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– THE BIG STORY –
When it comes to sparking an international incident with a ridiculously fraught piece of “provocative” art, Sweden’s culture minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth has taken the cake—more or less literally. For an World Art Day event at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet this Sunday, she collaborated on a performative piece by Afro-Swedish artist Mokode Linde that incorporated of a cake shaped like a colonial-era racist caricature of a black African woman, with the artist’s own head, in grotesquely grinning blackface, poking through the table atop the cake. In an act meant to protest female genital mutilation in Africa, the culture minister “laughingly cut the cake around the ‘clitoris,’ and fed it to the artist,” according to the head of the National Afro-Swedish Association, which is outraged at the incident. “It is difficult to see how women who are victims of female genital mutilation, or black people for that matter, can benefit from this contribution to the degradation and humiliation of black women.” The group is calling for Liljeroth’s resignation, who refuses to step down and has released a mini-manifesto titled “Art Must Be Allowed to Provoke.”
– QUOTE OF THE DAY –
“It’s hard to leave Rome, because the city itself is a work of art… [Italians] preserve their heritage. They spend a lot of money [on the arts] over there. They made art count. They raise their children to believe that art counts. Our economy is still very strong. We have what [Italy] doesn’t have—a great humming, steaming economy—and we don’t get the art thing right all the time.” – The actor Alec Baldwin on the dismal and disintegrating state of federal arts funding in the United States, in a speech at D.C.’s National Press Club
– MUST READ –
Titian‘s German Secret – Writing about the London National Gallery‘s new show Titian: A Fresh Look at Nature, Martin Gayford recounts how the great Renaissance artist was influenced by “some Germans in his house who were excellent painters of landscape scenery and plants,” as Vasari put it—an effect that can be seen in his well-observed, sensitive depictions of animals. (Bloomberg)
Want Some Jackson Pollock Crocs? – The rubbery fashion-unconscious shoes are going Ab Ex with a new version being made in the late artist’s “Jack the Dripper” style to celebrate his 100th birthday. (LAT)
Animals Take Over the Grand Palais – The stately Paris institution is now packed with an ark’s worth of critter art thanks to Beaute Animale, a new show featuring paintings of animals by artists from Dürer and Gericault to Jeff Koons and Louise Bourgeois. (Bloomberg)
– ART MARKET –
Dallas Art Fair Branches Out to Frisco – The art fair will be debuting a new event called FOG at the Bay Area’s Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, taking place January 16-20. (Artinfo)
Rubbing Hands in Expectation – Christie’s Hong Kong head François Curiel predicts that Chinese buyers, who thus far have stuck to Chinese art, will begin following the examples of “the Rothschilds or Rockefellers” and eventually start building collections including “art nouveau, photography, furniture and ultimately contemporary European and US art.” (Guardian)
– IN & OUT –
The Whitney Museum has received a $1.5 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation that will be put toward the transfer of the institution’s collection to its new downtown building, set to open in 2015. (Press Release)
Tonight the Brooklyn Museum will honor 15 extraordinary women—from Sandra Day O’Connor to Toni Morrison—in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art’s inaugural First Awards. (AP)
Time magazine has named its annual “100 most influential people in the world,” including Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat (who continues to work despite government thugs breaking his hands) and Christian Marclay, who simply could not get any more accolades for his 24-hour sensation The Clock. (Time)
LACMA has announced that it will be debuting a new program called Through the Mic: LACMA X Hip Hop, an initiative co-curated by the rapper Murs that is being billed as “the first museum hip hop concert series of its kind.” (Press Release)
The Aspen Art Museum will give this year’s Aspen Award for Art to Tom Sachs in a ceremony during its August Artcrush gala. (Press Release)
The Los Angeles Times‘s Culture Monster arts blog has been redesigned (and needs to make its new “more” link bigger). (LAT)
Supermodel May Anderson‘s emergence in the art world doesn’t only consist of dating Julian Schnabel—she’s also working as the assistant director of the Hole gallery. (Gallerist NY)
– VIDEO –
“Every artwork that has ever interested me is about death,” Damien Hirst says in this excellent video about the making of his notorious diamond skull, For the Love of God. (Guardian)
