Art Industry News: Meet the Multitalented Young Artist Who’s Now the Breakout Star of ‘Uncut Gems’ + Other Stories

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, January
6.

NEED-TO-READ

Six People Arrested for
Suspected Fontainebleau Heist – Five Spaniards and one
Chinese citizen were detained on December 29 in France after being
accused of having planned the theft of valuable items from the
Chinese Museum of the Castle of Fontainebleau in the south of Paris
back in 2015. The six suspects have been known to the police
for other robberies and drug trafficking in Spain. They are now in
jail awaiting trial. (El Pais)

Louvre Attendance Dips Despite Leonardo – The Louvre’s attendance dipped slightly in 2019
after a record year in 2018. Visitor numbers fell to 9.6 million,
down from 10.2 million, despite the Paris museum opening
its blockbuster
Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the end of
October. The museum’s
director, Jean-Luc Martinez, explained that since the summer, the
Louvre has aimed to cap attendance at around one million visitors a
month in an effort to improve the experience at the notoriously
crowded institution. He urges people to book their tickets online
to avoid being turned away at the door. (RTBF)

The Breakout Star of Uncut Gems Is Also
an Artist – Before Julia Fox
became a breakout star in the cult film Uncut
Gems (which also includes another art-world
cameo), she was a visual artist. One solo
show featured her
paintings on silk colored with her own blood. The 29-year-old’s
career portfolio includes stints as a dominatrix, author, fashion
designer, and photographer. Fox was also one of the women who called
out the artist Chuck
Close for alleged sexual misconduct during a photo shoot. (He apologized for
inappropriate behavior.) “You have to use your pain as your gift,” Fox
says. “If you’re able to take something really negative and
repackage it as something positive, you’ve nailed it.”
(Hollywood Reporter)

Was the Dresden Heist an Inside Job? – An Israeli security company investigating the
heist at Dresden’s Green
Vault has turned its inquiry inward, scrutinizing the museum’s
own security staff, the German newspaper Bild reports. The CGI Group has passed on information to
German police that indicates the audacious theft could have been an
inside job. Bild quotes an unnamed source who claims that cell
phone data and camera footage show that a museum employee “passed
security-relevant information to one of the suspects.” The
diamond-encrusted objects stolen in the heist, including the $12 million Dresden
White diamond, are still missing. (Telegraph)

ART MARKET

Outsider Art Fair Will Showcase Famous Artists’ Picks
– Want to collect like
your favorite artists? Then buy outsider art. From January 16 to
January 19, New York’s Outsider Art Fair will present a selection
of work by self-taught artists collected by the lines of
Maurizio Cattelan, Nicole Eisenman,
Jenny Holzer, Nicolas Party, Cindy Sherman, and Laurie Simmons,
among others. The star artists are lending paintings, sculptures,
and other works by artists including Vahakn Arslanian, Morton
Bartlett, Hawkins Bolden, and Eugene Von
Bruenchenhein. (Artfix Daily)

An Artist Tries to Recreate Cattelan’s Banana at Another
Fair – If you missed the opportunity to buy an
edition of Maurizio
Cattelan’s Comedian at Art Basel Miami
Beach, never fear: another artist has taken the liberty of
creating his own version, on sale now at the 32nd Las Olas Art
Fair in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The work by Roy Rodriguez is
available for $100,000—which is $20,000 less than Cattelan’s, but
quite a bit for a little-known artist. No word on whether Rodriguez
has gotten a buyer to bite. (WSVN)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Curator Christoph Vitali
Has Died – The well-known Swiss
curator, who led the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, the Haus der
Kunst in Munich, and the Fondation Beyeler in Basel over the course
of his long career, died in Zurich on December 18. Vitali, who has
been called the “Maestro of all art managers” for his many
leadership roles, was 79.  (Artforum)

Steve Martin Donates to
an Unlikely Museum – The American art
collector, comedian, and banjo enthusiast donated a unique banjo
with his name inscribed to the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma
City. Martin—who has organized shows and donated works to art
institutions including the Hammer and the MFA Boston—was inducted
into the banjo museum’s Hall of Fame in 2015. (KJRH)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Medical Experts Help
Solve an Art-Historical Mystery – Secrets lying
inside a significant 20th-century mask from the Ivory Coast have
been revealed through an unlikely process: a CT scan. The male
ceremonial Senufo helmet mask contains tree pods and skeletal
remains from a small lizard, among other probably symbolic
materials. The piece is the central focus of the exhibition “Not
Visible to the Naked Eye: Inside a Senufo Helmet Mask” at the
Dallas Museum of Art, on view until March 2021. (The Art Newspaper)

Russell Crowe Calls for Action Against Wildfires Raging
in Australia – The art collector and actor
used his “on-screen moment” at the Golden Globes on Sunday to call
attention to the bushfires in Australia. “The tragedy in
Australia is based on climate change,” said Crowe, who had actor
Jennifer Aniston read out his acceptance speech while he remained
in Australia with his family because of the fire. “We must act on
the basis of scientific evidence, convert our global workforce to
renewable energy and learn to respect our planet as the unique and
wonderful place it is,” he said. (Monopol)

Should the Isabella Stewart Gardner Raise the Reward for
Missing Art? – A Dutch art
detective has criticized the FBI and the Boston museum for
its strategy to
recover the stolen art in America’s most notorious
heist. There is
currently a $10 million reward for the recovery of all 13 Old
Masters stolen in 1990. Art detective Arthur Brand thinks that
there should be rewards for individual works instead, and that
there should be no restriction on the works’ condition. However,
the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s director of security, Antony
Amore, dismissed Brand’s suggestions, which he first made on social
media. Amore told the Boston Herald: “We have no comment on some guy’s [bleeping] Twitter.” To refresh your memory (have you seen them?), take a look
at some of the works at large below. (Boston Herald)

The post Art Industry News: Meet the Multitalented Young
Artist Who’s Now the Breakout Star of ‘Uncut Gems’ + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.