Art Industry News: A 91-Year-Old’s Mysterious Unsigned Warhol Is Heading to Sale at a Tiny Auction House in… Arizona + Other Stories

NEED TO READ

Georg Baselitz Interview – The German painter who has lived under two dictatorships told the ‘s Jonathan Jones that Germany has “never been democratic”—and not even modern German “democracy” can salvage that. “The artist has to behave as if he himself is the only potential intellectual power.” The famed artist, who is now in his 80s, is the latest subject of a new Taschen book. ()

French New Wave Maverick Jean-Luc Godard Has Died – The auteur who revolutionized the language of cinema and inspired filmmakers and artists around the world for decades has died at the age of 91. Best known for his reinvention of cinematic narrative and use of jump-cuts, Godard began as a critic with His art-house masterpiece (1960) kicked off the French New Wave movement. Godard, who later ventured into media art, saw film as an art object, and was even commissioned by MoMA to create (2000), made with his collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville. ()

V&A Weighs Return of Artifacts to Ghana – The Asante gold regalia seized by a British raid in 1874 that are kept at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum may have a chance to return home after the museum’s director Tristram Hunt visited Ghana. Such a move would put pressure on the British Museum, which houses an even bigger Asante collection. ()

Unsigned & Controversial Warhol Heads to Auction – from 1965 will be offered at Larsen Art Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, in October with presale expectations at $500,000 to $700,000. The work is offered by the 91-year-old New York collector Richard Ekstract (who wished to get his “estate in order”), and says he received the unsigned work for helping Warhol with a party. It comes from the same series that has has been a subject of a $20 million lawsuit against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. (, )

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Photographer William Klein Dies at 96 – The innovative artist who rose to prominence by subverting the rules of his craft died in Paris at age 96, his assistant confirmed. Klein captured the duality of urban life in glossy fashion spreads for and gritty cityscapes, as well as in his two-part film on the arc of Muhammad Ali’s fighting career and political activism. The first U.S.-based show of his work at New York’s International Center of Photography has been extended until Thursday. ()

Artist Lewis Stein Dies at 77 – Conceptual artist Lewis Klein, who was born in Manhattan in 1945, will be remembered at the Tibet House on September 18, according to Essex Street Gallery. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp, Ad Reinhardt, and Andy Warhol, Stein was a “deliberately contradictory artist who embraced conceptual approaches to explore the larger systems that surround seemingly innocuous objects and images,” writes curator Alex Bacon. ()

The National Gallery Is Launching a Play About One of Its Paintings – , a festive theater show following the journey of two children through the wintry landscape, is the National Gallery’s first attempt at commissioning an original theater show inspired by a painting—specifically, Hendrick Avercamp’s (1608– 1609). The play is the gallery’s attempt at reaching new audiences following a dip in the number of visitors during the pandemic. The show runs from November 26 to December 23. ()

FOR ARTS SAKE

Dan Colen’s Sky High Farm Collaborates with Balenciaga – For the final installment of its charity-based collaborations, the New York-based nonprofit is teaming up with Balenciaga for a collection of denim workwear featuring photographs of the farm’s rooster, pig, and lamb by Ryan McGinley. (Complex)