10facts: What happened in the art world in January

1.
The immediate impact of Trump’s visa ban on art

Trump signed an executive order on immigration that restricts entry to the U.S. by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days, as well as prohibiting refugee entry for 120 days, with Syrian refugees indefinitely banned. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has expressed fears related to loans and travel, as well as an archaeological project the museum is working toward in partnership with Iraq and Iran. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art believes the new travel restrictions will effect an upcoming exhibition of art primarily from Iran.

2.
Man armed with a knife near the Louvre

Fear in Paris. A man, who police said attempted to assault four soldiers with a knife while shouting “God is Great” in Arabic, was shot five times during the attack. One soldier suffered a minor scalp injury. The fact took place in the Carrousel du Louvre, a shopping center that connects to an entrance to the world-famous museum.

3.
Israel will not join the EU’s culture program Creative Europe

Israel’s right-wing Minister of Culture and Sport, announced that she would be withdrawing her support for joining Creative Europe after it was revealed that the program would implement a boycott on funding for artists living in the Israeli occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights. Instead, funding would only be distributed within the country’s 1967 borders.

4.
Preserving Van Gogh’s grave

The local council of Auvers-sur-Oise—the small French town where Vincent van Gogh spent his last days and where he is buried, along with his art-dealer brother—is working with the nonprofit Institut Van Gogh to make the brothers’ graves more accessible to visitors. The council and institute are also trying to raise funds to repair the roof of Auvers-sur-Oise’s Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption church, a building the artist was deeply inspired by.

 5.
Digital rain in LACMA

Restoration Hardware has gifted the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Rain Room, 2012, an interactive installation that re-creates the experience of a torrential downpour for visitors without drenching them in rainwater. The gift marks the fiftieth anniversary of LACMA’s Art and Technology Lab. Exhibited at the museum in 2015, the installation contains sensors to detect the human body and creates a roughly six-foot radius of dry ground around each person as rain continues to pour.

6.
Anti- Trump LaBeouf

Actor and performance artist Shia LaBeouf was arrested after he argued with a man while standing near his anti-Trump installation outside of the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York.
LaBeouf plans to protest Trump for the next four years with his installation HEWILLNOTDEVIDEUS, a participatory performance piece that invites people to repeat “He will not divide us” as many times as they wish in front of a camera located on an exterior wall of the Museum. The proclamations are recorded and will be live-streamed at www.hewillnotdivide.us for the duration of Trump’s presidency.

7.
And anti-Trump Christo

After investing $15 million of his own money and working for more than two decades to realize a monumental forty-two-mile-long public work that would completely transform the Arkansas River in Colorado, conceptual artist Christo announced that he is going to walk away from the project in protest of President Trump.

8.
Rome art foundation launches TV platform

Italy’s foundation for contemporary art, MAXXI, has announced the launch of JACK TV, a television web platform dedicated to the dissemination of all things contemporary art-related. JACK TV will feature live streaming broadcasts, contributions from art bloggers, and exclusive content. Thirteen institutions throughout Europe have agreed to provide partner with MAXXI on this endeavor.

9.
John Berger, 1926 – 2017

The art critic and novelist John Berger has died at the age of ninety. His 1972 novel, G., was awarded the Man Booker Prize that year. In the late 1940s, while teaching drawing, Berger became an art critic, publishing many essays and reviews in the New Statesman. In 1972, the BBC broadcast his television series Ways of Seeing (directed by Mike Dibb) and published its companion text, an introduction to the study of images. The work was in part derived from Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

10.
La Maison Rouge closes its doors

Paris’s La Maison Rouge, a private contemporary art foundation founded by French collector Antoine de Galbert, will permanently close its doors at the end of next year. Since 2004, the institution has hosted shows dedicated to artists ranging from Anthony McCall to Henry Darger. The foundation will host seven more exhibitions before its closure. “When I opened the Maison Rouge I realized very quickly that one day it would come to an end, and I prefer that this happen when the institution is still in top form”, said de Galbert.

Silvia Meloni

Featured image: The Rain Room, LACMA, courtesy of Lallie Peralejo.