Art Industry News: How a Generation of Black Gallerists Changed Art History + Other Stories

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-lE6pBA6W0/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
Tuesday, April 14.

NEED-TO-READ

Frye Art Museum Workers Claim Union Retaliation –
Employees at the Frye Art Museum in
Seattle gathered in a socially distanced picket line outside the
institution on Friday to protest the termination of a third of the
museum’s staff due to losses sustained from its shutdown. The
protesters claim two representatives from the museum’s newly formed
union were targeted while contract negotiations were underway.
(Hyperallergic)

Italian Museums Are Losing €516 Million a Week –
The ongoing closure of 358 national
museums in Italy is resulting in a total loss of around €516
million ($566 million) a week, according to a new report. National
museums account for 1.6 percent of the country’s GDP, and the
cultural industry employs around 830,000 people. Cultural
associations are asking the government in Italy, one of the
nations hardest hit by the coronavirus, to offer a moratorium on
tax payments, interest on loans, as well as compensation for
exhibitions that were already in the works but unable to open.
(Journal des Arts)

How Three Black-Owned Galleries From the 1960s Changed Art
– T magazine’s entire new culture issue,
centered on families formed by choice, happenstance, or proximity
that went on to change the cultural landscape, is worth a careful
read. One highlight is a feature on three galleries dedicated to
black artists from the 1960s and ’70s, which are now being
recognized as among the most influential of our time. Come for the
exceedingly stylish photographs of the gallery’s founders and
artists; stay for the thrilling tales of how Brockman Gallery and Gallery 32 of Los Angeles
and JAM in New York fostered the careers of the 21st century’s most
important figures, with little support from the mainstream art
world at the time. (New York Times)

The Met’s 150 Anniversary Celebrations Are Interrupted
– The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had
spent years planning an elaborate suite of programming to celebrate
its 150th anniversary this week, including a major exhibition,
“Making the Met 1870–2020.” Instead, of course, its doors are
closed and it is preparing for a massive budgetary shortfall. But
it is still finding ways to celebrate—modestly—with online
programming. “We’re quietly marking the 150th anniversary of this
great institution,” says Daniel Weiss, the Met’s president. “We
will get through this moment. The institution will endure. But it
is not a moment to celebrate a birthday party, that’s for sure.”
(Washington
Post)

ART MARKET

Berlin Galleries Move Art Week Online – Berlin has moved its art week
online with an
initiative titled “Not Cancelled Berlin,” which kicked off on April
11. The website, which aims to offer a virtual slice of the
gallery-hopping experience, includes images of artworks, videos of
conversations, and information about participating artists
contributed by 16
galleries, including Eigen+Art, Klemm’s, Peres Projects, and
neugerriemschneider. (Monopol, Artnet News)

Salon Art + Design Will Take Place as Usual in November –
Most fair announcements in our inboxes these days are about
cancellations or delays, so it was novel to receive word
that New York’s Salon Art +
Design fair is slated to take place as scheduled, from November 19
through 23, at the Park Avenue Armory. Organizers say they are
watching the developments of the current crisis closely but, for
now, have no plans to move the original dates.
(Press
release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Photographer Floris Neusüss Dies at 88 – Floris Neusüss, a pioneer of cameraless
photography known for his ghostly silhouettes, died on April 1 in
Kassel, Germany at age 83. Neusüss’s most famous series, the
“Nudogramms,” produced in the 1960s, features nude female forms
rendered as surreal, haunting specters. (ARTnews)

Collector Ana Patricia Botín Elected to IMF Board –
The Spanish art collector and chair
of Santander bank, Ana Patricia Botín, has been named to the
International Monetary Fund’s new advisory board. The board was
established to respond to the economic impact the coronavirus
crisis is having on the world. (IMF)

Getty Postpones Public Events Through August –
The Getty has announced that it is
postponing all of its public programming through the end of August
because of California’s ban on large gatherings. Its two spaces
have been shuttered since March 14. (ARTnews)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Conservators Update Digital Works for Today’s Browsers –
The Guggenheim’s conservation team
has been working with NYU’s department of computer science to help
conserve computer-based art made for outmoded interfaces. Experts
have been slowly updating digital artworks from 1998 onwards, and
have just completed work on Mark Napier’s
net.flag (2002) to make it accessible on today’s
browsers. (TAN)

Oakland Artist Recreates Famous Works From Home
– The lockdown has proven that people the world over
are passionate about recreating famous
artworks with simple household items—who knew? One of the
latest (and most creative) contributions to the genre comes
courtesy of Oakland artist Carrie Burch, who has developed an
Instagram series,  “imquARTantined,” in which she picks an
iconic portrait off the Internet and remakes the scene at home,
with a 30-minute self-imposed time limit. See the delightful fruits
of her labor below. (San Francisco
Chronicle)

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Gallerists Changed Art History + Other Stories appeared first
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