THE HEADLINES

RECORD CHARDIN. A Jean Siméon Chardin still-life painting The Sliced Melon sold to a European collector for a record $28.7 million (€26.7 million), more than twice its high $12.9 million estimate (€12 million) estimate at Christie’s on Wednesday, according to French reports. The painting was shown at France’s official Salon in 1761, the same year as another much-talked-about Chardin painting of a basket of strawberries, which sold two years ago for $26 million with fees, and is now in the Louvre’s collection, thanks to a public funding campaign and private donations.

SOTHEBY’S DOWNGRADE. The S&P has downgraded Sotheby’s debt to B-minus from B, due to a 22 percent revenue drop and higher costs in the first quarter of 2024, reports The Wall Street Journal. The company’s bond prices have dropped about 8 percent in a month, as concerns mount over whether it can refinance loans by 2026. Revenue fell as Sotheby’s launched a new fee structure to boost margins, just as costs rose as larger consignor advances and sales exhibition expenses raised costs. “Despite the hit to both its top and bottom lines, Sotheby’s continues to pay shareholder dividends, doling out $8.5 million in the first quarter and $90 million last year, according to S&P,” reports the WSJ.

THE DIGEST

The newly launched Artists & Mothers grants aims to help New York–based artists with their childcare needs. The inaugural winner is Carissa Rodriguez, who last month opened her first institutional solo exhibition in Europe. [ARTnews]

Ukrainian artist and musician Artur Snitkus, 36, was killed in combat near Donetsk. His death comes amid intense fighting in eastern Ukraine against the Russian military offensive. Snitkus was described as an “icon of [the] Ukrainian queer underground,” by arts worker Natalia Martynenko. [The Art Newspaper]

British actor Stephen Fry compared the removal of the Parthenon marbles from Greece to the hypothetical scenario of the Nazis stealing the Arc de Triomphe while they occupied France. Speaking on Australian TV, he said it would be “classy” for the British Museum to return the sculptures. [The Guardian]

Influential figures in France’s art scene have signed a petition arguing the planned closing of Paris’ Centre Pompidou for renovation is a “serious error.” Former Pompidou president Alain Seban, art critic Nicolas Bourriaud, the artists Daniel Buren and Gérard and Elisabeth Garouste, are among those who signed the letter published in Le Figaro, and arguing for alternatives to a total museum closure, which they say would give private art institutions a competitive advantage. Rather, they insist closing individual floor sections as they are renovated is a doable alternative. [AFP and Le Figaro]

Later this month, at a Sotheby’s modern and contemporary sale in London, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 triptych Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict, will head to auction for the second time in three years, for an estimated value that is half its price two years ago. Christie’s estimated it was worth $30 million in 2022, but withdrew it, and now Sotheby’s estimates it is worth $15 to $20 million. [ARTnews]

The entertainment company Live Nation has cut ties with Barclays, after a number of artists pulled out of their events in protest against the bank’s tie to Israeli defense industries. [The National]

The Center for Italian Modern Art (Cima) in Manhattan, announced it will close permanently June 22. Its current exhibition about the Italian experimental artist and novelist Nanni Balestrini will be the last. [The Art Newspaper]

The Picasso museum in Paris has launched an online archive of artworks, photos, and other memorabilia from the artist, many of which have never been shown, ahead of a dedicated study center set to open near the museum later this year. [RFI]

Performance art has gained popularity in Hong Kong, particularly among younger audiences hungry for lived experiences, and despite the region’s new national security laws reducing freedom of expression. [South China Morning Post]

THE KICKER

LOST IN THE ALGORITHM. Social media algorithms influence what is blasted on our screens, and as Kate Brown examines for Artnet News, it is also shaping how performance artists work—whether consciously or not—along with what versions of their creations we are experiencing online. The costs can be significant. “More and more, their content finds traction if it makes sense to us in under ten seconds. What gets buried and seen is tightly bound up in what fits into the rules of virality,” writes Brown of performance art in particular, which she says has been booming thanks to Instagram’s latest reel-era. As a result, a repeated recipe for viral success increasingly risks dictating creative output, leaving little room for nuance and depth, which, even when initially embedded in the work, are edited out of online clips, argues Brown. “Social media has, at the same time, made a lot of artists a lot of money and brought the art world new levels of attention. But it is worth asking if it is pushing forward the medium,” she writes, “… if performance art follows the push of the algorithms and is formed and made anew under virtual logic, then it can risk, like painting did, to become equalized and rendered average in the face of the flattened feed, to fade into ambient buzz.”

THE HEADLINES

SUSPECTS SOUGHT. An investigation is underway into the vandalism of the home of Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak. Per images shared on X by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, red paint was splashed across the front door and windows of Pasternak’s home. Between two columns, a banner was hung that read: “Anne Pasternak / Brooklyn Museum / White Supremacist Zionist,” an apparent reference to her institution’s ties to Israel. The residences of several Brooklyn Museum board trustees were also reportedly targeted. The vandalism follows a pro-Palestine protest at the museum on May 31 that saw approximately 1,000 demonstrators occupy its front lawn. Amid a heavy (and, later, heavily criticized) police presence, at least 34 demonstrators were arrested. In the case of Wednesday’s vandalism, Adams has vowed to find and “bring the criminals responsible here to justice.”

