VOLTA New York launched in March 2008 as a satellite fair of the long-running Armory Show. This year, VOLTA will once again be in alignment with Frieze art fair, presenting galleries from over 18 countries. VOLTA’s focus on cutting-edge contemporary art encompasses several themes—among them, science and nature—from galleries with a wide-ranging international perspective.

Barcelona-based Out of Africa (OOA) Gallery champions work by contemporary African artists. Their presentation will highlight work by Oluwole Omofemi, Matthew Eguavoen, Médéric Turay, and Moses Zibor. These artists, part of a young, dynamic generation of global African diasporans, showcase African pride, tradition, and culture in their practice.

At SEIZAN Gallery (New York/Tokyo), Japanese artist Motohide Takami revisits cultural legacy and collective trauma. The Great Earthquake of 2011 occurred during the artist’s time as a graduate student at Tohoku University of Art in Yamagata. The disaster and its aftermath became a signature trope in his oil paintings. A recurring image of flames by the riverside refers to the Japanese expression “fire on the other side of the river,” meaning something is someone else’s business. This motif underscores human disinterest in tragic events that do not directly impact you, ever pertinent in today’s world.

Venezuelan artist Starsky Brines, presented by the Frankfurt-based Galerie Heike Strelow, explores identity through personal biographical iconography. His anthropomorphic characters are influenced by his

domestic life with his mother, who crafted colorful puppets for Caribbean carnivals. He pairs this visual language with an art historical knowledge of Latin American figurative art, German Neo-Expressionism, the Italian Transavantgarde, and the CoBrA group to create paintings that oscillate between abstract and figurative.

Korean artist Vlad Ogay is inspired by his time spent studying theater in Russia. His “readymade” practice involves collaging together objects and artifacts from everyday life. His works will be presented at VOLTA by the Latvian gallery CUT ART.  A multi-disciplinary artist, Ogay has received prestigious awards in Venice and Cannes for his film projects and is preparing for his first solo show, to be curated by Gianluca Marziani (a consulting curator of the 2011 Venice Biennale and Banksy’s biographer).

Meanwhile, LAMINAProject present a series of collage-based works by New York artist Jody Rasch that explore radio astronomy, a sub-genre of astronomy specializing in celestial objects at radio frequencies.

Artist Natalie Collette Wood has a different take on the organic in her elusive assemblages and layered paintings of fantastical forms. The artist’s work will be presented by Vellum Projects. Among works by five artists exploring topics of mythology, popular culture, environmental activism, and conservation, Wood’s pieces are a particular highlight.

The origin of the name of VOLTA denotes a turn of thought or an inflection point. The fair distinguishes itself in the marketplace with its commitment to creating an environment of discovery for art collectors, with this intention precisely guiding its curation. VOLTA serves as the platform for ambitious international galleries to enter the global art markets of New York and Basel. In turn, the fair offers both burgeoning and established collectors a place to discover the art of now, to grow their collection, and ultimately to connect with and support new talent.

Beyond stand-out group presentations, 14 galleries will feature solo exhibitions at the fair. Among these highlights are: the South Korean Gallery Bhak presenting work by artist Yissho, (AV17) Gallery presenting sculptures by Lithuanian artist Mindaugas Junčys, Catalysta Gallery presenting artworks by Dominican artist Manuel Mera, and Stone Step Gallery presenting Irish artist Paul Hughes.

United by the healing power of creativity, VOLTA New York will collaborate with non-profit partner Fashion Fights Cancer to host an art auction and fashion fundraising event on Thursday, May 18, from 6 to 9 PM, co-hosted by New York Fashion Week’s Fern Mallis and Gary Wassner, CEO of Hilldun Corporation.

The full exhibitor list is available at this link. VOLTA New York is on view May 17-21 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea.

VOLTA New York is followed by VOLTA Basel (June 12-18) at Klybeck 610, Basel, Switzerland.

Follow @voltaartfairs for updates.

The Headlines

TROUBLE IN PARIS. On Sunday, a Miriam Cahn painting that has been the subject of right-wing vitriol was vandalized in her current show at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Alex Greenberger reports in ARTnews. The alleged vandal sprayed purple paint onto the piece, which depicts a person with their hands tied performing a sex act on a taller person. Cahn, an acclaimed Swiss artist, has said she created the work after reading about human-rights abuses in Ukraine. Some conservative politicians and children’s-rights groups have claimed that the piece promotes pedophilia. The alleged culprit was apprehended by guards and turned over to police, the AFP reports. Per the artist’s wishes, the defaced work will remain in the show until it ends its run on Sunday.

