News From the Art World: March 16, 2020
Chicago Closes ‘the Bean’ Due to the Coronavirus
The City of Chicago announced that it is closing Cloud Gate Plaza where the bean is located. All planned events at The Bean are canceled through April 12.
However, Millennium Park will be open.
Via CBS News
The European Art World Reacts to the Coronavirus Outbreak
On March 11, when President Donald Trump announced he was suspending travel from Europe to the US for 30 days, the leading European gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac was in Paris for the opening of a show of Antony Gormley’s newest work.
As people stop traveling and begin to self-isolate, Ropac says he is looking to the gradually improving situation in Asia as an indicator for how things could go in Europe. And from a business perspective, he’s also starting to think about the usefulness of the internet to his operations.
“I was never a big believer in online sales since I always prioritized encouraging collectors to see the works in galleries where they have the best view,” Ropac says. “This is the first time I’m putting my weight behind online sales.”
Via Artnet
The Gray Market: Why a Slew of Postponed Art-Market Events Will Trigger a Reckoning in an Overcrowded Field
Starting last Wednesday—only hours after the World Health Organization declared the novel 2019 coronavirus a global pandemic—a tidal wave of museum and gallery closures, art-fair postponements, and auction-sale delays began surging across the Western art world in response to the growing public-health crisis. And although the reopening of select art institutions in East and Southeast Asia on Friday provided a jolt of optimism to art lovers and the nonprofit side of the industry, the reality on the for-profit side is that COVID-19’s temporary reshuffling of events could also permanently reshape the art-market calendar in the years ahead.
Via Artnet
KAWS develops augmented reality project that offers a different model for the future of showing and selling art
At a time when the art world is being forced to rethink its high carbon, large-scale event-based lifestyle, the ever popular US artist KAWS is offering a glimpse of a future without museums, art fairs—even without art. Well, physical art at least.
Partnering with Acute Art, the London-based firm that produces and sells virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) works, KAWS (aka Brian Donnelly) has created what is being touted by its developers as the first truly global exhibition, as well as a marketplace, all using AR.
Via The Art Newspaper