MEANWHILE, IN SWITZERLAND. While the art world eagerly takes stock of exhibitor sales at Art Basel, we’ve compared the wares of the 285 galleries on hand to determine the can’t-miss booths. Among the standouts are Sfeir-Semler Gallery, with exquisite masks by Egyptian artist Wael Shawky; Lisa Brice’s cobalt-blue riff on Gustave Courbet at Sadie Coles HQ; and a buzzy spread of textile works—some you can even sit inside!—at Meyer Riegger. Meanwhile in the Feature sector, dedicated to works made in the 20th century, São Paulo’s Almeida & Dale has debuted with pieces by Brazilian master Heitor dos Prazeres, who is well overdue recognition beyond his home country. Check out the full roundup here.

THE DIGEST

Hamja Ahsan, a British artist and curator, is facing prosecution from German authorities over 2022 social media posts that allegedly insult two German politicians, a violation under German law. The posts were made while he was in Germany as a participating artist in Documenta 15. [The Art Newspaper]

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has announced two significant leadership changes: Dee Minnite, the current interim chief collections, exhibitions, and design officer, will now permanently take up the role. Meanwhile, Sheila Shin has been promoted from chief experience officer to chief operating officer. [SF Chronicle]

A new study of ancient DNA from the remains of 64 people who were sacrificed at the Maya city of Chichén Itzá has led archaeologists to conclude that the vast majority of the remains belonged to men, upending popular (and, as the study notes, rather lurid) notions that the Maya only sacrificed young maidens. [CNN]

Pritzker Prize–winner Fumihiko Maki, the architect of elegant, understated buildings in his native Japan and the United States, has died at 95. [The New York Times] 

A Davenport couple has donated $14 million worth of art to Iowa’s Figge Art Museum, in what the institution has dubbed a “transformative” gift. [KWQC]

More than 100 years after the birth of Yannis Gaitis, one of Greece’s most prominent modern artists, the country is set to open the first museum dedicated to his legacy. [Ekathimerini]

THE KICKER

SERIOUSLY SILLY. Can’t make (or can’t afford) Coachella? Fear not, there’s always Clownchella. Rob Goyanes, writing for the Paris Review , compares the two events, the latter of which he actually attended. Coachella is a luxe music and art festival in California for see-and-be-seen social media users. Clownchella is a one-night clown festival consisting of five acts and costing 16 bucks. Goyanes, who’d long figured the history of clowning “had reached its terminus,” was tipped off to a “diverse and burgeoning clown scene” in Los Angeles that is revitalizing the form. He’d expected the conventional clown, red-nosed circus denizens, but the offerings were startlingly eclectic—and serious about silliness. The night reportedly ended with a session of “goat yoga,” in which the whole audience performed yoga while “goats jumped on people’s backs and ran around, chewed on people’s hair and pissed on the stage.” Mark your calendars for 2025.

THE HEADLINES

UNDER REVIEW. The Academy of Museum Motion Pictures in Los Angeles announced Monday that it will revise an exhibit on Hollywood Jewish History following backlash, as first reported in the New York Times. The exhibition, titled “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital,” opened on May 19, and was swiftly met with criticism from a group Jewish activists for its portrayal of Jewish studio founders, which some described as antisemitic. An open letter from United Jewish Writers, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter on Monday, protested the use of the words “tyrant,” “oppressive,” “womanizer” and “predator” in the show’s wall text. Some cultural critics pushed back against these detractors, noting that those descriptions were apt when applied to certain Hollywood figures who had mixed legacies. For its part, the museum has said in a statement that it “will be implementing the first set of changes immediately — they will allow us to tell these important stories without using phrasing that may unintentionally reinforce stereotypes.” 

GRAZE AND GAZE. The world’s largest art fair, Art Basel, is upon us, and the guides to must-see shows, guesses to what wares will be offered, and artist spotlights are rolling in. ARTnews’s Devorah Lauter journeyed to the bucolic outskirts of the Swiss city for a feature on the Basel Social Club, which she describes as an “art fair–cum–social gathering” set on 50 acres of farmland in Bruderholz, where cows graze between installations by Tomás Saraceno and David Medalla, among others. The Art Newspaper, meanwhile, took the party indoors, as its reporter attended the swanky dinner for the imminent art crowd at a one-off eatery at an old water reservoir in the heart of Basel. The menu included mussels served with tarragon and ginger, apparently.

THE DIGEST

A former Vatican employee has been arrested for trying to sell a manuscript by Gian Lorenzo Bernini that he allegedly stole from an official archive of the Holy See. The suspect was busted as part of a major sting operation. [The Art Newspaper]

Hundreds of protestors staged a die-in on the streets outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to protest the mass casualties in Gaza. Between the bodies, a monumental Palestinian flag was unfurled. [Al Jazeera]

In his sterling review of the exhibition “I Saw It: Francisco de Goya, Printmaker,” at the Norton Simon Museum, Christopher Knight likens the show to a balm for the “criminality, outrageous racism, gaslighting, antediluvian misogyny, pedestrian hatreds, cruel religiosities, [and] fascist violence” prevalent in American politics in recent years. This is the museum’s first presentation of all four of Goya’s main print series; it sounds like a must-see. [Los Angeles Times]

A new museum dedicated to TV sci-fi memorabilia is set for Santa Monica. Aptly called Sci-Fi World, the institution was conceived by the nonprofit called the New Starship Foundation, and boasts the support of Star Trek alumni William Shatner and George Takei. [Deadline] 