ARTISTS CLOSE UP. In the Los Angeles Times, Carolina A. Miranda reports on infighting among members of the storied Chicano artist collective Asco over the authorship of some of their trailblazing pieces. The “disputes could now affect how Asco’s work is displayed and how its story is ultimately told,” she writes. ● Also in the L.A. Times, artist Max Hooper Schneider, who makes dense, frenetic, action-packed installations and sculptures, got the profile treatment from Leah Ollman. “I think of the studio as a gut, and I’m like a digestive enzyme, circulating through it,” said Hooper Schneider, who has a new show up at the François Ghebaly gallery in L.A.. ● And in the Financial Times, photographer Martin Parr discussed the work of six peers whom he admires, including Mohamed Bourouissa, Markéta Luskačová, and Rinko Kawauchi.

The Digest

Last year, material from Ann and Gordon Getty’s home in the S.F. neighborhood of Pacific Heights made more than $150 million at Christie’s. In June, art and design from their residence in nearby Berkeley, known as the Temple of Wings, will be offered by the auctioneer, with proceeds again going to charity. [Datebook]

Police in Greece arrested four on allegations of pursuing illegal construction projects on the islands of Mykonos and Rhodes. In March, a government archaeologist was beaten in an Athens suburb, an attack that authorities believe was related to his work evaluating projects near archaeological sites in those tourism hotspots. [AFP/Barron’s]

Artist Steve McQueen said that he has invited dozens of U.K. politicians to visit the Serpentine Gallery in London to view his new film about the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72, but that most have not replied. “Their silence says a lot about what is happening in this country,” he said. [The Guardian]

The illustrator Bruce McCall, whose richly detailed satirical visions of American life graced more than 80 covers of the New Yorker, died on Friday at the age of 87. Graphic designer Michael Bierutonce termed McCall “our country’s greatest unacknowledged design visionary,” William Grimes writes in his obituary. [The New York Times]

Theatrical producer Jenna Segal has been building a collection of work by all 31 artists featured in an all-women show at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery in 1943. She is still looking for a Gypsy Rose Lee piece, and is presenting her holdings at her Midtown Manhattan offices later the month. [The New York Times]

Allegations are flying in a battle over the wealth and art collection of billionaire Hubert Neumann and his family. His second daughter, Belinda Neumann-Donnelly, has filed suit against him, saying that he has taken funds from trusts and engaged in other improper behavior. His lawyer rebutted the claims. [New York Post]

The Kicker

THE KEY TO LONGEVITY. In a recent op-ed for the Washington Post, the philosopher and poet Paul Woodruff talked about undertaking meaningful projects as the end of his life nears. “As I think of dying, I make each day a time for living, for having something to live for,” he wrote. A reader responded with a letter to editor, noting that that worldview matched that of the great artist Harry Liebermann, who died at 106. According to the letter’s author, Liebermann said, when he was already past 100, “The reason I am living so long is before I go to bed, I imagine what I will be painting the next day.” [The Washington Post]

The Headlines

WINNER’S CIRCLE. Down in Australia on Friday, the Art Gallery of New South Wales announced the 2023 winner of the prestigious Archibald Prize, an open competition with a purse of AU$100,000 (about US$67,300). That lucky artist is 29-year-old Julia Gutman, who is the 13th woman to take the crown since the start of the annual event in 1921, the Guardian reports. Her piece shows the singer Montaigne, aka Jessica Cerro. The Sydney Morning Herald (which did a live blog of the prize press conference) spoke with Gutman, who said, “I’m not going to break into song, but it is really surreal.” At the event, the AU$50,000 ($33,600) Wynne Prize for landscape painting was awarded to Zaachariaha Fielding, and the AU$40,000 ($26,900) Sulman Prize for a subject painting, genre painting or mural went to Doris Bush Nungarrayi.

THE ART KING. The big day is almost here. King Charles III will be crowned on Saturday at Westminster Abbey in London—the 40th monarch to undergo the ceremony there over the past millennium, BBC News reports. Charles’s taste is often described as conservative (especially when it comes to architecture), but he also “is the most culturally attuned monarch for well over a century,” Alex Marshall writes in the New York Times. The former Prince of Wales studied trumpet and cello, loves Shakespeare and the opera, has commissioned a dozen musical pieces for the coronation, and had a watercolor he painted accepting into the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in 1987. (He submitted the work under a pseudonym: Arthur George Carrick.) Would you like to see some of his creations? Tatler Asia has five examples.

