News from Around the Art World: October 9, 2017
Closed Bronzeville school becomes a student art gallery
It was hard for Irene Robinson not to cry as she walked the halls of the former Anthony Overton Elementary School. Five of Robinson’s children attended the school before it was closed by Chicago Public Schools in 2013. Since then, the building has fallen into a state of disrepair. The flooring has been torn up, ceiling tiles are missing and some doors and windows are now boarded up or covered in caution tape, with glass shattered from attempts to enter.
“It was so much more than a school,” Robinson said through tears. “This was a family. Every time I pass by here I feel like this is a gravesite.”
“Opening Closings” is a collaboration between Borderless Studios, DOCOMOMO-US-Chicago and the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education. For Saturday only, the former Bronzeville school featured student artwork. The exhibit is part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial
--Via Rachel Hinton, Chicago Sun Times
After hours program returns to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House
If you missed the last several iterations of After Hours at Robie House, there’s going to be four more events this month. Once again, the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust is opening the historic Prairie School home in Hyde Park to the public for drinks and live music. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1910, the Prairie style home is a Chicago Landmark, a U.S. National Historic Landmark, and is a home that Wright himself considered to be one of his greatest works.
--Via AJ LaTrace, Curbed Chicago
Newly Discovered Copy of Declaration of Independence Will be Auctioned
On July 9, 1776, the Manhattan printer John Holt gently edited the Declaration of Independence text and then published 500 copies.
Only four of the Holt Broadsides, as the documents came to be called, were known to survive until a few months ago, when a fifth surfaced in a private collection. The authenticated document and related papers, which belong to a descendant of some of early British settlers in eastern Long Island, will be auctioned on Nov. 11 at Blanchard’s Auction Service in Potsdam, N.Y.
--Via Eve M. Kahn, The New York Times
Frieze draws up plan to protect art world from Brexit
Ongoing concerns about the impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) have prompted the organisers of Frieze to draw up a list of recommendations designed to “help maintain the best possible conditions” for the art world. In an open letter, Victoria Siddall, the director of the Frieze fairs, aired her concerns about the impact of Brexit on galleries that are based in the UK or exhibit at fairs in London. Siddall shared her proposals with the Creative Industries Federation, an arts lobbying organisation, as part of a larger discussion of how the government should respond to the needs of the cultural sector.
Representatives of Frieze have “spoken to a range of people working in galleries”, Siddall says, and have formulated a plan of action with four recommendations. These include maintaining the current rate of VAT (5%) on works imported into the UK; continuing the free circulation of works between the EU and the UK; and maintaining the temporary admission procedure, which ensures that works imported temporarily for events such as fairs and exhibitions are exempt from import duties and VAT.
--Via Gareth Harris, The Art Newspaper
Brazilian Artist Tarsila do Amaral Comes to New York and Chicago
In Brazil she is famous enough to be called by her first name, Tarsila. In the U.S., where contemporary Brazilian art has an increasing following, the work of Tarsila do Amaral is rarely seen and hardly known. But starting this weekend, the artist, who spent the 1920s giving European modernism a resounding Brazilian makeover, will have her first American solo show at two major American museums.
--Via J.S. Marcus, The Wall Street Journal
Christie’s ends London contemporary auctions on a high note—despite Bacon flop
In stark contrast to Sotheby’s sales the night before, and after an efficient sale of 34 lots at Phillips’s 20th Century and Contemporary sale totalling £23.9m hours prior, Christie’s proved the depth of the international art market with double-header sales of post-war and contemporary and 20th century Italian works that saw solid results for stalwarts and deep bidding on established names new to the evening sale.
The evening’s £131.7m total, while below the presale estimates of £168.4m to £236.3m--which included a major Francis Bacon that failed to sell—nonetheless approached the standing record of £132m for an October contemporary sale in London, quashing concerns over a flooded field. “I think we can be very confident in the market”, says the house’s head of post-war and contemporary in Europe, Francis Outred.
--Via Sarah P. Hanson, The Art Newspaper
David Geffen pledges $150 million for new LACMA building
reathing fresh life into one of the city’s most ambitious cultural projects and making history as the largest gift on record toward the construction of an American museum, David Geffen has pledged $150 million to a new building for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Geffen’s pledge raises LACMA’s fundraising total to $450 million of the $650 million needed to break ground on a modernist Peter Zumthor building, arguably the most anticipated new piece of architecture in L.A. since Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall opened in 2003.
--Via Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times
