Art Industry News: Hito Steyerl Will No Longer Receive the Hugo Ball Prize as Antisemitism Allegations Embroil Its Namesake + Other Stories

Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know on this Tuesday, January 10.

NEED-TO-READ

A Trove of Couture Is Hitting the Auction Block – Forget Depop, a collection of 114 pieces of vintage haute couture from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, including Givenchy, Chanel, YSL and Dior, are going on sale tomorrow (through January 25) in an online auction by Christie’s. The lowest estimates hover around $425 but some pieces are expected to sell for several thousand. ()

Photographer Marilyn Stafford Dies at 97 – The U.S.-born British street photographer, fashion photographer, and photojournalist Marilyn Jean Stafford has died at age 97. She lived and worked for periods in New York, London, Paris, Rome, and Beirut, and traveled extensively through India, Lebanon, and Tunisia. She is also known for portraits of the singer Edith Piaf, actress Sharon Tate, model Twiggy, and scientist Albert Einstein. ()

Hito Steyerl No Longer to Receive Hugo Ball Prize – Video artist Hito Steyerl had been named this year’s winner of the Hugo Ball Prize, overseen by the German city of Pirmasens, but now nobody will receive the award due to fresh concern over the antisemitism of the prize’s namesake, a founder of the Dada movement. Steyerl confirmed to the press that she had not declined the award, instead the decision was made internally. ()

SuperRare Lays Off 30 Percent of Staff – Another casualty of the crypto winter, the NFT marketplace SuperRare has just made redundant a whopping 30 percent of its employees. The company’s “aggressive growth was unsustainable: we over-hired,” admitted CEO and co-founder John Crain in a public statement. ()

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Elvis Presley’s Private Jet Fetched $260,000 – A dilapidated 61-year-old jet abandoned in a dusty New Mexico desert isn’t high on most people’s wish list, unless of course it used to belong to the “King of Rock and Roll.” Elvis’s old plane just fetched a quarter of a million dollars at a Florida auction on what would have been the singer’s 88th birthday. ()

Zambia Opens First Contemporary Art Center – A new hub for the arts – Lusaka Contemporary Art Center (LuCAC) – has just opened in Zambia, bringing to the region new exhibition venues, a library, and an artist residency program. The space is the vision of Zambian artist Victor Mutelekesha. ()

Cheech Marin’s Chicano Art Museum Wins Riverside Award – The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture at the Riverside Art Museum, which opened last June thanks to support from the actor and art collector, is already benefitting the local community. The institution has been named as the recipient of this year’s Riverside Hero Award. ()

FOR ART’S SAKE

Hong Kong’s M+ museum is now selling tickets for its sure-to-be blockbuster Yayoi Kusama exhibition opening next month. Plus, the institution has announced that it will debut an AR experience of the artist’s work. Starting January 12, users can download the CSL 5G Lens app on their phones and use it to recreate the artist’s signature pumpkin sculptures at the M+ roof garden, the West Kowloon Art Park, Statue Square, the Peak, and the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens.