Art Industry News: Collectors Will Send an Artwork Into Space on a Mission to Measure Climate Change in Africa + Other Stories

Art Industry News is normally a daily digest of the most
consequential developments coming out of the art world and art
market. Here’s what you need to know this Tuesday, August
6.

NEED-TO-READ

Steve Locke on Why He Withdrew His Boston Sculpture –
The artist Steve Locke has written
an op-ed for the Boston Globe spelling out
exactly why he is no longer creating a public work of
art at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall. The artist said that his work—a memorial
evoking an auction block that would acknowledge the Faneuil
family’s role in the city’s slave trade—had been “mischaracterized
and maligned” by people who had other agendas, including renaming
the marketplace building. “I saw my work being weaponized in order
to promote the notion that the city did not care about having an
engaged dialogue about race, that I was the ‘house negro’ pawn of a
white mayor.” He hopes another artist will be able to find a way to
memorialize the “stolen lives” of generations of enslaved African
Americans bought and sold at the site. (Boston Globe)

Harry and Meghan Add Art to Their New Home – The Queen has offered the Duke and Duchess of
Sussex works from the Royal Art Collection to decorate the
newlyweds’ home. While the titles of the works have not been
revealed, the photographer Richard Wilson dropped a big hint via
Instagram that his image of the race car driver Lewis Hamilton at
the British Grand Prix is heading to Frogmore Cottage. The
photographer boasted that a poster-sized framed aluminum print was
ready to be shipped to a “Royal household.” The nearly $3 million
cost to taxpayers of revamping the 10-bedroom house near Windsor
Castle has raised eyebrows. The Sussexes are paying for the decor,
however, enlisting the help of designers of the Soho House
hotel-and-club chain. (Observer)

African Art Heads to Space to Call Attention to Global
Warming – It sounds like the plot of a movie: The French collectors and philanthropists
Matthias and Gervanne Leridon have hatched a plan to launch a work
of art by an African artist into space in 2021. The work will be
attached to the nose of an an Ariane 5 launcher carrying a
satellite that will
collect meteorological data on the affect of climate change on
Africa. The Leridons, who have funded touring art exhibitions,
three libraries, and performances in refugee camps in Africa,
presented the idea to a trio of organizations that launch
meteorological satellites last year. A panel of experts tasked with
choosing an artist has drawn up a 60-name-strong list and invited
candidates to submit ideas by September. (The Art
Newspaper)

Teenager Charged With Attempted Murder of French Tourist at
Tate Modern – A 17-year-old has
been charged with attempted murder after a six-year-old
French tourist was
allegedly thrown from the Tate Modern’s viewing balcony over the
weekend. The child, who
fell five floors onto a gallery roof, is reported to be in a
critical but stable condition. The victim was visiting the gallery
with his mother. The teenage suspect is due to appear in a youth
court today. Police are appealing for witnesses to the incident,
which happened on Sunday afternoon when the gallery was crowded.
The 10th-story viewing platform remains closed to the
public. (BBC) 

ART MARKET

Alexander McQueen’s Charity Teams Up With
the LAPADA Fair – The Sarabande Foundation, which was set up by the
estate of the fashion designer, has joined forces with LAPADA art
and antiques fair to hold a charity auction and offer limited
edition jewelry inspired by McQueen. In September, the London fair
will also host a stand featuring work made by artists and designers
who have benefitted from the foundation’s scholarships.
(Press release)

Frye Art Museum Snags Work at the Seattle Art Fair –
The Frye Art Museum acquired four
new works for its collection from the Seattle Art
Fair, using $50,000 set aside for this purpose as part of a
two-year partnership with the fair. Works by Jeffry Mitchell, Ko
Kirk Yamahira, Mary Ann Peters, and Anthony White are now headed to
the Frye. (Artforum)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Brooklyn Academy of Music Commissions Public Art
– Three prominent Brooklyn-based artists—Teresita
Fernández, Hank Willis Thomas, and Leo Villareal—will create new
site-specific installations for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The
commissions are made possible by a $3.5 million gift from Robert
Wilson’s charitable trust made in 2015. (Villareal already has one
installation on the campus, “Stars,” and will create two additional
LED light installations.) The new works—plus one commission yet to
be announced—will be unveiled over the next two years. (New York
Times)

Pérez Art Museum Miami Gets Major Gift of Self-Taught Artists
– The art collector and scholar
Gordon W. Bailey has gifted the Florida museum 46 artworks. The
donation brought mostly new names to the collection, including work
by southern artists Sam
Doyle, Purvis Young, Thornton Dial, Herbert Singleton, Clementine
Hunter, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Minnie Evans, Roy Ferdinand, Lonnie
Holley, and Leroy Almon. (Art
Daily)

Ogunquit Museum Gets a Major Gift – Board member Ann Ramsay-Jenkins is gifting the
Ogunquit Museum in Maine nearly $2 million for its endowment, the
largest donation the museum has received since its founding gift
and collection. Ramsay-Jenkins is a co-founder of the College
Success Foundation, which provides scholarships for low-income
students. (Press Herald)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Steve McQueen Billboard Initiative Is Underway –
As part of an exhibition organized
with Tate Britain, the artist Steve McQueen is photographing Year 3
elementary school pupils (who are around seven or eight years old)
across London, and will post the photographs on hundreds of
billboards around the city in the first two weeks of November. To
date, McQueen has photographed more than 1,500 classes from all
parts of the capital, in both public and private schools.
(The Art Newspaper)

Anish Kapoor Banned From Art Store Over Vantablack Battle
– Artist and curator
Stuart Semple is still not over Anish Kapoor getting the exclusive
rights to Vantablack,
the “blackest black” paint. Customers hoping to buy Semple’s
retaliatory “pinkest pink” at Semple’s Art Shop must confirm that
they are not Anish Kapoor, or working for him—though that didn’t
stop Kapoor from getting his hands on some anyway and taunting
Semple via a rude Instagram
post. Since then, Semple has upped “security measures” at
his store, asking everyone who enters to sign a declaration “to
ensure they will not share my creations with Kapoor or his
associates.” (iNews)

New Dinosaur Species Found Hiding in Plain Sight at a Museum
– Scientists have discovered a
new species of dinosaur by re-examining bones that were mislabeled
in a South African museum for 30 years. New research shows that the
200 million-year-old fossilized bones (including a near-complete
skull) previously identified by Johannesburg’s Evolutionary Studies
Institute as Massospondylus are actually a brand new species and
genus that has been named Ngwevu intloko. (Guardian)

Artist Richard Woods Turns the UK’s Housing Crisis Into Land
Art – The sculptor, whose work
comments on the UK’s chronic shortage of affordable homes, has
teased on Instagram that he is about to install an enormous drawing
of one of his famous houses at Yorkshire Sculpture Park on
Saturday. He’s looking for volunteers to help map out the enormous
plot of Estate, which is set to measure 70,000 square feet.
The line drawing made with black fabric is designed to be seen from
the air or on Google Maps.  (Press
release)

The post Art Industry News: Collectors Will Send an Artwork
Into Space on a Mission to Measure Climate Change in Africa + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.