Art Industry News: The Restoration of Notre Dame Enters a Hair-Raisingly Perilous Stage + 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, January
2.

NEED-TO-READ

Marciano Worker Files Suit Over
Layoffs – Former employees of
the now-shuttered Marciano Art Foundation are suing the private
museum in Los Angeles. Lawyers accuse the foundation of breaking a
state law that requires notice before mass layoffs.
Guess clothing tycoons Paul and
Maurice Marciano abruptly closed
their museum amid a labor dispute in
November, laying off
around 70 members of staff. The brothers claimed their decision was
due to “low attendance.” Former staffers are now seeking damages of
at least 60 days’ back pay, plus the value of lost benefits.
(New York Times)

Yinka Shonibare Will Launch Artists’ Residencies in Lagos
– The British-Nigerian
artist Yinka Shonibare has long wanted to offer artist residencies in
Lagos, as he has for years in London. Now, his Guest Artist Spaces
Foundation plans to open a space in his home country that
will include a gallery,
a studio, and accommodations for emerging and established African
artists. Fellow
artists El Anatsui, Njideka
Akunyili Crosby, Olafur Eliasson, and Antony Gormley have been
enlisted as trustees and advisers to the foundation. Phillips is
due to hold a fundraising auction for the initiative in London in
May. (Artforum)

Notre Dame Is Still in Danger –
The restoration of the Paris
cathedral has reached a critical stage, in which steel beams need
to be installed to stabilize the structure and a tower of
scaffolding fused in the fire in April has to be
removed. The
scaffolding, which was erected before the blaze, must be treated
for lead contamination before specialists—suspended aloft by
ropes—can cut it away. Once this perilous step is complete, they
will construct a temporary roof, called the “grand parapluie” (or large umbrella), over the nave. No final
decision has yet been made about the design of the cathedral’s lost
spire. (The Art Newspaper)

French Court Upholds Decision Against Jeff Koons –
An appeals court in France has
upheld a ruling against the American artist and the Centre Pompidou
for copying the photograph by the late French artist
Jean-François Bauret to create his 1988 porcelain
sculpture, Naked. The court concluded that the original 2017
plagiarism ruling was correct, and that the artist and the museum
must pay $22,000 to the
artist’s family. This isn’t
the first time the series has gotten Koons in hot
water. (Observer)

ART MARKET

France Blocks Export of Old Master Discovered in a Kitchen
– French museums have 30 months
to try to buy Cimabue’s Christ Mocked (around 1290). The French government has placed
a temporary export bar on the medieval painting, which was
discovered hanging in a kitchen and then sold at auction for $26.8
million in October.
(ARTnews)

Crystal Bridges Acquires Work by Women – Crystal Bridges has announced a number of
acquisitions of work by female artists ahead of the planned opening
of its contemporary art
space, Momentary, in
February. New additions to the collection include Amy Sherald’s
monumental painting Precious jewels by the sea
(2019), which was part of her debut exhibition at
Hauser & Wirth last year, plus pieces by Marie Watt, Lorraine O’Grady, and Dyani White
Hawk. (Artfix Daily)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Head of the Musée du Quai Branly
Steps Down – After 21 years at
the helm, Stéphane Martin is departing this month as the president
of the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac. The director of
Paris’s ethnography museum was one of the few
museum directors who pushed back publicly against President Macron’s pledge to return
looted art to Africa.
(Le Monde)

Skywriting Artist Steve Poleskie
Has Died – The self-taught
artist and (presumably not self-taught) pilot, who turned
skywriting into performance art, has died at the age of 81. In his
aerial theater performances, he flew an aerobatic biplane, trailing
smoke, through a series of flips and turns to create a design in
the sky. He once said that he used his plane as a pencil.
(Artforum)

Video Artist Woody Vasulka Has Died
– The pioneering video artist,
who turned surplus military hardware into forward-thinking new
media installations, has died at age 82. Vasulka was also the
co-founder of New York’s avant-garde art space the Kitchen.
(New York Times)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Trove of Gold Coins Is Discovered
in Israel – Israeli
archaeologists have discovered a hoard of 9th-century gold coins in
a clay pot—or, as we’d like to think of it, an ancient piggy
bank—in the city of Yavneh in Israel. Most of the coins date
from the period of the early Abbasid Caliphate, which was based in
Baghdad. (Daily Mail)

Arts Council Says Artists Should
Get Money Earlier in Their Careers – The head of England’s arts funding body,
Nicholas Serota, says the organization is retooling its strategy to
offer more grants of up to $20,000 for artists, writers, and
composers early in their careers. It doesn’t need to be a lot of
money to make a difference, Serota says: “Maybe £10,000 to £15,000
to get help and on their way…it makes a difference at the right
moment.” (Guardian)

Ivanka and Jared Snap a Mona Lisa
Photo – America’s “First
Daughter” Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner posed with the
Mona Lisa
in a conspicuously uncrowded Musée
du Louvre over the holidays. (For the record, her hat also looks
quite similar to one that America’s unofficial first lady, Beyoncé,
wore to take the same
photo in 2014.) The presidential advisor—who has had a rocky relationship
with the art world—also
marked the end of the decade posing in front of the giant clock at
the Musée d’Orsay. (Daily Mail)

The post Art Industry News: The Restoration of Notre Dame
Enters a Hair-Raisingly Perilous Stage + Other Stories appeared
first on artnet News.