ArtCurious News This Week: February 17, 2023
Hello and how are you, ArtCurious listeners! Jennifer here with your short-form news roundup meant to bring you up to date on some of the latest goings-on in the realm of art history. This is ArtCurious News this Week and I’m ready to roll. Today is Friday, February 17, 2023.
This week’s stories:
ArtNews: Vermeer Retrospective Sells Out All Tickets Within Days of Opening
The Art Newspaper: Paris's Centre Pompidou breaks new ground by acquiring 18 NFTs
The Art Newspaper: Mysterious NFT collector—who may actually be the rapper Snoop Dogg—gifts 22 blockchain works to LACMA
ArtNews: New Valentine’s Day Mural by Banksy in British Town Is Partly Removed Hours After Going on View
ArtNews: Four Foundations Commit $5 M. to Create Latinx Art Curatorial Positions at 10 US Art Institutions
ArtNews: Indiana School Proposes Sale of $15 M. Georgia O’Keeffe Painting, Triggering Bitter Pushback
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Episode Transcript
Hi there, everyone, and happy Friday to you! Jennifer here with your short-form news roundup meant to bring you up to date on some of the latest goings-on in the realm of art history. This is ArtCurious News This Week and today is Friday, February 17, 2023.
For today’s first story, it’s the exhibition breaking records left and right, the landmark Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, featuring more paintings by the Dutch master than any other show in history. Just days after the show’s opening, the museum announced that it has sold out of every single currently available ticket to the show. I say “currently available” because the museum did not that they are, quote, “working hard to ensure more people have the opportunity to see the exhibition,” unquote, so for what it’s worth, there might be additional chances to grab tickets in the near future, but the Rijksmuseum is currently staying vague on this. My guess is that they’ll do more late nights and extended hours—maybe even some of those 24-hour extravaganzas where folks can visit the show in the middle of the night. But for now, this is all just speculation. For those of you who were hoping to see the show but hadn’t yet nabbed your tickets, I’m sending my condolences but with a dash of good hope. When the museum releases more tickets—and I’m fairly certain that they will—you can be sure that I’ll announce it here. Stay tuned.
Next up, it was a big week in NFTs. Two major institutions—one in the U.S., and one in Europe—announced that they have acquired several digital works of art. First up is the Centre Pompidou in Paris, who has purchased 18 works as part of the French national collection of modern and contemporary art. Xavier Ray, the director of the Pompidou, points to the museum’s position as a pioneer in so-called “new media” acquisitions since the 1970s, and that their pursuit of NFTs, quote, “reaffirms our support for artists in their conquest of new means of expression, which is the foundation of modern art.” Unquote. Right now, we only know some of the details of the works of art, like the names of a few of the artists, but the Pompidou tells The Art Newspaper that full details of the acquisitions will be announced later this spring. Until then, we’re left only to speculate on the cost of these works of art and how the museum plans to store, display, and conserve these pieces, too.
Following along at practically the same time is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), who announced this week that they, too, have entered into the realm of NFT, Web3, and all that good stuff. On February 13, LACMA revealed that a pseudonymous collector named “Cozomo de’ Medici” has promised a gift of 22 artworks minted on the blockchain by a total of 13 artists. Gotta love an alias that references one of the biggies of Renaissance art patrons. Though “Medici” is an alias, it has been speculated that the donor is none other than the rapper Snoop Dogg, who has been noted in news articles as a longtime proponent of digital art and cryptocurrency. LACMA, like the Pompidou, has a long history of connecting with new media, as well as a long connection with artsy celebrities. The Art Newspaper, in the article about this gift, reminded readers that this is but the next step in LACMA’s acquisition plans to support NFTs and other digital works, noting that a program began last year specifically aimed at acquiring digital art by women artists, which has been funded by none other than Paris Hilton. LACMA is the first museum in the United States to acquire a significant number of these digital works and is surely a sign of things to come in institutions around the world. In a statement, “Cozomo de’ Medici” announced, quote, “With this gift, my goal was to help bridge the worlds of on-chain art and contemporary art, which until now have existed separately. I’m thrilled to have these historically significant on-chain works contextualized beside many iconic works of art in LACMA’s collection.” Unquote.
