Art Industry News: Brussels Artists Are Outraged After the Parliament Buys Itself a $395,000 Statue of a Comic Strip Cat + Other Stories | Canada News Media
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 Wednesday, March 1.
NEED-TO-READ
Mitchell Rales Gives $1.9 Billion to His Own Art Museum – The billionaire who cofounded industry conglomerate Danaher Corp. has made one of the largest donations to the arts—to his own Glenstone Foundation. The windfall will support the operation and maintenance of the private museum in Maryland founded by Rales and his wife Emily, and it raises the Glenstone’s endowment to a level that rivals New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Bloomberg)
Park Seo Bo Diagnosed With Lung Cancer – The 91-year-old Dansaekhwa master revealed that he has recently been diagnosed with stage three lung cancer, but he is not giving up on painting and is asking his friends and the public not to call him out of worry. “I have lived enough, but I still have things that I wish to paint,” he wrote on social media. An art space dedicated to the artist located next to Gizi Art Base in Seoul’s Seodaemun-gu will open in May. (Korea Herald)
Fracas Continues Over Cat Museum in Brussels – Cultural stakeholders in Brussels are frustrated with the parliament’s decision to acquire a €370,000 ($395,000) sculpture from artist Philippe Geluck depicting his popular newspaper comic strip character, Le Chat, to be installed in the institution’s inner garden. Some have argued that the money would be better spent on grants supporting emerging artists, and it has raised the hackles of others who also oppose the government’s decision to spend millions of public money on a Musée du Chat, which is still in the works. It’s not even Garfield! (La Libre)
Michael Jordan Sneakers Could Break Records at Sotheby’s – The six Nike Air Jordan sneakers collectively known as the “Dynasty Collection” that NBA legend wore during the six 1990s championship games the Chicago Bulls has been unveiled at Sotheby’s Dubai. Sotheby’s did not disclose the price of the collection, which is expected to be sold in private. But to sneakers collectors, this collection is equivalent to “the Mona Lisa, the David, and a few of Monet’s Water Lilies rolled into one.” (Wall Street Journal)
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Tightrope Walker to Stage Performance at Museum – World-famous tightrope walker Philippe Petit, will scale a rope strung across the great hall at the National Building Museum this March, as part of a fundraiser to promote the upcoming Building Stories exhibition. Petit previously scaled a rope between the Twin Towers in Manhattan, and in Paris at the Notre Dame. (Fox)
San Francisco Museums Team up for Curatorial Enterprise – The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the African Diaspora are planning a joint curatorial post to helm exhibitions that bridge the themes and collections of the neighboring institutions. Dreamed up by new SFMoMA director Christopher Bedford and executive director and chief executive of MoAD Monetta White, the future Assistant Curator of the Art of the African Diaspora will change every three years and aims to (The Art Newspaper)
Harry Philbrick Named Interim Executive Director at Philly Museum – The estranged father of ex-art dealer Inigo Philbrick, who was sentenced to seven years for defrauding his clients, has taken the position at the The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, leaving his post at the helm of Philadelphia Contemporary, which he founded in 2016. (Press release)
London Gets a Late Night Culture Weekend – Art of London, a cultural initiative spearheaded by the Heart of London Business Alliance, will launch its first edition of Art After Dark in partnership with Mayfair Art Weekend that brings institutions and galleries to remain open till 9 p.m. on March 23 and 24. Two more installments are expected to take place in the rest of the year. (Press release)
FOR ARTS SAKE
The Young V&A Will Reopen in Summer – After three years of £13 million ($15.7 million) redevelopment, the rebranded Museum of Childhood, aimed at kids under the age of 14 and families is set to open doors in Bethnal Green on July 1. Among the new works on show include an interactive Minecraft installation, new murals by street artist Mark Malarko, and the new thematic exhibition “Japan: Myths to Manga,” which will open on October 14. (Evening Standard)
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