The Digest

Artist Sze Tsung Nicolás Leong and writer Judy Chui-Hua Chung have been selected to create a memorial for the victims of the Los Angeles Chinese Massacre of 1871, when 18 Chinese men were lynched. It will be built largely along Los Angeles Street in the city’s downtown. [Los Angeles Times]

Using X-ray tech, the Metropolitan Museum of Art examined Vermeer‘s A Maid Asleep (ca. 1656–57) and found that it once included a man working at an easel with a paintbrush—probably a depiction of the artist himself! [The Art Newspaper]

Hauser & Wirth has named as its Charitable Partner of the Year The House of AWT Project (Artists Working Together), the legendary ballroom house that runs programs to support at-risk Black and Brown LGBTQIA+ youth and young adults. [ARTnews]

Fun music trivia: Hamilton Leithauser, the lead singer of the reunited indie-rock legends the Walkmen, worked as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art back in the day. Museums are a good place to work, he told columnist Nate Freeman. “No matter what you’re doing you’re always at least surrounded by cool stuff.” [Vanity Fair]

Sotheby’s is offering NFTs that once belonged to the cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which went under last summer. The firm’s liquidator is consigning the material, which includes a Chromie Squiggle, a Zombie CryptoPunk, and more. [Benzinga]

The Teiger Foundation announced that it has given $4.2 million to dozens of groups and individuals for “curator-led projects, coalitions, and climate action within the field of contemporary art.” Consult the full list of recipients for hints about some toothsome-sounding upcoming shows. [Artforum]

The Kicker

VIVA LA VIDA. In the New York Times, Penelope Green has a vivid profile of Alexandra Auder, a yoga instructor, parody influencer, and now memoirist, whose new book, Don’t Call Me Home, covers growing up in the legendary Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan with her mother, the Warhol “superstar” Viva, in the 1970s and 80s. (Viva and Auder’s father, filmmaker Michel Auder, split when their daughter was young.) After college at Bard, the newly published writer said she had difficulty figuring out what to do. “I was like, ‘What the hell? I’m not prepared for this,’ ” she told the Times. “I didn’t know how to have a job. I’d never seen that. I’d only seen these weird artists.” It seems she figured it out. [NYT]

The Headlines

FAIR PLAY. For the first time, Art Basel’s fair in beautiful Basel, Switzerland, will have a dedicated director, Maximilíano Durón reports in ARTnews. That leader will be Maike Cruse, the director of Gallery Weekend Berlin, who will take up the job in July, shortly after the event’s run in June. It’s a homecoming of sorts for Cruse, who was a communications manager for Art Basel in the mid-2000s. Cruse will be reporting to Vincenzo de Bellis, the firm’s director for fairs and exhibition platforms. Another appointment may be in the offing: Art Basel said that “a search is underway” for a director of its Miami Beach fair, a position once held by Art Basel’s CEO, Noah Horowitz.

BRIDGE TO THE PAST. So beguiling is the Mona Lisa’s smile that it can be easy to miss everything else that Leonardo painting behind her in the background of his masterpiece. Have you ever noticed the tiny bridge with four arches that is behind her left shoulder, at our right? Scholars have in the past proposed various bridges that the Old Master may have been depicting. Now, the Guardian reports, historian Silvano Vinceti has concluded that it is the Romito di Laterina bridge in the Arezzo province, based on his study of drone images, area photos, and other materials. Naturally, the locals are pretty excited about this possibility. One arch is extant, and Laterina’s mayor told the outlet, “We need to try to protect what’s left of the bridge, which will require funding.”

The Digest

Chicago artist Thomas Kong, who took up art in his sixties, using materials that he had on hand in the convenience store that he ran, died on May 1 at 73, Claire Voon reports. With artist Dan Miller, Kong set up a community gallery in the store’s storage space in 2015 that ran until 2019. They called it the Back Room. [The Art Newspaper]

At her current show at Esther Schipper in Berlin, artist Hito Steyerl is selling sculptural works for €1,700–€2,000 (about $1,880–$2,220) to raise funds to create a healthcare center in Jinwar, a village in Syria devoted to protecting women and children. [Ocula]

