Madonna at the "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & the Catholic Imagination" Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
NEED-TO-READ
Artists Survey Wreckage of California Fires – American artist Lita Albuquerque, one of the many artists who live in and around Malibu, lost her home and studio to the Woolsey Fire, as well as her entire archive of art. “We had nine structures; everything burnt to dust,” Albuquerque said. The same was true for artist Samantha Thomas, who watched her house burn on national television while sitting in another city. (The Art Newspaper)
Nan Goldin Stages a Protest in Front of the Governor’s Office – Artist and activist Nan Goldin’s P.A.I.N. group occupied the street in front of Governor Cuomo’s office in New York on Monday morning. They set up a mock safe injection site and called out Governor Cuomo for his inaction in fighting the mounting opioid crisis. Since January, Goldin has been staging direct action protests at various locations that have been known to have taken money from the Sackler family, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Freer-Sackler in Washington, DC. (Press release)
Madonna Buys a Street Artist’s Work – Canadian street artist MissMe has a very famous new client, having sold a six-foot-tall self-portrait from her series “Portrait of a Vandal” to Madonna, who showed it off on her Instagram stories. The work depicts the self-declared feminist artist wearing her signature Mickey Mouse balaclava, which she dons to maintain anonymity, and pulling her shirt up to expose her naked body. Madonna first encountered MissMe’s work on the streets of Lisbon in 2017, and then struck up a friendship with the artist after sharing a picture of the mural on social media. (Edmonton Sun)
Marina Abramović Inspires a Novel – Novelist Heather Rose returned to Marina Abramović’s blockbuster 2010 performance The Artist Is Presentevery day for three weeks, observing the people who came and watching their reactions, which inspired her part-fiction story. The Museum of Modern Love draws heavily on Abramović’s life and work, and will be published in the United States on November 27 with a launch hosted at MoMA. Abramović herself gave it a glowing review, though the two did not communicate during the writing of the book. (New York Times)
ART MARKET
The Hottest Art Venue in Hong Kong Is… a Restaurant? – While Hong Kong has a dynamic art scene and a popular international art fair, many who live there feel the territory needs to do more to support its own emerging talent. One possible answer: the restaurant-slash-gallery Duddell’s, which has been playing host the work of renowned artists like Ai Weiwei alongside that of home-grown, younger artists. (Financial Times)
Censorship May Limit Growth of China’s Art Market – On the mainland, things are a bit dicier for China’s art world. Some say that increasing censorship under president Xi Jinping could restrict the growth of the market there. Ahead of Shanghai Art Week in November, one participating dealer said the climate had grown more conservative in the years he had shown there. “Every year, we have a few works rejected, but it is getting [to be] more and more—it makes me feel uncomfortable,” the dealer said.
(The Art Newspaper)
Kohn Gallery to Rep Gonzalo Lebrija – Los Angeles’s Kohn Gallery has added the Guadalajara–based artist to its roster. The gallery will show his work in a group presentation at Art Basel in Miami Beach next week, while the abstract painter and sculptor prepares for a solo show at the gallery in January 2019. (ARTnews)
Cheers,
Errol