CHRONICLES OF AN UNDERCOVER REPORTER FROM NEW YORK TO VENICE
Boycott: Hardly had the list of participants in the next Whitney
Biennial been revealed than one of them, Michael Rakowitz, announced his withdrawal because of the growing furore over money given to the institution by Warren B. Kanders, vice chair of the board. Kanders is the owner of Safariland, a firm that produces teargas used to repel migrants on the Mexican border. Art collective Decolonize This Place, a militant movement that fights for various causes – black rights, Palestinian freedom, employment rights, the combat against gentrification – is calling for his departure. This is just one of many scandals about the funding received by art museums. Nan Goldin, for example, is leading a virulent campaign against those that accept cash from oil companies like BP or from the Sackler family, whose companies produce OxyContin, a powerful and addictive opioid whose side effects can be deadly. Some are calling for museums to accept only public funds, but then again the biggest client for teargas is the U. S. administration…
Success story: In 2018, the Louvre beat its own attendance
record with 10.2 million visitors, an increase of 25% compared with 2017 which now makes it the most visited museum in the world. Do you know the Atelier des Lumières in Paris’s 11th arrondissement? This success story is a gallery space that doesn’t show any physical works, but instead offers an immersive environment using video projections of pieces by artists such as Van Gogh. Thanks to the special effects achieved with literally hundreds of projectors, the “exhibi tions” at the Atel ier des Lumières attracted nearly 600,000 visitors last year, putting it on a par with public institutions such as Marseille’s MuCEM, the Louvre Lens and the Centre Pompidou-Metz.
Art-fair news: Just a week and a half before the opening of the
Armory Show, which is held in early March on New York’s Upper West Side piers, the city’s Economic Development Corporation forbade access to Pier 92 because of safety concerns. What on earth could be done to relocate the af fected exhibitors? Pier 90, a little further up, could take them, but that meant cancelling the Armory’s sister fair, Volta, which is usually held on Pier 90. Collector Peter Hort had a last-minute plan B up his sleeve, joining forces with David Zwirner, who welcomed some of the Volta exhibitors at his gallery (incredible but true – a pay-toenter fair in a gallery), the others going off to a Chelsea warehouse that was made available by a generous anonymous sponsor. As for Frieze Los Angeles, the first edition turned out pretty well, and all of Tinseltown will be back for next year’s second outing in the old Paramount studios.
Latest news: The most eagerly anticipated pavilion at this year’s
Venice Art Biennale is a débutante – Ghana’s – and will welcome, among others, rising stars such as John Akomfrah, El Anatsui, Ibrahim Mahama and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye in a building by David Adjaye. The consultant curator is Okwui Enwezor. The other pavilion everyone’s holding their breath for is Taiwan’s, curated by Paul B. Preciado and showing artist Shu Lea Cheang.