The Istanbul Modern museum is reopening today in a new building in that city’s Karaköy district. Designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, it has over 100,000 square feet for its permanent collection, a restaurant, and more. [ArtAsiaPacific]

Another new position filled today: Guild Hall in East Hampton, New York, has tapped Melanie Crader to be its first director of visual arts. She was most recently deputy director at the Parrish Art Museum in nearby Water Mill. [Press Release/Guild Hall]

Who’s selling at the big auctions in New York this month? The ARTnewsOn Balance newsletter has answers. For one, the Cigna insurance company is parting with a major sculptural installation by Isamu Noguchi. [ARTnews]

ARTISTS IN PROFILE. Painter Y.Z. Kami is in the New York Times, as is sculptor Rachel Feinstein, sculptor Misha Japanwala is in the Guardian, textile artist Qualeasha Wood is in Cultured, multi-medium artist Julian Opie is inYonhap News, and photographer Sheida Soleimani is in the Financial Times.

The Kicker

CHANGING THE CHANNEL. The Māori artist Hāmiora Bailey has created a web-browser plugin that inserts Indigenous news stories in place of ones about the British monarchy and the coronation of King Charles III, the Guardian reports. “People are sick of it—they don’t care about how much a diamond costs and who’s wearing what dress,” Bailey said. Interest web surfers can find out on the dedicated website for the plugin, which is called Pikari Mai. [The Guardian]

The Headlines

MARBLE MANEUVERS. Austria’s foreign ministry said that the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Acropolis Museum in Athens are in talks about sending two sculptural pieces from of the Parthenon back to Greece, the Associated Press reports. A spox for the ministry said that the “technical” discussions are “about the possibility of a loan” from the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The Vatican recently donated its three fragments of the Parthenon marbles to the Greek Orthodox Church. As the AP notes, an Austro-Grecian deal could ramp up pressure on the British Museum to repatriate its far-larger Parthenon marbles. For more on that situation, ARTnews has an explainer.

THE BRITISH-BORN ARTIST JOHN STOBART, a giant of maritime painting renowned for his knowledge of boats and ships of every kind, died in March at 93, Alex Williams writes in the New York Times. Stobart’s lucid depictions of watercraft earned him a devoted following, and he was at one point making $2.5 million a year selling prints, books, and paintings, the Times reports. Early in his career, he worked on commissions for shipping companies, painting their vessels in port, the Vineyard Gazette reports. TV anchor Walter Cronkite was a fan, and once compared Stobart to John Constable, but the artist was not having it, the Times reports. “I think it’s way too illustrative, my work,” he said, “and that’s because I’m trying to be a businessman and an artist.”

The Digest

Government-backed researchers in Ommeren, the Netherlands, concluded an unsuccessful hunt for boxes filled with jewels and gold that Nazi soldiers are said to have buried near the end of the war. Treasure hunters have been drawn to area after the declassification of a map leading to a purported treasure there. [The New York Times] 

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco tapped Danielle St. Germain, formerly the executive director of the San Francisco Ballet, to be its chief philanthropy officer. [Datebook]

The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, has hired Anke Van Wagenberg as its senior curator of American and European art. She’s coming from the Vero Beach Museum of Art, about 80 miles north, where she is chief curator. [Press Release]

Anna Somers Cocks has a handy guide to all the “mystical objects” that will be involved in the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday, from the Stone of Destiny to a gold Coronation Spoon that dates to the 12th century. [The Art Newspaper]

The many-storied Hotel Bauer Palazzo in Venice is undertaking a major renovation and has been selling off some of its furnishings through Artcurial. The live auctions are over, but online sales run until Thursday. [Artnet News]

Architectural Digest has a rundown of “12 most unique bus stops around the world,” and artist’s Dennis Oppenheim’s remarkable Bus-Home in Ventura, California, made the cut. As its name promises, it features sculptures that appear to be at once autobuses and houses. [Architectural Digest]

The Kicker

THE FLOW OF TIME. At a panel at the Art for Tomorrow conference in Florence, Italy, last week, journalist Farah Nayeri asked outgoing Whitney Museum director Adam Weinberg what he thinks a museum is today. His response, as reported by the New York Times: “At least at the Whitney, I think of it very much as a place of art in real time, which means we are swimming in the river, at the same pace of the river, and we can’t even feel the movement of the river, in a way.” [NYT]

The Headlines

THE BIG NIGHT. As you might have heard, the Met Gala took place last night in New York. For ARTnews, Shanti Escalante-De Matteimuch offered up the best and worst outfits—many of them created by Karl Lagerfeld, the focus of the evening’s festivities. One highlight: Doja Cat, who sported Oscar de le Renta and prosthetics “to become the human-ish avatar of Lagerfeld’s cat Choupette,” she writes. Jared Leto wore a full Choupette costume, Page Six notes, but the actual feline was not, alas, in attendance, the Associated Press reports, despite rumors that she might grace the red carpet. Rihanna arrived well after the event got underway, at around 10 p.m., in a grand Valentino ensemble, all white, with a sprawling train. “She said on the red carpet she felt ‘good, very expensive,’ ” Rachel Tashjian writes in the Washington Post.