Archaeologists have unearthed around 19,000 artifacts dating to the Middle Stone Age, at a “once-in-a-decade” excavation site in the United Kingdom. [Newsweek]

The American Institute of Architects is under scrutiny after 22 past presidents of the AIA signed letters containing claims of misconduct against the organization’s executive vice president and chief executive officer, Lakisha Ann Woods. The letters accuse current leaders of “potential misspending, nepotism, cronyism, and the pursuit of personal gain.” [Bloomberg]

Oxford University will return a 500-year-old bronze sculpture of a Hindu poet and saint to India, the university’s Ashmolean Museum said. [AP News]

AY CARAMBA. The British Museum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, even the Louvre—each institution has been the target of a headline-dominating art heist, but are authorities overlooking an active thieving ring operating in plain sight, albeit in a humbler venue? Taco Bell—yes, the fast-food chain—has an art collection, and it’s been disappearing since at least 2015. In one incident at a Taco Bell in Westlake, Ohio, a thief pulled an acrylic painting, created by artist Mark T. Smith on commission and worth $800, right off the wall and walked out, to the shock of staff. (Though that location admittedly has bad luck: “It’s caught fire, they had somebody crash into it and it caught fire. That place is kind of jinxed,” Westlake police captain Guy Turner told Artnet.) The stolen paintings have been spotted for sale on online marketplaces, where a bundle of two or three could bring in thousands of dollars. When will the madness end? Justice for Taco Bell, we say. 

THE HEADLINES

CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. More details are emerging about the sudden closure of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts (UArts), whose last day of operation was on June 8. Students and faculty only learned of the shuttering days one week prior. Local publications report that 600 staffers were laid off during a conference call that Friday, with some given the option to work until the end of the month. UArts management, which said low enrollment and an unsalvageable financial situation contributed to the school’s decision to shutter, has since been hit with a class action lawsuit by nine of its employees, who have accused leadership of withholding wages for hours worked and unused vacation time. That same week, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and state lawmakers announced an investigation into the circumstances of the closures, as well as “any transfer or loss of assets.” Even the governor has weighed in, saying he was “angry and disappointed” about the closure, which has left roughly 1,000 students to an uncertain fate.

UNION DRIVE. After weeks of contentious campaigning, workers at Glenstone, a private art museum founded by billionaire collectors Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales, have voted to form a union. A group of 89 hourly-wage workers will begin the bargaining process with museum management. Elizabeth Shaw, a union organizer employed as a grounds and visitor experience liaison, told the Washington Post that Glenstone workers are willing to move past the weeks of “animosity and hurt” prior to the election as they sit down at the bargaining table. With this action, Glenstone joins a host of museums to see successful union drives in recent years. The same week as the Glenstone vote, employees of the American Folk Art Museum in New York voted unanimously to join UAW Local 2110, which represents some of the nation’s leading art institutions.

THE DIGEST

The Financial Times took the temperature on Neuroaesthetics, a relatively new field of science (the term was coined in 1999) that studies cognitive responses to aesthetic stimuli. According to the science, our brains innately crave beauty, though researchers are still seeking the an answer to why. [Financial Times]

A metal detectorist has unearthed a 1,000-year-old silver ingot from the Viking Age on the Isle of Man. Like an upstanding citizen, he promptly relinquished it to local heritage authority, which dubbed the discovery a “treasure.” [Live Science]

For the first time, Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhône has returned to Arles, the French city where the famous painting was made in 1888. The work is on loan from Paris’s Musée d’Orsay for the exhibition “Van Gogh and the Stars,” which features some 78 historical and contemporary artists and runs through September 8. [Design Boom]

The Italian government is at work on a new “mega museum” that will purportedly be “the biggest cultural infrastructure in Europe.” The museum will be housed in the renovated Albergo dei Poveri in Naples, one of Europe’s most sprawling historic buildings, which has gone mostly disused in recent years. Renovation work started in April and is due to be finished by mid-2026. [The Art Newspaper] 

A woman has been charged for dousing more than a dozen displays at the Milwaukee Public Museum with olive oil. Among the eclectic objects targeted was a vintage Harley Davidson and a rhinoceros skeleton. [WISN]

Last week, dozens of anti-Zionist artists withdrew their works from an exhibition from Contemporary Jewish Museum’s first-ever open call in protest of the war in Gaza. One artist, Vanessa Thill, took the protest farther, breaking her sculpture Cleave-To (His Cheeks Were Beds of Spices, from 2023, in view of museumgoers. [Hyperallergic]

THE KICKER

EDGE OF GLORY. The speedo-clad man dipped a toe off the museum’s roof. With a slight bend of his knees, he leapt into the sky, cutting an arrow’s arc into the brisk Boston harbor below. This was no performance art, but it was an artful performance. On Saturday, the city’s Institute of Contemporary Art played stage to a cliff diving competition that drew elite athletes from around Australia, Romania, England, and beyond. Participants plunged from a protruding platform down some seven stories through the air, twisting and somersaulting under the keen gaze of the judges—and some 45,000 spectators. According to local media, the art museum had only praise for the divers, calling their aerial maneuvers “visually stunning.” Based on photographs of the event published by Boston.com, we’d agree. Check out the images here, and stay tuned for round two.  

Thanks for stopping by.

