Art Industry News: Everything You Need to Know About Jennifer Lawrence’s Impending Art-Boy Wedding + Other Stories

NEED-TO-READ

Google Resists Calls to Remove #MeToo Accusations of Subodh
Gupta – This
week, Google submitted a formal request to the Delhi High Court to reverse its decision
requiring the U.S.-based company to erase from its search engine
results links to Instagram posts that accuse artist Subodh Gupta of sexual
misconduct. On Monday, Google appeared in court to argue that
its software “merely performs the task of indexing information…
that is already available on independent third party websites,” and
that it is not responsible for the nature of the content in
question. (Art
Asia Pacific)

ART MARKET

Winston Churchill’s Cigar Heads to Auction
– A stogie once puffed by the British prime minister
while attending a movie premiere could fetch up to $7,000 in
December at Hanson’s Auctioneers. According to a press release,
Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine were attending a film
premiere at the London Coliseum, and, though Churchill took a few
puffs, when he dropped the half-smoked stub to the ground, an
eagle-eyed usher grabbed it as a souvenir. Now, more than six
decades later, the tobacco is hitting the auction block in
near-perfect condition. (Smithsonian)

Nicolas de Staël Goes
for €20 Million – Is this the
most expensive painting of a soccer match ever made? It very well
could be. The French-Russian painter Nicolas
de Staël’s 1952 Parc des
Princes, an abstracted depiction of players on a
field, went on the market for the first time
at Christie’s in Paris on Thursday, October 17. It sold within
its estimate bracket of €18 million to €25 million ($20 million to
$27 million), and set a record for the artist, who died in 1955 at
the age of 41. (Art
Daily)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Archaeologists Uncover Trove of Egyptian Coffins
– Egypt’s ministry of culture announced that a team
of archaeologists unearthed a “huge cache” of sealed coffins in the
city of Luxor. More than 20 coffins were found in pristine shape,
with the engravings and detailed coloration remaining in tact “as
the ancient Egyptians left them.” This is the second discovery
within weeks Luxor, which formed part of the ancient city of Thebes
on the west bank of the Nile river, and where a large necropolis
called Al-Assasif once stood. (CNN)

Winning SF Artist Rejected for Monument Commission After
Edgy Proposal – On August 9, the
artist Lava Thomas was selected by San Francisco’s Arts Commission
to design a new monument dedicated to Maya Angelou in the city. Two
weeks later, the commission backpedaled on its decision due to
fears that Thomas’s interpretation deviated too much from what they
considered a traditional statue. The artist’s proposed sculpture
would take the form of a bronze book depicting Angelou’s visage,
etched with the quote, “If one has courage, nothing can dim the
light which shines from within.” (TAN)

More Donors Pull Out of Desert X After Its Partnership
With Saudi Arabia – The MaddocksBrown Foundation, an
LA philanthropic organization, has pulled out funding of Desert X,
following its controversial decision to partner
with Saudi Arabia for its new show. The foundation was one of
Desert X’s early donors, and had given it about $13,000 in
donations since 2017. (LA
Times)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Tracing the Career of
Betye Saar at MoMA – The artist’s pivotal
mixed-media work Black Girl’s
Window is a focal
piece within MoMA’s rethought curatorial
agenda as part of a new standalone exhibition looking at
Saar’s early years, tracing the prints and assemblages that
preceded the famous work. Recently, the museum acquired 42 of
Saar’s works on paper, some of which are included in the show.
Though she finds it “smart,” journalist Jillian Steinhauer echoes a
common refrain heard among critics,
who wish the museum had jumped into more overlooked art stories
with both feet: “[The] show ultimately feels like a prologue. MoMA
has at last started to appreciate Ms. Saar; now it needs to tell
her full story.” (New York
Times)

A New Map Reimagined as “City of Women” – In their 2016 book
Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, writers Rebecca
Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro refigured a map of New York’s
subway system, replacing stations with the names of famous female
figures. Now, the duo has updated the map for “Navigating New
York,” an exhibition on view at the New York Transit Museum through
January 2020. Among the artists and other art worlders included on
the map are Diane Arbus, Peggy Guggenheim, Emma Sulkowicz, and
Harmony Hammond. (ARTnews)

Greta Thunberg
Handwriting Is Now a Font – The face of climate
activism worldwide has a new typeface. Greta Grotesk, designed
by Tal Shub, is an homage to Thunberg’s Fridays for Future posters,
paralleling lettering on two of her handwritten signs. It’s free to
download. (Cool
Hunting)

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A @gretathunberg #climatestrike #font
#graphicdesign #poster #typography #lettering #handwriting

A post shared by Greta Gortesk Font (@gretagroteskfont) on Sep
21, 2019 at 9:28pm PDT

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