ACQUISITION ACTION. The Art Institute of Chicago has added to its holdings 1,440—yes, 1,000, 400, and 40—Dutch Mannerist prints, dating from the 1530s to about 1650, from the Hearn Family Foundation and Charles Hack collection. The haul includes a significant number of prints by the Dutch master Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617), as well as his students. Some of the pieces will go on view at the museum in November, and a dedicated show (and catalogue) has been penciled in for 2027.

The Digest

While we are on the subject of art-fashion crossovers: An exhibition at MoMu in Antwerp, Belgium, looks at the photos that the Surrealist artist Man Ray shot for fashion magazines and advertisements. “Financially it absolutely helped his career, but also with fame, and he knew that,” the show’s curator, Romy Cockx, said. [The Guardian]

The annual Herb Alpert Award in the Arts has been given to 11 recipients this year, including American Artist and Park McArthur, who will each receive $75,000 and a residence at CalArts in beautiful Santa Clarita, California. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Online art sales increased just six percent in 2022, according to a report from the Hiscox insurance company and the art-data firm ArtTactic, to $15.9 billion. The study’s thesis: “The astronomical growth in the online market between 2019 and 2021 was because it was the only way to buy and sell art. Now there is a choice.” [Penta]

A townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that artist and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt called home in the 1980s and ’90s is on the market for $11 million. It is being sold by photographer Priscilla Rattazzi, who bought the place from Vanderbilt. [Dirt via Architectural Digest]

Artist Harold Ancart is about to open his debut show at Gagosian in New York, and got the profile treatment from Arthur Lubow. When Larry Gagosian came by his workplace, “it was one of the best studio visits I ever had,” Ancart said. [W]

When sleep becomes form: Julia Halperin writes that “artists and institutions like MoMA have turned to rest as a revolutionary act in a moment when the very idea of productivity is being rethought.” It is a trend with deep art-historical roots. [T: The New York Times Style Magazine]

The Kicker

THE DIRECTOR’S CUT. Filmmaker and Coen brother Joel Coen (Fargo, Barton Fink) has put together a book of photographs by the great Lee Friedlander and curated two accompanying shows, at Luhring Augustine in New York and Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, the New York Times reports. The two artists have gotten to know each other, and it sounds like they have a fruitful dialogue going. Friedlander told the Times, “He says all kinds of nice things that I don’t recognize. Splitting, splintering. Evidently my pictures are that way, but I didn’t think, ‘I want to take a splintering picture.’ If you’ve done the same thing for 60 years, you don’t think of motive very much.” [NYT]

The Headlines

STUDENT LIFE. A college art student visiting Maurizio Cattelan’s survey at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul last week ate the Italian artist’s infamous Comedian (2019) piece (the banana taped to a wall), the Korea Herald reports. The student described the action as an artwork. Leeum, which has been replacing the banana every two to three days, said that it would not pursue any damages. (All publicity is good publicity!) The exhibition, titled “WE,” runs through July 16. Meanwhile, on Saturday, an Oregon high school student made a striking entrance to his prom, which was being held at the Portland Museum of Art, by rolling up in an M3A1 Stuart tank, KOIN reports. The price of the ride was $1,000, which he partially raised on GoFundMe. He did not describe his performance as an artwork, but it looks like he had a nice time.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS. Landscape architect Charles Jencks’s enormous earth sculpture of a reclining woman in northern England, Northumberlandia (aka Lady of the North), “is looking tired and worn with unsightly patches of damage,” Mark Brown reports in the Guardian. The issue: Visitors are straying from the designated paths, and trampling over the piece. Signs are being installed to encourage them not to do that. Over in Norway, artist Astri Tonoian has installed a life-size bronze sculpture of a walrus in Oslo, the Associated Press reports. The roughly $25,000 piece was crowdfunded, and pays tribute to Freya, the walrus who hung out in the city last summer, delighting onlookers before she was euthanized by authorities out of concerns for public safety.