THE HEADLINES

EMBEZZLEMENT CONVICTION. Douglas Chrismas, the 80-year-old, notorious founder of Los Angeles’s defunct blue-chip Ace Gallery, has been convicted of embezzlement by a jury. The May 31 ruling in a Los Angeles court means the once powerful dealer, who has been the defendant in over 55 lawsuits, some of which were for stealing artworks and not paying artists, faces up to 15 years in federal prison. In less than an hour, according to the Los Angeles Times, the jury found Chrismas guilty of three separate counts of embezzling a total of over $260,000 from Ace Gallery’s bankruptcy estate while acting as trustee and custodian of the bankruptcy estate. Chrismas had “champagne wishes and caviar dreams,” when he illegally deposited those funds towards an entity called Ace Museum in 2016, Asst. U.S. Atty. Vallerie Makarewicz told the jury. Meanwhile, the defense argued Chrismas “was desperate to save his business,” and had understood his Ace Museum legacy project to be part of the bankruptcy estate property. The jury, however, wasn’t buying it, and a sentencing is scheduled for September 9.

RESTITUTION ERROR. In a complicated case, judges for the US Fifth Circuit court ruled the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Houston can keep an 18^th century painting by Bernardo Bellotto that was looted by Nazis and accidentally restituted to the wrong person right after WWII, reports The Art Newspaper. Their decision upholds a lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit brought by the Jewish heirs of its original owner Max J. Emden. Emden sold the work under duress, but it was confused with another Nazi-looted painting that was painted after the original Bellotto, by an anonymous artist. Allied forces recovered both paintings, but the Dutch Art Property Foundation for restitution claims erroneously gave the original painting to a claimant who had only requested the copy. The mistaken restitution could not be challenged by US courts, which are forbidden to judge another state’s acts of government done in its territory.

THE DIGEST

El Museo del Barrio in New York has named the 33 artists that will participate in the second edition of its recently relaunched La Trienal. Taking the title of “Flow States,” the show feature Carmen Argote, Christina Fernandez, Roberto Gil de Montes, Caroline Kent, Karyn Olivier, and Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya. [ARTnews]

Students and faculty demonstrated against the sudden closing of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts (UArts) yesterday. On Friday, the school belated announced to its student body and staff that it would shutter this week. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) also revoked the school’s accreditation on June 1, telling reporters the UArts “failed to inform the Commission of closure in a timely manner or to properly plan for closure.” [Hyperallergic]

The Ansel Adams Estate has hit back at Adobe for selling AI-generated images using the photographer’s name, allegedly on repeated occasions. Ironically, Adobe Stock’s own official policy terms don’t allow this, stipulating users are forbidden to upload AI-generated pictures “created using prompts containing other artist names or created using prompts otherwise intended to copy another artist.” [ARTnews]

A week out from Art Basel, one highlight to look out for at the fair’s Unlimited section is Christo’s Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (1963-2014). Typically, the artist’s preparatory drawings of his monumental installations are made available for sale, making this large sculpture of an actual, wrapped VW Beetle, a rarity, for which Gagosian gallery is asking $4 million. [Bloomberg]

Two Bronze and Iron Age sets of treasure found in Dorset can stay in the county, thanks to a public fundraiser allowing the Dorset Museum to acquire them. The treasure includes a group of 40 coins from the second century BCE, made by a Gaulish tribe, and another stash including a Bronze Age axe head, bangle, and sword. [BBC]

The stories of how the Nazi’s looted and hid thousands of artworks is currently being told in three, simultaneous exhibitions in Austria. For the exhibit “The Journey of the Paintings”, the Lentos art museum in Linz is showing 80 works, including pieces by Goya and Titian, which were plundered and hidden in salt mines to build Hitler’s mega museum, the Führer Museum in Linz. The Altausse mine where they were hidden, and almost blown to bits, can still be visited. [El Pais]

The Kunstmuseum Bonn has named Friederike Fast as its new deputy director and curator. [Monopol Mag]

THE KICKER

WALK THE LINE. Walk south to north along the Thames and the small waterways on east London’s Greenwich Meridian line, and for some 8 km (about 4 miles), you can soak in the constantly evolving public art trail called The Line. From Antony Gormley’s cloud, to Tracey Emin birds, writer Andrew Jones for The Financial Times says “now is the time to visit or revisit,” the sculpture walkway. Doing so, “is to experience contemporary art, but also to explore areas of the city that had, until recently, been largely abandoned and closed. Here you will witness new neighborhoods springing up in historic settings, observe wildlife you may not have expected to see in the capital and spot Londoners slow down and connect with each other,” writes Jones. The path is divided into three sections Jones describes in detail, and the whole features around 25 works by established and emerging artists, including Gary Hume, Yinka Ilori, Eva Rothschild, Madge Gill, plus a new installation by Helen Cammock. Happy trails!

THE HEADLINES

MONET’S POPPIES VANDALIZED. Claude Monet’s famous 1873 bucolic Impressionist painting of a woman and child walking through a field of red poppies that all but engulfs them was vandalized Saturday at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris by a climate activist from the group Riposte Alimentaire [Food Response], reports Francesca Aton for ARTnews. A young woman from the group stuck a poster of a burnt-red landscape onto the center of the painting, and glued her hand to the wall beside it, before stating to the visitors in French: “This nightmarish painting in front of us is what awaits us if no alternative is put into place. At over 4 degrees (Celsius) hell is what awaits us.” The French government predicts a four-degree Celsius increase in global temperatures by 2100. However, contrary to a mistaken report by The Guardian, the Monet painting was protected by glass. As a result, it was unharmed, confirmed the museum to ARTnews. After careful inspection, the painting was placed back on view later the same day.

