Art Industry News: How Van Gogh’s Cryptic Handwritten Notes Got Sliced Up and Scattered Around the Globe + 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 Thursday, April
2.

NEED-TO-READ

A Community Museum Gets Going While Shuttered  –
Los Angeles’s Underground Museum remains a beacon of
community engagement in its mainly working class neighborhood
during the lockdown. Co-founded by the late Noah Davis
and his partner, the artist Karen
Davis, the small but vibrant institution has not laid off any
staff, though its gallery and garden has been forced to shutter.
Staff are helping deliver food, continuing the museum’s weekly
meditation program via Instagram, and working to support local
residents. “The Underground Museum has an energy that we are
desperately missing during this quarantine period,” says LACMA
curator Christine Y. Kim. (New York Times)

Columbia MFA Students Demand a Refund – Students in Columbia’s MFA program, which
costs around $68,000 per year, are the latest to demand
tuition refunds after their classes were moved online. In a
pointed open letter, nearly 60 students asked administrators to create an additional
free semester for those who cannot attend their studio courses
because of the lockdown and asked that their degree shows be
rescheduled for the fall. “With its price tag, people understood
that they were paying for programs like mentor week, multiple
exhibitions, and access to top facilities,” one student
said. “Without these things, the entire degree is
compromised. Our classes cannot be translated through a
screen.” (ARTnews)

How Van Gogh’s Handwritten Notes Ended Up Around the
World – Six poems and texts copied by a young Vincent
van Gogh for his landlady were cut up with scissors and distributed
to various owners, according to a new investigation. Half of the
texts—which were dismembered to maximize their financial
value—ended up at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. The
texts came from an album kept by Annie Slade-Jones, Van Gogh’s
landlady in Isleworth, to which she would invite friends to
contribute. After the book sold at auction in 1980, an unidentified
person removed the Van Gogh pages and cut out the individual texts.
Some were later purchased by  Alistair McAlpine, a British
Lord who later sold much of his manuscript collection to the Getty.
(The Art
Newspaper)

Warhol Foundation Offers $1.6 Million in Relief Grants –
The Andy Warhol Foundation has
launched a $1.6 million emergency fund for artists affected by the
coronavirus crisis. The organization has teamed up with its
Regional Re-granting Program partners to offer $100,000 to
organizations in 16 American cities that can be used to help
artists cover living expenses, including food and rent.
“Artists are reporting an
average loss of $3,500 in the next 30 to 60 days,” says Louise
Martorano, the director of Denver’s RedLine Contemporary Art
Center, one of the foundation’s partners. Artists in cities
including Houston, Denver, New Orleans, Cleveland, and Baltimore
are eligible to apply. (The Art Newspaper)

ART MARKET

Blum & Poe Adds Asuka Anastacia Ogawa to Roster –
The LA-based gallery will represent
the young Japanese-Brazilian artist, whom it has
exhibited previously and who already counts Mark
Grotjahn, Henry Taylor, and other blue-chip artists among her
collectors. Blum & Poe will preview online the painter’s new work
from a forthcoming solo exhibition at its currently-closed Tokyo
space. (Press release)

König Galerie Scoops Up Chiharu Shiota
– The Japanese artist
known for her immersive installations of interlocking threads has
joined Kӧnig. Her first solo show will be held at its Berlin space
in January 2021. She was formerly represented by Blain/Southern,
the international gallery
now in administration. (Press release)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Art Collector and Politician Patrick Devedjian Dies of COVID
– The French politician and
museum director has died at age 75 after becoming infected with
COVID-19. Devedjian was due to serve as director of a planned
museum about Louis XIV in Saint Cloud, Le Musée du Grand
Siècle; his death throws into question the future of the
institution. (Bilan)

Layoffs Hit San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora
– MoAD is the latest museum to
lay off staff amid the coronavirus crisis. The small San Francisco
institution has laid off seven members of staff and reduced the
hours of all 11 other employees. “We have been forced to
temporarily close our museum, impacting our already limited
operating funds,” the museum’s director Monetta White explained in
an email to supporters. (KQED)

FOR ART’S SAKE

National Trust Furloughs Thousands of Staff in England –
The heritage conservation charity
has furloughed 80 percent of its more than 14,000 employees in
response to the public health crisis, which has caused a drop in
the Trust’s usual sources of tourist-related income. The remaining
employees of the charity will continue to work on conserving
important buildings and collections. (Press release)

Art Project Captures City Sounds During the Outbreak –
A project called Cities and
Memories is documenting how the soundscape of various cities around
the world has transformed under lockdown conditions. The project
leader, Stuart Fowkes, has been recording city sounds for five
years, and has created an interactive map where you can listen to
field recordings from various locations. “This is a really unique
time when the world is sounding like it’s never sounded before,”
Fowkes says. “In none of our lifetimes has the world ever sounded
like it does right now.” (Guardian)

Museums Share Art to Honor Healthcare Workers –
Museums and galleries including the
MFA Boston, the Bass Museum, and Dayton Art Institute are doing
what they can to spread a little cheer and appreciation for the
hardworking healthcare workers in their communities by posting
artworks from their collections dedicated to the profession on
social media. From Sheila Hicks’s installation inspired by nurses’
blouses to Horace Pippin’s painting of a doctor making house calls,
see a selection below. (Observer)

The post Art Industry News: How Van Gogh’s Cryptic
Handwritten Notes Got Sliced Up and Scattered Around the Globe +
Other Stories appeared first on artnet News.