Art Industry News: Maurizio Cattelan Hopes the Thieves Who Stole His Gold Toilet Are Planning a ‘Robin Hood-Inspired Action’ + Other Stories

by admin

Sep 16, 2019

artnet

Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most
consequential developments coming out of the art world and art
market. Here’s what you need to know on this Monday, September
16.

NEED-TO-READ

Neri Oxman Caught Up in Epstein Controversy
– The controversy over the MIT Media Lab’s ties to
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has now ensnared Neri Oxman,
the celebrated designer whose work has been collected by museums
including the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum and the Centre
Georges Pompidou and who will be the subject of an exhibition at
the Museum of Modern Art in New
York this February. The Boston Globe reports
that MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito, who has since resigned, asked
Oxman to court Epstein. She and her students made him a
“grapefruit-sized, 3-D printed marble” as a thank-you gift for a
$125,000 donation to her design lab. “I regret having received
funds from Epstein, and deeply apologize to my students for their
inadvertent involvement in this mess,” Oxman said in a statement.
(Boston
Globe)

New York Attorney General Claims the
Sacklers Hid $1 Billion Abroad – As Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy,
and the Sacklers attempt to head off hundreds of legal cases, the
philanthropic family faces new allegations that they
used Swiss and other hidden
accounts to transfer $1 billion from the company into their own
pockets. New York attorney general Letitia James said in a
statement that the Sacklers were attempting to “lowball victims and
skirt a responsible settlement.” On Sunday, the maker of OxyContin
filed for bankruptcy, and Purdue announced a $10 billion deal to
settle outstanding legal claims, which the activist-artist
Nan Goldin has condemned
as a “fake settlement.” (Courthouse
News, Guardian)

Maurizio Cattelan Says Toilet Theft Is No Joke
– The artist, who has been known to pull pranks on
the public, has made it clear that he had nothing to do with
the theft of his solid gold
toilet, America, from an exhibition at Blenheim
Palace. “I wish it was a prank,” he said, adding that the crime “is
deadly serious if even a little bit surreal since the subject of
the robbery was a toilet.” He said he, too, thought it was a joke
at first (“Who’s so stupid to steal a toilet?”)—but then remembered
it is made out of solid gold, and worth at least $4 million melted
down. Cattelan hopes the work, which went viral when a Guggenheim
curator offered to loan it to the
White House, will continue to serve its intended purpose even
after its disappearance: “America was the one percent for
the 99 percent,” he said, “and I hope it still is. I want to be
positive and think the robbery is a kind of Robin Hood-inspired
action.” (New York
Times)

US Judge Strikes Down French Court’s Picasso Ruling –
A US judge has ruled that an art
publisher’s use of images of Picasso paintings in two scholarly
catalogues was, in fact, fair use. The ruling goes against a French
court’s €2 million ($2.25 million) judgement from 2012
against Alan Wofsy, who
reproduced the images in his two-volume Picasso Project. The legal saga stretches back more than 20
years, when Yves Sicre de Fontbrune—who had acquired the
intellectual property rights to the photographs—first sued
Wofsy. The US judge said the
French decision was “repugnant” to America’s policy of promoting
free speech, “criticism, teaching, scholarship, and
research.” (Courthouse
News)

ART MARKET

Sterling Ruby Will Curate Gagosian’s Next Online Viewing Room
– To create added intrigue around its online viewing
room, Gagosian has invited the American artist (and now fashion
designer) Sterling Ruby to curate its next iteration. The Los
Angeles-based talent has selected seven of his own works that have
not been seen on the market before as well as a number of examples
by his influences, like a Hokusai Great
Wave woodcut and a photograph
by Brassaï. The viewing
room will coincide
with Ruby’s Frieze Week
solo show with Gagosian in London, opening October 2. (Financial
Times)

Banksy’s Satirical Parliament Painting Heads to Auction –
The collector who lent
Banksy’s Devolved
Parliament to the
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery in March now hopes to cash in on the Brexit
crisis. The owner has consigned the 2009 work, which shows members
of parliament as chimpanzees, to Sotheby’s. The painting could set
a new auction record for Banksy if it meets its high estimate of £2
million ($2.5 million) on October 3. (Guardian)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Danish Collector Will
Open a Space in Greenpoint – Copenhagen-based
collector Jens Faurschou is opening a branch of
his Farschou Foundation in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood.
The Danish collector and art dealer, who already has spaces in
Copenhagen and Beijing, will take over a new 12,000-square-foot
industrial warehouse on November 3 with a group show that includes
work by artists Ai Weiwei, Louise Bourgeois, and Tracey
Emin. (Financial
Times)

Collector Will Restitute
More Than a Dozen African Works – Congolese collector
Sindika Dokolo is on a mission to recover, purchase, and return
African artwork to the continent. So far, he has found and acquired
15 pieces, including a pair of sculptures he is currently lending
to an exhibition at the Bozar art center in Brussels. He will
return the works to the Dundo Regional Museum in Angola after the
show’s run. (Wall Street
Journal)

Philippe Pirotte to
Depart Städelschule – Belgian art historian and
curator Philippe Pirotte will step down at the end of his current
term as rector of Städelschule, one of Germany’s most prestigious
art schools, in March 2020. (Press release)

Istanbul Gets a New
Private Museum – Arter
has opened in the Turkish capital in a new, multi-story building
designed by Grimshaw Architects of London. The private museum is a
subsidiary of the Vehbi Koç Foundation and will host a
multidisciplinary program of exhibitions, events, film, and
publications. (Art Daily)

FOR ART’S SAKE

The Church of Scotland
Sues Metal Detectorist Over £2 Million Trove – The Church
of Scotland has filed a lawsuit at the Court of Session
in Edinburgh against a metal detectorist who found a precious hoard
of Viking treasure on the church’s property in 2014. The National
Museum of Scotland paid almost £2 million ($2.5 million) for the
items, which include vessels, a cross, and lapel pins—but now, the
church wants a share of the proceeds. The trove is due to tour
Scotland over the next two years. (BBC)

Daniel Buren Painting
Damaged in Pompidou Attack – An attacker with a weapon
sliced into a painting by Daniel Buren that was hanging at the
Pompidou Centre in Paris last week. The French conceptual artist’s
Peinture (Manifestation 3), a cotton canvas with
white and red vertical stripes, was attacked Thursday
afternoon. The suspect is currently undergoing a psychiatric
evaluation. (BBC)

Elmgreen & Dragset Return to Texas – The artist
duo’s first American museum exhibition, “Elmgreen & Dragset:
Sculptures,” opened this weekend at the Nasher Sculpture Center in
Dallas, Texas. While in the US for the opening, the duo also made a
trip out to Marfa to see their famous storefront. They had not
returned since they first installed Prada
Marfa on the dusty road in 2005. (Instagram)

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