SHOCK CLOSURE. The University of the Arts in Philadelphia has suddenly announced it will close on June 7, and many, including its 1,149 students and about 700 faculty and staff, only learned of the news from a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer as late as Friday, or on social media, reports The New York Times. Reasons include “a fragile financial state,” as well as declining enrollment, revenue and rising expenses, stated the school on its website. A “space for questions and concerns,” is set to take place today at a town hall meeting and may address what exactly led to such an urgent financial crisis, a question which the Inquirer reported has not been sufficiently explained, though rising major infrastructure repair costs appear to have been the tipping point. The school’s Board of Trustees formally voted on June 1 to close the school after the Middle States Commission on Higher Education revoked the University’s accreditation. “We know that the news of UArts’ closure comes as a shock,” said the school in a Friday statement. “We could not overcome the ultimate challenge we faced: with a cash position that has steadily weakened, we could not cover significant, unanticipated expenses. The situation came to light very suddenly.”

THE DIGEST

RansomHub, the gang behind the Christie’s hack and ransom of client information, has claimed it is auctioning off the stolen data. Christie’s told clients their names and some personal identity information was compromised, but had no evidence financial or transactional records were taken. Apparently unable to extort a ransom, RansomHub posted: “Let us sell the data by auction. We abide by the rules of RansomHub and only sell once… Find something you like in the sample, then contact us.” [Artnet News]

Paris officials have linked three men suspected of planting five coffins at the foot of the Eiffel Tower on Saturday to a group with ties to Moscow, which is also suspected of being behind the vandalism of the Paris Holocaust Memorial museum’s Wall of the Righteous in May. Five coffins filled with plaster, draped with the French flag, and bearing the message, “French soldiers of Ukraine,” were discovered near the Eiffel Tower Saturday morning, and three people were arrested. [Le Monde]

The suicide of French curator Vincent Honoré was ruled a “work accident,” by France’s public health organization, Caisse primaire d’assurances maladie, following a three-month investigation, according to Le Quotidient de l’Art. Honoré served as head of exhibitions at the MO.CO Montpellier museum, which reportedly “vigorously contests this decision and has filed an appeal.” Meanwhile, Honoré’s family has the possibility to seek criminal charges against the museum. [ARTnews]

Pro-Palestinian protestors demonstrated at the Brooklyn Museum Friday, calling for the institution to condemn the deaths in Gaza as a genocide, and to disclose and divest its financial ties to Israel. Towards the end of the protest, a group scrawled the slogans across Deborah Kass’ OY/YO installation: “Fuck Bullshit Museum,” and “NYPD KKK.” Arrests were eventually made. [ARTnews]

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) is planning an upgrade, by purchasing the building it occupies on East Seventh Street, incorporating residencies, and adding a café. [The New York Times]

Tate director Maria Balshaw discusses criticism ofenergy company BP’s new £50-million partnership with the British Museum in an interview with the Observer, saying “the issue the BM faces in taking BP’s money is that the public has moved to a position where they think it is inappropriate, and there’s a dissonance between wishing to be seen as extremely sensitive in the way we relate to other cultures and careful about the resources we consume, and then taking money from a company that has not yet demonstrated whether it’s really committed to changing.” [The Guardian/The Observer]

Arts workers in Edinburgh have warned in a petition of a pending cultural crisis ahead of the planned sale of a beloved arts venue called Summerhall. The 130,00-square-foot complex of galleries, theaters, and cinemas is one of the city’s most famous cultural hubs, but it has emerged that its owner, Oesselman Estates, has put it on the market. [The Guardian]

THE KICKER

SOUNDS OF JOSHUA TREES. Artist Scott Kildall talks about making music from Joshua trees and his recent sound installation “Infrared Reflections,” with NPR’s Christopher Intagliata. The piece “transforms near-infrared light bouncing off the iconic scraggly yuccas into a shimmering mosaic of otherworldly music – essentially turning the Joshua tree into an instrument,” writes Intagliata. Using a microcontroller with an infrared sensor about the size of a credit card, Kildall is able to capture light wavelengths invisible to the human eye, and then map that data into sounds that we can hear. “It’s kind of like magic,” says the artist. “And the magic is just revealing something that’s right beyond our levels of perception.”

THE HEADLINES

TEFAF HEIST. Police have recovered two diamonds stolen in 2022 in plain sight of astounded visitors at TEFAF, Maastricht, an art fair that sells Old Masters, antiquities, and jewelry, reports the Netherlands Times. The armed and disguised robbers, who smashed and grabbed jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars, have now been linked to at least one newly identified woman, and all five are still at large. One of the newly recovered diamonds was found in Israel, while a second diamond from the same necklace turned up in Hong Kong. A third diamond was reportedly located in 2023. ARTnews previously reported a Balkan gang close to the notorious Pink Panthers, a group of thieves known for their daring, was suspected of being behind the theft. Police have since specified they came from Nis, Serbia, and are offering a reward of €500,000 for information about the crime.