The Digest

Italy returned an ancient funerary stele to Turkey that police determined had been dug up illegally. The stone piece is carved with a woman’s head and bears the words, in ancient Greek, “Satornila, the wife who loves her husband, farewell!” [The Associated Press]

The Chinese auction firms Poly Auction and China Guardian said that they plan to compete aggressively with their American and European peers for contemporary art consignments. Poly will open offices in London and South Korea this year, and its biz-dev head said, “We are not really afraid of other auction houses. [Financial Times]

A 1977 Andy Warhol painting of O.J. Simpson, then the running back for the Buffalo Bills, will be offered at auction at Phillips in New York later this month with an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000. The piece was deaccessioned by Canton, Ohio’s Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011 and sold to a collector. [Bloomberg]

The closely watched Hong Kong nonprofit art space Para Site is expanding to another floor of the building that it calls home in the city’s Quarry Bay area. The additional venue will open May 12 with a show by local artist Kong Chun Hei. [ArtAsiaPacific]

Speaking of high-rise art venues: The Midtown Manhattan building once known as Beaux Arts Studios has had a wild history, with artists like Florine Stettheimer and Fernand Léger working there over the years. Its penthouse is now a place called Luxuny, where “commerce meets culture and community,” its founder say. [The New York Times]

In the Atlampa neighborhood in Mexico City, the architect Alberto Kalach has designed for artist Bosco Sodi a studio and exhibition spaces that will present his own art and shows by emerging artists, via his Casa Wabi nonprofit. [Architectural Digest]

The Kicker

THE BIG DAY. The Met Gala takes place tonight, with the rich, and powerful, and famous descending on the museum to raise money for its Costume Institute, party, and take in its latest exhibition, which is devoted to the late designer Karl Lagerfeld. One big question about the festivities, the Wall Street Journal reports, is whether Lagerfeld’s beloved cat, Choupette, will be in attendance. No one is saying, including Birman’s agent. (This is a seriously busy cat: she has done modeling work for years, most recently for a Vogue shoot with Naomi Campbell.) The cat’s caretaker offered this: “Knowing how Karl spoke of the influence of Choupette, I know Karl would have been proud to have her at the event.” [WSJ]

The Headlines

GROW OR GO. The Dallas Museum of Art has selected six finalists for an expansion project that comes with a budget of $150 million to $175 million, the Dallas Morning News reports. The lucky firms are David Chipperfield, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Johnston Marklee, Michael Maltzan Architecture, Weiss/Manfredi, and Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos. The paper’s architecture critic, Mark Lamster, writes that the selection committee “has leaned in to the tried and true—with one notable exception.” That would be the Madrid-based Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, which has worked largely in Europe, but has still handled a number of cultural projects, like the National Sculpture Museum in Valladolid, Spain. The winner will be named in August.

A DOUBLEHEADER. In Hong Kong, the artist JR has made a sprawling installation to mark the end of the city’s mask mandate, pasting black-and-white photos of some 450 volunteers to the floor and a wall at the Harbour City shopping center, the South China Morning Post reports. Not everyone is a fan of his efforts: Some online commenters have compared it to a memorial for a mass tragedy and noted that black signifies death in China. Meanwhile, out in Water Mill, New York, the indefatigable artist is getting ready to install an enormous photographic work on the facade of the Parrish Art Museum, the New York Times reports. It will show almost 40 running children, and JR told the paper that he was “really trying to capture that moment of lightness and innocence of all children before the weight of the world falls on them.”

The Digest

Jane Davis Doggett, a pioneer in environmental graphic design (aka wayfinding), has died at 93. Doggett worked on airports, malls, and other public spaces, helping people get to where they wanted to go. She saw her job “as communicating to people the choices offered for their individual selections,” she once said. [The New York Times]

The 2024 Preis der Nationalgalerie, a prestigious award in Germany for artists 40 and under, has for the first time gone to four artists: Pan Daijing, Daniel Lie, Hanne Lippard, and James Richards. Next year, they will each present a new work at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof. [ArtReview]

Good news, pet lovers. Greece’s Culture Ministry said it will now allow people to bring their pets to more than 120 archaeological sites. Some rules apply: Owners are required to pick up pet droppings, for one, and very crowded places will still be off-limits, like the Acropolis in Athens. [The Associated Press]

