Art Industry News: Madrid Becomes the Latest City to Shutter Its Museums to Prevent the Spread of Coronavirus + 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, March
12.

NEED-TO-READ

Titian’s Paintings Are Reunited – Titian’s six paintings inspired by Ovid’s
Metamorphoses have been reunited for the first time in 300
years at London’s National Gallery. They were commissioned by King
Philip II of Spain and are now in the collections of the Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and Madrid’s Museo del Prado, along
with the National Gallery in London and the National Galleries of
Scotland, which jointly own Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto. Titian
painted Ovid’s stories as “very adult fairytales,” writes Jonathan
Jones, who thinks the Spanish king could have had “no inkling
Titian was sending him portraits of sex workers under a mythical
guise.” (Guardian)

Catalonia Funds Companies Linked to Arts Conspiracy
Theory – The Catalan government has reportedly
paid €3 million ($3.4 million) in subsidies to media companies
with ties to a body that claims that titans of culture such
as Shakespeare, Cervantes, Columbus, and Leonardo da Vinci
were Catalan. The pro-independence Catalan Left party has urged the
government to stop funding the New History Institute. “It
only serves those who wish to portray us as small, ridiculous and
angry losers,” says the party’s spokesman. (Guardian)

Madrid’s Big Three Art Museums Shutter – The Prado Museum, the Reina Sofía museum of
20th century art, and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza have closed
today as a precaution against coronavirus. The temporary closure is
indefinite. The move comes as the Spanish ministry of culture
shutters all the institutions it oversees in the Spanish capital.
The National Museum of Archaeology, Museo Sorrolla, and Museum of
Romanticism are among the other institutions closed until further
notice to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which was officially
deemed a pandemic by the World Health Organization on Wednesday. To
remain connected with its audience, the Prado has announced that it
will begin live-streaming tours of the collection, among other
digital initiatives. (TeleMadrid)

Advocates Raise Money for Artists in Seattle –
The author Ijeoma Oluo has launched
a relief fund for artists in Seattle—the city hardest hit in the
United States by COVID-19—who have been impacted by cancellations
resulting from the outbreak. The fund, called Seattle Artists
Relief, has raised more than $40,000 since Monday, and Oluo is
reviewing applications from artists requesting amounts ranging from
$50 to $7,000. (Hyperallergic)

ART MARKET

Donald Marron Exhibition Is Postponed – The exhibition in New York of the late art collector’s blue-chip works will
not take place in May as
planned because of coronavirus. The joint organizers of the show,
Acquavella, Gagosian, and Pace, said in a statement that doubts
over securing loans from institutions and private collections meant
that the Marron show has had to be postponed to a to-be-determined
date. (FT)

UK Budget Opens the Door to Freeports – The UK’s
new chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak is as big a fan of freeports as his boss, Boris
Johnson. In Sunak’s
first budget, which was dominated by coronavirus, he gave the green
light to 10 freeports across the UK. He also scrapped the purchase
tax on books and magazines, which should please art
publishers. (TAN)

Paris Fairs Scramble Dates – Paris’s drawing fair, Salon du Dessin Contemporain, has been
postponed until late May. The Salon du Dessin, which is due to open
at the end of this month, is consulting stakeholders about possibly
moving its dates. For a continually updated list of cultural events
impacted by COVID-19, check back with us
here. (TAN)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Egypt’s Oldest Pyramid Reopens to the Public –
A 4,700-year-old pyramid built for
the tomb pharaoh Djoser is once more open to the public after a
restoration project that took 14 years and cost $6.6 million.
The more than 200-foot-tall structure is the oldest pyramid still
standing and contains some three miles of passages within it.
(Smithsonian)

V&A Buys a Brooch Found by a Detectorist –
The Victoria & Albert Museum has
acquired a brooch that was uncovered on farmland in
Northamptonshire by a plucky metal detectorist. The V&A
declined to reveal the price of the piece, which will sit next to
Queen Victoria’s crown in its jewelry display, but it said that the
rare medieval diamond and gold brooch was “priceless.”
(BBC)

First AES+F Artist Residency Awarded –
The Russian artist collective AES+F
has named the Chechen artist Aslan Goisum as the first resident
at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New
York. The residency, which will run three months from May, is
awarded to emerging artists from the Russian Federation. (Press
release)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Is Kickstarter Shadow Banning This Sex-Positive Feminist
Graphic Novel? – The comic
artist Lynsey G. has mounted a protest against Kickstarter,
claiming the crowdfunding platform has censored her sex-positive
feminist graphic novel Tracy Queen. She alleges that the
platform has “shadow banned” her campaign, which is a subtle tactic
used by social-media sites to partially block users who post
objectionable content without them knowing it. (Women Write
About Comics)

Sydney Biennale Goes Ahead – These days, art events that are happening as
planned are more unusual than those that are delayed or called off.
And the Sydney Biennale is slated to open on schedule on March 14
despite the growing threat of COVID-19. The 22nd edition of the
biennale includes 101 artists and features, among other projects, a
large installation by the Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama.
Organizers say they will be monitoring the public health situation
on a daily basis. (Twitter)

The post Art Industry News: Madrid Becomes the Latest City
to Shutter Its Museums to Prevent the Spread of Coronavirus + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.