SOTHEBY’S CUTS. Sotheby’s has announced it will lay off around 50 workers based in London, while similar cuts may follow at the auction house’s other locations, according to the Art Newspaper. One of the largest in the world, the auction house had reportedly entered a “consultation period” to evaluate its financial future, and did not immediately respond to requests for comment by ARTnews senior editor Alex Greenberger. The news follows two “slow but hardly catastrophic auction weeks at Sotheby’s,” Greenberger writes, in March in London, and May in New York.

THE DIGEST

The Cleveland Museum of Art agreed to return to Libya a Ptolemaic statue believed to have been looted during World War II. The museum and the Libyan Department of Antiquities signed an agreement that allows the black basalt piece to remain in the Cleveland Museum for “a few years,” but its label will change, listing Libya as its rightful owner. [News 5 Cleveland]

On Tuesday the United States officially returned 600 antiquities to Italy worth a collective $65 million. Looted years ago, the trove includes ancient gold coins, mosaics, manuscripts, and bronze statues recovered through extensive criminal investigation. [ARTnews]

Chanel and Shanghai’s state-run Power Station of Art museum signed a partnership agreement Monday to enrich the institution’s collection, increase research capacity, and “upgrade” the museum’s third floor, which will be named the Espace Gabrielle Chanel. Renovations to the space will include a new public “Contemporary Art Library,” an “Archive of Chinese Contemporary Art,” and more. [WWD]

The German Meyer Riegger Gallery is opening a new space in Seoul in September, taking over the space formerly occupied by the Efremidis gallery, which announced that it will close and become a foundation. Tom Woo, former director at Efremidis, will transfer to the Meyer Riegger operation, along with some artists, in what has been reported as a still-unclear merging with the Efremidis gallery commercial operations. [Monopol Magazine]

Researchers believe they have found the site where some 3,000 English soldiers perished in a decisive battle during the French Wars of Religion, on southwestern France’s Il de Ré, now a popular tourist and biking spot. Known as the Battle of Pont de Feneau, the 1627 event forced British troops to retreat. A local heritage association hopes to launch archaeological digs on the site, where anything from mass graves to weapons may be buried. [Le Figaro]

Archaeologists have discovered a series of scratched charcoal drawings by children, ages five to seven, in the courtyard of Pompeii’s House of the Second Last Supper. Their playful sketches show scenes of gladiators, hunting, boxing, a ball game, and outlined small handprints, to name a few. [Artnet News]

The proportion of French galleries at the newly named, upcoming Art Basel Paris is lower than that at the previous, Paris+ edition, because 40 new participants are essentially international. Taking place in the newly renovated Grand Palais, 15 of the 64 galleries with spaces in France are headquartered abroad. [Le Journal des Arts]

Paris’ Centre Pompidou has announced plans to acquire original comic art coinciding with their major new exhibition focused on the graphic art form. “For a century comic art has irrigated artistic creation, it has influenced major artists,” said the center’s president, Laurent Le Bon. [Le Monde]

The Art Gallery of New South Wales has announced the finalists for the 2024 $100,000 Archibald prize for a painted portrait by an Australian resident of a person “distinguished in art, letters, science or politics.” Finalists include paintings of Julian Assange, Tony Armstrong, and others. [The Guardian]

THE KICKER

FAME! HOW TO LIVE FOREVER? What makes the Mona Lisa so famous? Or, for that matter, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, or Bob Dylan? Economist Cass Sunstein looks into these questions in his new book, How to Become Famous: Lost Einsteins, Forgotten Superstars and How The Beatles Came To Be. Spoiler alert: talent is only one, perhaps even a small, part of it. NPR’s All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro asks Sunstein about the recipe for fame, why some names are forgotten, and where talent comes in. To start, having a “champion” or a network of people who think “you’re amazing and I’m going to support you and we’re going to become a team,” says Sunstein, can be really important. Sounds like the work of a good gallery. Art world, take note.

THE HEADLINES

GRACELAND SCAM. A man has claimed he used identity theft to threaten foreclosure on Elvis Presley’s former home and museum, Graceland, in an attempt to steal millions. The self-described identity thief wrote a confession to the New York Times full of descriptive commentary, claiming he was a leader in a dark web network of “worms” that use personal information to scam people. “We figure out how to steal,” he wrote. “That’s what we do.” The NYT has reason to believe the message was authentic, because it came in response to their request for comment from the so-called Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC company, which now appears to have been entirely fabricated. The company had been threatening to sell Graceland over an alleged unpaid $3.8 million loan to Lisa Marie Presley, whom they said had used the family property as collateral. Graceland’s current owner and Presley heir, actress Riley Keough, fought back in court, arguing the loan was fictional, leading a judge to block any immediate foreclosure. “I had fun figuring this one out and it didn’t succeed very well,” said the self-proclaimed scammer, who wrote in a mix of English and sometimes “clunky” Luganda, noting he was based in Nigeria. However, the NYT has reasons to doubt even that. At any rate, the message conceded: “She beat me at my own game.”

