NEED-TO-READ
Who’s Fit to Run the Guggenheim? – Someone will soon be announced to succeed Richard Armstrong who is retiring from his role as director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum. The brief for being a director of a museum has ballooned in size in recent years. It is not just about fund-raising and art history degrees (though it is also about that), directors must face a flurry of social issues, including questions of diversity, restitution, and climate change. The top names believed to be in the ring for the job are Madeleine Grynsztejn from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Melissa Chiu, director of the Hirshhorn Museum; Franklin Sirmans, the director of Pérez Art Museum Miami, and Jessica Morgan of the Dia Art Foundation. (New York Times)
Louis Vuitton to Sell $42,000 in Phygital NFTs – Digital scarcity is in fashion: The luxury fashion house is launching a new NFT collection called Via Treasure Trunks, which comes with a physical replica of the digital trunk. Registration will be available on June 8 for those hoping to order these NFTs. “A few hundred” select customers will then be invited to purchase the NFTs on June 16 for €39,000 ($42,000). (CoinDesk)
Reina Sofia Names Director – Curator Manuel Segade will be the next director of the Madrid-based institution, succeeding veteran leader Manuel Borja-Villel, who resigned suddenly in January. Segade previously served as director of the Dos de Mayo Art Center Museum in Madrid, and in 2017 curated Spain’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale. ()
British Museum Hasn’t Actually Ended BP Deal – The London institution’s partnership with the oil company is ending, but will it be renewed? The museum has said that no decision has been taken but some reports state that it is “stage managing” an exit from this 27-year partnership that has come under intense scrutiny amid the climate emergency. ()
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Painting Sold During Nazi Era Withdrawn From Sale – Max Pechstein’s painting was to be a star lot at Lempertz in Cologne yesterday, June 6, but it is being withdrawn after news reports called its provenance into question. Valued between 1.5 and 2 million euros, the work was sold by a Jewish owner under the pressure of Nazi persecution. ()
NMAAHC Acquires Magazine’s Test Kitchen – The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture is the new home of the iconic test kitchen used by the magazine at its headquarters in Chicago thanks to the organization Landmarks Illinois. The 1970s-style purple and orange kitchen was on view at New York’s Museum of Food and Drink in 2022, and will undergo conservation before it debuts at the DC-based institution. (WTTW)
Oxford Gets an LGBTQ+ History Professor – Matt Cook will take up the post of the “UK’s first permanently endowed professor in LGBTQ+ history” this October, where he will oversee a department named for the late Jonathan Cooper, a human rights lawyer who died in 2021. The position was endowed through a £4.9 million gift from Arcadia to the University’s Mansfield College. ()
FOR ART’S SAKE
Russia’s Trinity Icon Goes on View – The famous 15th-century artwork, has been transferred from the State Tretyakov Gallery to Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior for the Russian Orthodox Church’s Pentecost celebration. The move, ordered by President Vladimir Putin, is seen as a gesture of gratitude to the church for its support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although critics are concerned about potential damage to the icon during the transfer and display. ()
A Russian Orthodox believer bows to the historic Andrei Rublev’s “Trinity” icon exhibited at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow on June 4, 2023. (Photo by NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP) (Photo by NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images)
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