Art Industry News: To Mark Juneteenth, Portraits of Confederate Leaders Will Be Removed Permanently From the US Capitol Building + 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 Friday, June
19.

NEED-TO-READ

National Trust Comes Out in Favor of Statue Removal –
The National Trust for Historic
Preservation has issued a statement in solidarity with the Black
Lives Matter movement. “[M]ost Confederate monuments were intended
to serve as a celebration of Lost Cause mythology and to advance
the ideas of white supremacy,” the letter states. “Many of them
still stand as symbols of those ideologies and sometimes serve as
rallying points for bigotry and hate today. To many African
Americans, they continue to serve as constant and painful reminders
that racism is embedded in American society.” (Artfix Daily)

Virginia Judge Extends Injunction Blocking Removal of Lee
Statue – A Virginia judge has
extended an injunction that indefinitely blocks the removal of a 130-year-old monument to a Confederate
general Robert E. Lee in Richmond. A lawyer for the defendant, who
is a descendant of the author of the original deed, argued that it
“guaranteed” the commonwealth would care for the statue in
perpetuity. The governor of Virginia had made a motion to have the
controversial monument taken down. (Courthouse News)

DC Capitol to Remove Portraits of Confederate Leaders
– House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi announced that today, on Juneteenth, portraits of four house
speakers who served in the Confederacy will be removed from the
halls of the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Former speakers Robert
Mercer Taliaferro Hunter of Virginia, Howell Cobb of Georgia, James
Lawrence Orr of South Carolina, and Charles Frederick Crisp of
Georgia will be taken down to mark the historic day of emancipation
for the enslaved. “There is no room in the hallowed halls of
Congress or in any place of honor for memorializing men who embody
the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy,”
Pelosi said. (Hyperallergic)

Art History Still Hasn’t Recognized 20th-Century Black Art
– Nell Irvin Painter argues
that images of anti-police brutality created during the social
justice movements of the 1960s have not been appropriately
considered and archived in art history. “Images were central to the
Black Panther Party’s self-fashioning and mark its place in
history,” Painter writes. She looks at the work of Emory Douglas,
graphic designer and minister of culture for the Black Panther
Party, as well as an iconic photo of Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton
at the Black Panther Party headquarters, in Oakland.
(New Yorker)

ART MARKET

Pace and Blum & Poe Pick Up Sonia Gomes – The 72-year-old São Paulo-based artist known
for her intricate wire and textile sculptures will now be
represented in the US and and Asia by Pace and Blum & Poe. She will
continue to work with Mendes Wood DM where she has been represented
for a decade. (ARTnews)

Phillips Offers Fashion Photography Collection –
The auction house is selling 64
works of fashion photography from the collection of art dealer
Peter Fetterman. The sale will be highlighted by Sarah
Moon’s Fashion 4, Yohji
Yamamoto from
1996, which carries a
high estimate of $60,000. (Art Market Monitor)

COMINGS & GOINGS

The Riga Biennial Gets New Public Opening Dates –
The second edition of RIBOCA2, the
Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, will open to the
public from August 20 through September 13 after being postponed
from its original May dates. During opening hours, the biennial
will become a set for a new feature length film co-directed by the
biennial’s chief curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel with Latvian film
director Dāvis Sīmanis, which will reflect on the transformations
of the end of a world. The film will be released in early 2021.
(Press
release)

TEFAF Chairman Steps Down – The art dealer Nanne Dekking has stepped down
from his position as the chairman of the art fair’s executive
committee due to his “overcommitted schedules.” The Dutch Modern
and contemporary art dealer Hidde van Seggelen has replaced Dekking
in the role. (The Art Newspaper)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Leelee Chan Wins BMW Art Journey – The Hong Kong-based artist Leelee Chan, known
for her sculptures made from discarded and neglected material
objects, has won funding for the next BMW Art Journey. For her
proposal “Tokens From Time,” she will visit sites in Europe, Japan,
and the Americas to study ancient craft techniques, and will
explore the science of how natural materials like copper, silver,
and marble, could be replaced by synthetic materials in the future.
(Artforum)

Art Fund Launches Instagram Museum Treasure Hunt –
The UK charity Art Fund has
launched an online treasure hunt through museums’ Instagram pages,
called “Art Find.” While museums are closed, people are encouraged
to discover their collections by following the clues left subtly in
museum social feeds until they get to the end of the trail. The
treasure at the end is a chance to win a goodie bag from
participating museums’ gift shops. (Press release)

The post Art Industry News: To Mark Juneteenth, Portraits of
Confederate Leaders Will Be Removed Permanently From the US Capitol
Building + Other Stories appeared first on artnet
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