment that we announce the cancellation of our December show in Miami Beach, as we know how crucial our show is for our galleries, as well as for the greater Miami arts community and economy,” Noah Horowitz, Art Basel’s Americas director, said in a statement. “We thank everyone who shared their perspectives and insights with us over the past months and weeks and look forward to returning to Miami Beach next year to deliver a successful show.”

Among the main reasons cited for the … Read the rest