LIKE A PICASSO. The Wu-Tang Clan’s legendary hip-hop album heard by only a few, likened to a Picasso by some, and believed to be one of the rarest of its kind, is going on display for 10 days in June, at the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania, reports the BBC. Small groups will get the chance to listen to a 30-minute sample of the album called “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” The CD, which cannot be downloaded or digitally streamed, comes in an ornate silver box with leather-bound liner notes; it was secretly recorded in Staten Island, New York, and produced over six years in Marrakech. The musicians assigned a legal condition to the record stipulating that its owner cannot release the tracks for 88 years. It also holds the title as the most expensive record ever sold, at $2 million in 2015 to the notorious pharma baron Martin Shkreli. It is currently owned by the cryptocurrency collective PleasrDAO, which purchased it for some $4 million. The Wu-Tang Clan “had a bold vision to make a single copy album as a work of fine art,” said the Pleasr collective in a statement. Their “intention was to redefine the meaning of music ownership and value.”

THE DIGEST

Record rainfall and flooding has severely damaged museums and heritage sites in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state. A task force set up by Brazil’s ministry of culture found more than 50 of 378 museums in the area have suffered structural damage from flooding, while nearly 100 towns reported damage to archaeological sites, libraries, galleries, theaters, art, and historical collections. [The Art Newspaper]

The ARCO art fair in Lisbon saw “less dynamic” sales, according to reports, despite more visitors from the US and Brazil. Held May 23 to 26, “timid” sales reports come amid concerns of an overall market slump. Taylor Swift fans flocking to the city at the same time also made hotel reservations tougher to snag at the last minute, which may not have helped the fair. [Le Quotidien de l’Art]

Switzerland has restituted three Mesopotamian artifacts to Iraq, including a statue and two bas-reliefs. The Assyrian objects dating to the 8th century BC were first discovered in the ancient city of Nimrud and were illegally exported at an unknown time. [Tribune de Genève]

Art fair Tokyo Gendai has announced its programming just over a month before its second edition kicks off July 5 to 7 at the Pacifico Yokohama. [ARTnews]

A Detroit nonprofit is launching the world’s first queer art biennial. Mighty Real/Queer Detroit is organizing the exhibition titled “I Will Be Your Mirror: Reflections of the Contemporary Queer,” running May 31 to June 30. It includes 11 galleries and art venues across the city, and is supported by Detroit’s Office of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship. [The Art Newspaper]

Christie’s has announced that its 20th and 21st Century Art sale will be the inaugural auction for its new Hong Kong headquarters at the Henderson, a recently completed office building in Central district, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. The sale is set for September 26–27. [ArtAsiaPacific]

THE KICKER

MAKING HER MARK. The artist Tracey Emin talks to the Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone on the occasion of her new exhibition at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels, comprising paintings she made since having been diagnosed with cancer four years ago. More prolific than ever, the 60-year-old artist’s exhibit is titled “By the time you see me there will be nothing left,” in reference to her illness, which is in remission. Emin discusses how a “massive bout of near-death cancer” made her realize “how good time is now. The present. Cancer changed everything for me.” As well as reflecting on all that, she has worked to change and reassess herself since. While reviewing her life in intensive care, Emin told herself: “The biggest thing was I didn’t want to die being some mediocre YBA artist from the 90s. I thought: that’s not me. What have I been doing?”

THE HEADLINES

LIST OF DEMANDS. In a dramatic twist many had feared, a group of cyber-extortionists called RansomHub claimed responsibility Monday for hacking Christie’s earlier this month, and threatened to release “sensitive personal information” on about 500,000 clients, reports Daniel Cassady for ARTnews. Exactly what kind of personal information, and whether it includes financial data, remains unclear. According to the New York Times, RansomHub said it would release the data by the end of May if a ransom is not paid, and posted a countdown timer. The group also claimed they “attempted to come to a reasonable resolution with [Christie’s] but they ceased communication midway through.” However, Christie’s spokesperson Edward Lewine said only “some limited amount of personal data” for certain clients had been compromised, and that the auction house has no evidence the hackers have “financial or transactional records.” The auction house had earlier publicly downplayed the shutting down of its website during its marquee May sales as a “technology security incident,” though the NYT reported there was in-house “panic.” 

CANINE OUTCRY. A Nina Beier performance using live dogs at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City has sparked an outcry from animal rights activists and dog lovers. Footage of the piece featuring a group of dogs playing dead, titled Tragedy (2011), has gone viral, leading many social media users and Mexican politicians to denounce the museum and the event. Mexico City governor Martí Batres Guadarrama called for an animal rights investigation, which the country’s PAOT organization has since launched. The museum has also issued two statements over the weekend condemning animal abuse and insisting dogs “are treated with dignity and respect.” No dogs were harmed or in distress, it’s important to note, as the trainer was blended into the crowd during the performance.

THE DIGEST

Artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz has died at age 77, announced contemporary art center Wiels, in Brussels, last week. The Paris-born artist was known for his large and richly chaotic installations that contended with Minimalism. [Artforum]

A lost and belatedly authenticated Caravaggio titled Ecce Homo, has gone on display following its renovation at the Prado Museum in Madrid, and after it was almost accidentally sold for just €1,500. The museum has called the work “one of the greatest discoveries in the history of art,” and will display it until October. [The Guardian]

The Wing Luke Museum in Seattle has remained temporarily closed following a reported 26 staff members walked out last week to protest the museum’s exhibit featuring “Zionist language” and “Zionist perspectives,” according to a social media post by demonstrators. “The Confronting Hate Together exhibit shares perspectives from the Washington State Jewish Historical Society (WSJHS) that conflate anti-Zionism as antisemitism,” argues the group in their post. [The Seattle Times]

