What We're Reading: 10/3/24

How the offices of Ebony and Jet became the latest Theaster Gates exhibition

Theaster Gates stared hard at a room full of furniture.

There were credenzas, chairs, desks, chests, a cube resembling an office refrigerator. Behind them, framed correspondence, photographs. Much of it came to him in 2010 after Johnson Publishing Co., home of Ebony and Jet magazines, vacated South Michigan Avenue. An office tower’s worth of furnishings, loose magazines, books, art and history needed a new home, and fast. Johnson Publishing was going through the final pains of watching its traditional place on newsstands vanish. So Columbia College stepped in and bought 820 S. Michigan. Johnson had occupied it since the early 1970s. It was the first building in downtown Chicago owned by a Black man. It’s still the only downtown skyscraper from a Black architect (John Warren Moutoussamy).

Via Chicago Tribune

Former AIC Curator Zoe Ryan Named Hammer Museum new director

One of the highest profile jobs in L.A.’s art world has officially been filled: The UCLA Hammer Museum in Westwood announced Monday that its next director will be Zoë Ryan, who arrives from the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania.

Via LA Times

The Top 10 Most Searched Artists: Which Stars Are Rising? Which Are Dimming?

Over the last decade, there haven’t been many dramatic shifts among the most frequently searched artists in the Artnet Price Database. Compared with 10 years ago, mainstays like Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol even maintained the exact same spots on the new list, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall and Joan Miró are close enough. But the Yayoi Kusamajuggernaut is newer, reflecting her meteoric rise in the market and the public consciousness.

Via Artnet