Artist Erwin Wurm kindly offered travel picks for Vienna, where he resides. They range from a toothsome-sounding Japanese-European resto to a “fancy Italian place,” where he loves the parmigiana and the scaloppine al limone. Wurm will have a retrospective at the Albertina Modern in the city next year. [Financial Times]

A retrospective of the legendary artist Tom of Finland (aka Touko Laaksonen) goes on view today at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, and it includes his homoerotic drawings, as well as clothing, letters, and more. “Tom is one of our national heroes,” the museum’s director, Leevi Haapala, said. [The Associated Press]

RM Sotheby’s is planning a new show and auction of classic cars in Miami that will debut next March. RM Group’s CEO, Rob Myers, said they his team wants to give the event “a different lifestyle twist, you know, not just walking around the show field, standing in line and paying $10 for a hot dog.” [Bloomberg]

The Kicker

MARK YOUR CALENDARS. In June, painter Christopher Wool is scheduled to reveal a gargantuan mosaic—almost 40 feet across!—in the lobby of Two Manhattan West, an office building about a block from New York’s Madison Square Garden. It’s a commission from the site’s developer, Brookfield Properies, which is also having Charles Ray make a sculpture for out front. Wool toldBloomberg’s James Tarmy that he informed reps from the firm that “if we take the scaffolding down but the piece doesn’t look good, you’re going to put the scaffold back up.” (Music to a patron’s ears!) From a rendering, at least, the artwork looks very handsome. [Bloomberg]

The Headlines

THE END OF THE LINE. The beleaguered San Francisco Art Institute, which held its final graduation last year, has filed for bankruptcy, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The move will require the institution, which marked its sesquicentennial in 2021, to liquidate its assets. One big question mark: What will happen to the huge 1931 Diego Rivera mural on its grounds? It has been appraised at $50 million, but in 2021, when the school was looking at selling it to cover its debts, the city made it a landmark. (Last year, the SFAI received a $200,000 grant for its preservation.) It can only be moved with the approval of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city’s legislative body, according to the Chronicle. A supervisor who backed the landmark designation, Aaron Peskin, told the paper that he wants to find a way for it to be displayed in a public gallery.

SPEAKING OF INSOLVENCY: The Amsterdam building that Rembrandt called home for 19 years, until he sold it while bankrupt in 1669, is the Rembrandt House Museum these days, and it has reopened after renovations, the Wall Street Journal reports. Some rooms are set up to resemble their state when the master lived and worked there. It looks great. In other house-related news, Architectural Digest asked seven homeowners what it is like to live in their Frank Lloyd Wright–designed residences. The consensus: Pretty satisfying. “The house sort of tells you how to live,” one said. And the Manhattan apartment where architect Henry Cobb lived is on the market for about $3.5 million, Mansion Global reports. The duplex was designed by Cobb, a partner in a firm with I.M. Pei, and is located right by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Digest

And speaking of parting with prized assets: The Whitney Museum is looking at possibly selling its former Marcel Breuer–designed spot on the Upper East Side, Katya Kazakina reports. A museum spox said that it “is exploring options for the Breuer building.” The Frick Collection is set to wrap up its stay there next year. [Artnet News Pro]

The pioneering Miami dealer Barbara Gillman, who played a part in artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapping 11 area islands in 1983, and who toured Andy Warhol around town in 1980, died Sunday at 86. She also had a “brisket recipe so delicious it converted vegetarians,” Amanda Rosa reports. [Miami Herald]

Belongings that the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury left to a close friend will be sold at Sotheby’s in September, with a portion of the proceeds going to charity. The material includes a £600,000 (about $748,000) James Tissot painting, works on paper, handwritten lyrics, clothes, and a great deal more. [The Associated Press]

Harlan Crow, the billionaire real-estate maven and Clarence Thomas superfan, was in the papers recently for, among other things, having a collection of Nazi memorabilia, including two paintings by Adolf Hitler. Two experts on the subject said that one of those works is likely fake. [Insider]

The government of Daegu, South Korea, is auditing the collection of the city art museum after a work attributed to artist and independence activist Kim Jin-man was determined to be a forgery. A report earlier this year suggested that other works at the museum may not be authentic. [The Korea Herald]

The press release for artist Alex Israel’s upcoming show at Gagosian’s Rome branch was generated by everyone’s favorite AI chatbot, ChatGPT. “Israel is known for his exploration of the visual culture of Los Angeles,” it reads in part, “and this exhibition continues this exploration with an exciting new approach.” [Press Release/Gagosian]