Artists and legal heirs to artists’ estates have published a letter in Le Monde demanding a halt to the June 6 Christie’s auction of a portion of the modern art collection amassed by French automaker Renault. The collection was part of Renault’s former cultural program designed to introduce the arts to industrial workers. [Le Monde]

The Native Lenape people who lived in what is now Manhattan before emigrants from the Netherlands founded New Amsterdam in 1664 are demanding that the Dutch state formally apologize for ousting their people and offer compensation. Their request comes in time for the exhibition “Manahahtáanung or New Amerstardam? The Indigenous Story Behind New York,” at the Amsterdam Museum. [El Pais]

A pastel newly attributed to Edgar Degas has surfaced in Spain, first acquired by the Spanish artist Julián Bastinos (1852–1918). The work depicts two red-headed women in a brothel, as one powders her face; it corresponds to scenes the artist painted between 1875 and 1885. [Le Quotidien de l’Art]

The Eiffel Tower will benefit from an additional €15 million in public capital to help shore up expenses incurred by the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, which manages the monument. The financial lifeline follows losses from Covid-related closures, additional maintenance and renovation costs, and strikes earlier this year by workers, protesting the monument’s alleged mismanagement. [BFM TV]

The Italian government has seized the villa where composer Giuseppe Verdi lived and composed La Traviata, and will turn it into a museum dedicated to him. Four Verdi heirs and owners of the decaying 19th-century property near Piacenza, had planned to sell it at auction for a reported €20 million, according to Corriere di Bologna, but are instead set to receive between €8 million and €9 million from the state. They have the right to oppose the seizure in court. [The Art Newspaper]

THE KICKER

IF YOU BUILD IT. Artist Heidi Schwegler was worried that she and her musician partner, Derek Monypeny, would be isolated out in the Mojave desert, where they moved to live and make art as close as they could afford to Los Angeles, while remaining accessible to art centers, the Los Angeles Times reports. It turns out she needn’t have feared. Heidi founded the Yucca Valley Material Lab, which has become a “landing place for out-of-town artists and people looking for a way to plug into the desert,” writes Angella d’Avignon. Every workshop at the Lab sells out, and it has become part of the region’s pull, as artists priced out of Los Angeles head east. “I built this program because I was really afraid I would become a total recluse out here, because I didn’t think anybody was out here,” Schwegler said. “Come to find out, it’s just like that saying: ‘If you build it, they will come.’”

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AKNEYE aims to harmonize the tangible aspects of traditional sculpture with the virtual dimensions of NFTs by creating a novel platform for artistic exploration and collaboration. Artists from Armenia and around the world have crafted original artworks on eye-shaped wood or resin sculptures. These forms serve as the raw canvas upon which the artists, typically employing traditional methods such as paint or mixed media, realize their creations.

These sculptures are then scanned in painstaking detail and rendered digitally, essentially creating a digital twin of the physical version. This virtual proxy is then displayed as an NFT artwork in AKNEYE’s digital gallery hosted on Fastexverse, a navigable, 3D metaverse platform that enables users to participate in events, engage in commerce, and interact with other users in an immersive digital environment.

In Venice, the AKNEYE Phygital Space installation brings the relationship between tangible and digital art full circle by creating a real-life environment for viewers to interact with the art. The Venice site, established in partnership with Fastex’s NFT marketplace ftNFT, joins a growing roster of ftNFT Phygital Spaces in Dubai and Yerevan, Armenia, which also serve as outlets to purchase artworks.

“The Phygital Space is not just any digital space; it is a vision of the future of art, where boundaries are blurred and new connections are formed between the artist, the observer, and the medium,” says Vigen Badalyan, founder of AKNEYE.

The exhibition, curated by Anastasia Dawson, features digital representations of the AKNEYE sculptures on LED screens alongside their tactile counterparts, symbolizing the fusion of conventional art methodologies and contemporary technological advancements. Throughout the duration of the Biennale, visitors will have the opportunity to observe both Armenian and international artists create physical pieces of art on-site, which will subsequently be transformed into NFTs.

“AKNEYE by ftNFT is a testament to the power of collaboration across cultures and disciplines,” Dawson notes. “It embodies our mission to innovate within the art world while respecting traditional idioms.”

In devising a medium that both embraces and transcends physical space, AKNEYE has created a vehicle for artists from diverse backgrounds to create experiences that engage, educate, and inspire and share them with an international audience. The featured artists at the AKNEYE Phygital Space are:

● Raffi Yedalian
● Elene Metreveli
● Sarko Menee
● Natalia Gudovich
● Stephany Sanossian
● Mako Lomadze
● Anahit Margaryan
● Roman Reznitsky
● Alpha Odh
● Satenik Ghulijanyan
● Larry Amponsah
● Lusine Ginosyan
● Anna Chekh
● Ashot Yan
● Miroslava Romanova
● Ellen Demirian
● Lokher
● Edmon Harikyan
● Gareggin Harutyunyan
● Rafayel Nersesyan

Visitors to the Venice Biennale are invited to the AKNEYE Phygital Space to engage with a new realm of creativity, and in doing so, engage with a community of artists crossing the boundaries of the cultural divide and artistic medium. For more information, visit AKNEYE’s website and follow AKNEYE on Instagram.

ftNFT Phygital Space
Ramo de la Tana, 2124a, Venice, Italy
April 20–Sept. 30 (11 a.m.–8 p.m.)
Oct. 1–Nov. 24 (10 a.m.–6 p.m.)