Category: visual

“[Colin Kaepernick’s] protest was a piece of performance art, and in staging it he blurred the line between art and protest. Kaepernick isn’t just a part of the long line of black athletes who have used their platforms to speak out about political issues; he (unintentionally) inserted himself into the rich tradition of black artists who have invoked the American flag in political protest.”

“It is not inconceivable that a clever lawyer may well manage to convince a jury of the validity of Baldwin’s case—but the action has made him a laughing stock in the art world, singling him out as a classic know-nothing celebrity art buyer.”

Introducing an admissions fee does not affect the diversity of museum visitors, but can lead overall visitor numbers to fall, according to research released this week by the Association of Independent Museums (AIM).

That this low-profile Dutch businessman could pull together such a significant representation of Kelly’s work — with loans from the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum in New York, Tate London, the Pompidou Center in Paris and the artist’s own studio — for his private museum in a far-flung corner of the Netherlands indicates the kind of leverage that Mr. van Caldenborgh, 75, and other major collectors, now have in the art world.

“By the look of the renderings officially unveiled on Wednesday morning, New York’s next significant landmark may be the city’s biggest Rorschach test, too.”

“The decision is the latest blow to the Guggenheim Helsinki project, whose initial plans met with widespread public opposition when they were unveiled in 2011 and were formally turned down by the city board the following year. After an international competition last year drew more than 1,700 entrants, the scheme seemed to be back on track.”

“Metaphors aside, it is clear how the current art fair-driven system has created a fixed pattern, with little room for negotiation: Small galleries from the periphery can participate at small fairs, and hopefully sell to collectors they would never meet otherwise. Meanwhile, big galleries, such as Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Marian Goodman, and David Zwirner but also Thaddaeus Ropac, Almine Rech, Perrotin, and Massimo De Carlo, become bigger and bigger—from ship to galleon, from galleon to fleet—opening new branches all over the world. But what about the middle sized galleries?”

“This time, the Luxembourg artist [Deborah De Robertis] sat in front of an exhibition by Araki, a Japanese photographer known for his images of bound naked women, in a transparent kimono. … Between her thighs was a watermelon, which she ate while moaning loudly. Visitors, far from being shocked, applauded her before security officers put an end to her show.” (In case you don’t recall the previous incident, here’s a refresher.)

“The suit asserts that [Mary] Boone deceived [Baldwin] by promising a painting, Sea and Mirror, by the artist Ross Bleckner, that had been sold at Sotheby’s to a Los Angeles collector in 2007, but in fact supplied another similar Bleckner painting, also called Sea and Mirror.”

“Turkey’s crackdown on dissent has spread to the field of archaeology, with a dig at the ancient site of Ephesus in western Turkey suspended because of a political dispute with Austria. The project, run by the Austrian Archaeological Institute, was forced by the Turkish government to stop work at the end of August, despite two more months of planned conservation at the site.”