The Kicker

TROUBLE IN PARADISE. Earlier this month at the historic Croome estate in Worcestershire, England, a memorial to landscape architect Capability Brown and a statue by John Bacon that is more than 200 years old were vandalized with blue crayon marks, the New York Times reports. The culprit? No one has been identified, but on the day of the vandalism, crayons had been given to children in activity packets. The National Trust, which manages the property, said in a statement, “Disappointing as they are, incidents like this are very rare considering the millions of visitors who enjoy and respect the places in our care.” The Bacon has been cleaned, and the memorial is being cleaned. [NYT]

The Headlines

A LEGAL BATTLE. Valparaiso University in Indiana has been hit with a lawsuit that aims to prevent it from deaccessioning and selling works from its Brauer Museum of Art by three greats—Georgia O’Keeffe, Frederic E. Church, and Childe Hassam—to raise around $20 million to improve its first-year dormitories, the Art Newspaper reports. Museum groups have criticized that plan, ARTnews reported earlier this year, since industry guidelines require that such sales be used to acquire new work or care for collections. An interesting wrinkle noted by TAN: The two people bringing the suit are not connecting to the original donor of the pieces, so there is some question about whether a court will rule that they have standing to make their case. One plaintiff is Richard Brauer, the founding director of the museum that has his name. He says that his reputation is at stake, and that if the sales go through, he will have his name removed.

COLLECTION HISTORY. ProPublic has published an investigation on Native American objects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, focusing on 139 items loaned or donated by collectors Charles and Valerie Diker. Only 15 percent of those items have “have solid or complete ownership histories” on the museum’s online database, the nonprofit outfit reports, and experts said that the lack of provenance information can be a sign that material has been forged or looted. The Met termed it misleading to view “complete ownership histories as a standard for judging a collection,” and said, “Although some progress has been made in updating the online catalog information and providing more complete provenance information, we recognize there is still much work to do.” In a statement, the Dikers said in part, “Our collecting practice for over 50 years has always centered on proceeding carefully, assessing all available information relating to provenance before acquiring a work.”

The Digest

Women have finally been hired to direct many major art museum in recent years, Ted Loos reports. However, Tate’s director, Maria Balshaw, emphasized that the vast majority of directors continue to be male. “I was on a Zoom the other day with international museum directors, and it was still 75 percent men,” she said. [The New York Times]

The Shanghai-based Yuz Museum, which was started by the late collector Budi Tek, is readying a new location at the Panlong Tiandi real estate development in the city, and tomorrow will open a pop-up near there with 14 artists. The new museum, designed by HBA Architecture, is set to be unveiled next month. [Ocula]

Art collector and philanthropist Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo—whose holdings are currently the focus of a show at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy—got the profile treatment. “Today’s patrons have a duty to society to engage the public with art,” she said. “Art isn’t just for decorating our houses.” [The New York Times]

Artist Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, who makes alluring artworks from durags, currently has a show up at Night Gallery in Los Angeles. “I think the idea of bringing the durag into high art, you’re repositioning who is in control of the power,” he told writer André-Naquian Wheeler. [Vogue]

Stalwart New York artist David Diao has joined the Greene Naftali gallery, which said in a statement that his “paintings have dismantled the tenets of modernism from within, exploring the shadow side of its reductive geometries as a source of untapped potential.” [@greenenaftali/Instagram]

A little dose of archaeology to conclude: Amid efforts to extend the Osaka Monorail in Japan, archaeologists found a (fairly haunting!) cedar mask dating back some 1,800 years that may have in ceremonies at agricultural festivals. It will soon go on view at the Museum of Yayoi Culture in Izumi. [Heritage Daily]

The Kicker

A LONG STRANGE TRIP. In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Carolina A. Miranda has a remarkable story about the journey of a giant cube that artists Julio César Morales and Eamon Ore-Girón created for a 2008 show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After Ore-Girón gave it away (storage was pricy), it got offered for free on Craigslist and eventually made its way to a backyard in Pasadena, California, where it is now a sound recording studio for Enrique Tena Padilla, aka DJ Escuby. Morales recently visited and told Miranda, “It was breathtaking. To see it outside and not in the context of a pristine museum, but seeing it age. It’s like a beautiful old guitar. Like, there’s a new version you could get. But this one, as it ages, it still plays really amazing.” [LAT]