One more note about contemporary art this week. This week, on Valentine’s Day, Banksy confirmed the authenticity of a mural located in the British town of Margate in Kent. The work, titled “Valentine’s Day Mascara,” presents viewers with an image of a retro housewife sporting an apron and latex gloves, but additionally baring a knocked-out tooth, a black eye, and other signs of domestic abuse. Banksy used three-dimensional, mostly found materials to add to the scene, such as a lawn chair and, most critically, a slightly open chest freezer out of which Banksy painted a pair of men’s legs dangling out, as if the abused wife has disposed of her ne’er-do-well partner therein. It’s a grim, darkly comic mural, but one which speaks to a dire reality, that domestic abuse soared during the pandemic, especially during the lockdown era. Many news articles reporting on the mural have provided domestic abuse hotline phone numbers in their articles, for which I am thankful and I will gladly do the same. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic, violence, you can call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text START at 88788.
But the abuse subject—and the fact that it was created by the notorious and sly Banksy-- is only one of the reasons that the mural made headlines this week. The other part is that only hours after the work of art was revealed and authenticated by Banksy, workers from a local council removed the chest freezer—that critical element—from the space. The reasoning provided in an online statement was that the mural itself—the wall-painted portion—was on private property and was fine to remain, but that the land abutting it was public property, and thus the freezer could be seen as a safety hazard. But just as with the Rijksmuseum story, there seems to be a glimmer of hope here. The statement ended with the following, quote: “The fridge freezer is now in storage and will be returned once it has been made safe to the public. We will be contacting the owner of the property to discuss the options to preserve the artwork for the district.” Unquote.
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Welcome back to ArtCurious, and our News this Week. I’m thrilled to report that a new initiative was established this week by four arts and funding institutions—the Getty Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Terra Foundation, and the Ford Foundation—to support Latinx artists. As part of this initiative, the foundations have pooled together $5 million that they will be providing to 10 U.S. art institutions specifically for the founding of curatorial positions focusing on Latinx Art. Latinx art, like most diverse groups of art and artists, is severely underfunded and underrepresented by museum staff, including curatorial, so this is a hugely welcome program. Some of the institutions that will benefit from these curatorial positions include some larger museums, like the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Newark Museum of Art in New Jersey, and college museums and galleries like the Blanton at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Arizona State University Art Museum. Even better, this is but the second phase of this Latinx initiative—the first phase, which began in 2021, provided $5 million for grants to support Latinx-identifying artists over the next five years. All in all: a great day for art representation in the U.S.
Finally, for our last story, we’re tackling the tricky subject of deaccession. Deaccessioning is the official way to note the process of removing an artwork or object permanently from a museum collection—and this can happen for a variety of reasons, including the piece no longer fitting within a collection’s goals or themes, or to raise funds for other projects, usually to support the purchase of another work of art for the collection. This week, Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, about 40 miles away from Chicago, announced their plan to deaccession several works of art from the Brauer Museum of Art, the university’s on-campus museum, including pieces by Georgia O’Keeffe, Frederic Church, and Childe Hassam. The deaccessioning is planned via the sale of these artworks and is expected to bring in around $15 million, which the university doesn’t use to support the art museum, as you might assume, but instead to fund renovations of several dorms and other residential buildings on campus. And this has caused a HUGE backlash, y’all, and in my little corner of the art world, there was a joint statement produced by several large organizations, like the Association of Art Museum Curators and the Association of Art Museum Directors, condemning the plans—art should not be used as disposable assets, the statement says in part, to fund non-art related goals. This sentiment was echoed by Dick Brauer, the museum’s namesake and founder, who is also the former chair of the university’s art department. Mr. Brauer says he has threatened to have his name removed from the museum if the sale goes through. Faced with such pushback, I’ll be surprised to see this sale go through as planned, but stranger things have happened in the art world, and such sales aren’t without precedent. So this is one of those wait-and-see moments. I hope that Valparaiso comes up with another manner to support their renovations, but I’m guessing that they wouldn’t have gone so far down the art-sale rabbit hole unless they were running low on options. So. Who knows. If and when things chance, you know I’ll update it here. I’ve got your artsy newsy back.
Alright folks, that’s all I have for you today. Thank you so much for listening to ArtCurious News This Week! Just a quick note that I will not be producing a news episode next week as I am giving an in-person lecture in Norfolk, Virginia next week for the Norfolk Society of Arts, so I won’t be at my microphone next week. But I’ll be back in action again in early March. I’m also finishing up the writing of my last few episodes of our upcoming spring season, and I’m looking forward to sharing several all-new episodes with you beginning in April. I’d like to thank you all for your support and for listening today—and until next time, stay curious.
