1.
$2.6 Million in materials stolen from Anselm Kiefer’s studio
The German artist’s studio in Paris was robbed of about $2.6 million worth of materials. The thieves stole a lead sculpture of a stack of books that weighed ten tons and was valued at $1.45 million and twelve tons of marble that cost over $1 million. The authorities arrested two women on charges of attempted theft after they were discovered trying to carry off lead that had been dropped after the burglary took place.
2.
Venice still out of UNESCO’s list of endangered sites
The Italian town was not put on UNESCO’s list of endangered world heritage sites during the organization’s World Heritage Site Committee meeting in Istanbul. In 2014 UNESCO gave Italy a warning that by 2016 it had to act, or at least have an outline of solutions, for Venice’s various issues, such as the effects motorized water vehicles have on the city’s architecture and lagoon ecology, the large cruise ships that go through the city, infrastructure and navigation projects in the lagoon hurting the city and the lagoon; UNESCO’s benchmark in declaring a place a World Heritage Site. Italy will submit another report by 2017.
3.
No Yinchuan Biennale for Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei’s work will not be included in the first Yinchuan Biennale, because of his “political sensitivity.” The Chinese artist, who was listed as one of the biennial’s participating this year, wrote on Instagram, “Censorships in communist regions have been present since the existence of the power. Yet it still comes as a surprise to me for an ‘international art biennale (…) to remove a single artist for the reason of defending human rights and freedom of speech. This shows what we face is a world, which is divided and segregated by ideology, and art is used merely as a decoration for political agendas in certain societies.”
4.
A huge database of Bauhaus works
Harvard Art Museums have launched an online database of 32,000 works related to the Bauhaus, of works by artists such as Mies van der Rohe, Bertrand Goldberg, Marcel Breuer, and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius.
The digital collection is being released in anticipation of the German art and design school’s one hundredth anniversary in 2019.
5.
Marina Abramovič’s bad comments on Australian Aborigines
After a great deal of backlash against her on social media, comments regarding indigenous Australians in the uncorrected proof of performance artist Marina Abramović’s forthcoming memoir, Walk Through Walls, will be edited out of the final copy. Abramović’s words are from a 1979 diary entry, when she was in the Sydney Biennale with her collaborator/lover Ulay, when they spent some months in the Great Victorian Desert. She wrote: “Aborigines are not just the oldest race in Australia; they are the oldest race on the planet. They look like dinosaurs. They are really strange and different, and they should be treated as living treasures. Yet they are not. But at the same time, when you first meet them, you have to put effort into it.”
6.
Museums’ profit given to Italian Earthquake Rescue Operations
Italian museums and archaeological sites donated all the money made from their ticket sales on Sunday, August 28, to the rescue efforts in Central Italy after the earthquake devastated several towns. The crisis unit of the Italian culture ministry said that “after the first emergency phase, which must be concerned with saving lives and assisting the affected populations,” the government start to work on stabilizing severely damaged cultural sites.
7.
Reformed restitution panel for Nazi-looted art
Monika Grütters, Germany’s minister of culture, has announced plans to reform the Limbach Commission, a restitution panel that was established in 2003 to assess claims in Nazi-looted art ownership disputes. She was accused of anti-Semitism after she said that the panel had decided not to include a Jewish member because his/her voice “would be the only voice who would be prejudiced.” However, after Grütters met with Ronald Lauder, the founder of the Commission for Art Recovery and Neue Galerie, which is currently negotiating the return of a work with a questionable provenance from its own collection, she vowed to elect a Jewish member.
8.
New museum in Paris by Pinault
François Pinault, owner of Christie’s, Palazzo Grassi and megacollector is working to open his private museum in Paris by the end of 2018. He has turned to art for help after the terrorist attacks that affected the city. The Paris City Council approved the transformation of La Bourse de Commerce into a museum for the more than three-thousands works that make up Pinault’s collection last month. Pinault has signed a fifty-year lease for the building and will provide the funds for the site’s $55 million renovation as well as the operating costs.
9.
Pensioner fills in crossword puzzle artwork and claims copyright
A 91-year-old woman has been under investigation after she filled out the blank spaces on a museum’s crossword puzzle artwork worth $88 thousands. “Reading-Work Piece,” a 1965 work by avant-garde artist Arthur Koepcke, affiliated with the Fluxus movement, is installed at the Nuremberg’s Neues Museum in Germany. She told the police she was simply following instructions. Gerlinde Knopp, who was leading a senior citizen group visit, said the museum was filled with interactive art, which confused the woman. The woman’s additions have since been removed, and she and her lawyer are arguing she owns the copyright to the altered version that has been destroyed.
10.
Pantone’s app to hunt for colours
Pantone has just released a new app that transmutes hues found by phone’s cameras into corresponding Pantone swatches. Pulling from a library of more than ten-thousands colours, the Pantone Studio app instantly identifies the color’s RGB, CMYK, and Hex values, and offers up suggestions for color harmonies. It is available for $8 per month and offers in addition to the eyedropper tool a “color studio” for mixing, testing, and visualizing hues on interiors, fabrics, and 3D materials.
Silvia Meloni
CuratingtheContemporary (CtC) 