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The Headlines
THE WAR IN UKRAINE. At Ukraine’s largest art museum—the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv—workers have been rushing to safeguard its collection, the Associated Press reports. “Today you see empty walls, so it feels bitter, sad,” its director, Ihor Kozhan, told the outlet. The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin organized a fundraiser for Ukrainian refugees arriving in the capital city, the Art Newspaper reports, with director Klaus Biesenbach collaborating with artists Anne Imhof and Olafur Eliasson. High-profile architecture firms like Snøhetta, OMA, and Herzog & de Meuron have condemned the invasion and suspended work in Russia, reports Curbed (which also published a rundown of the New York real-estate holdings of Russian oligarchs). And in an anti-war statement, the São Paulo Philharmonic Orchestra performed in the Brazilian capital on Saturday while artist Eduardo Kobra retouched a giant mural of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue, the AP reported.
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ARTIST UPDATES. Kia LaBeija is in the New York Times, talking about her exhibition at Fotografiska New York, which addresses her late mother’s work as an AIDS activist and LaBeija’s experiences in New York’s ballroom scene and living with H.I.V. Faith Ringgold is in Artforum talking about her career, her activism, and her retrospective at the New Museum in Manhattan. “Don’t just do things to do things,” she told Lauren O’Neill-Butler. “Each one of us makes a contribution, so try to make yours worthwhile.” And Tom de Freston is in the Guardian talking about how he bounced back from a studio fire that destroy ten years’ worth of his art: he made new work from the ashes.
The Digest
A wildfire on the east coast of South Korea damaged a fire-signaling beacon dating to the Goryeo Kingdom (918–1392). Officials are taking steps to safeguard other cultural assets from the fire, and evacuated a 13th-century document designated as a national treasure that is stored in the area to a safer location. [The Korea Herald]
Artists allege that the Chinese online fashion retailer Shein has sold clothes that use their work without permission. The company said it takes “all claims of infringement seriously,” and that it “promptly addresses the situation” when complaints are made. [The Guardian]
ARTnews is planning a five-day trip to Santa Fe in May that includes visits to Georgia’s O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch and Taos Pueblo, meetings with experts in Native American art, and quite a bit more (a chocolate tasting, for one). Art-market expert Marion Maneker is hosting. We invite you to join us. [ARTnews]
Yoko Ono is displaying a text reading “Imagine Peace” on massive digital billboards throughout March—at 8:22 p.m local time—in London, New York, Seoul, Berlin, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and Milan. The project has been organized by Circa, which specializes in billboard art programming, and London’s Serpentine Galleries. [CNN]
Academics are dueling over the age of paintings of animals on rocks at Serranía de la Lindosa in Colombia. A new study says that they were made by ice age humans, while one from 2016 argues that they date back only a few centuries. One group “sees potential giant ground sloths and Pleistocene horses,” journalist Becky Ferreira writes, the other “modern capybaras and horses.” [The New York Times]
Following sexual-assault allegations, artist Sakuliu Pavavaljung was pulled in January from representing Taiwan at the Venice Biennale. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum said its new plan for the pavilion is a show called “Impossible Dreams,” which will include public programs and archival materials. Artists have not yet been named. [ArtAsiaPacific]
In case you missed it: Here is a complete guide to the more than 80 national pavilions that have been confirmed for the Venice Biennale, which opens in April. [ARTnews]
The Kicker
IT STARTED WAY BACK IN HISTORY. After a long journey across the U.S., a 1,000-pound bell cast at the Massachusetts foundry of American revolutionary, silversmith, and engraver Paul Revere, by the artist’s son in 1834, has returned to its birthplace, the Associated Press reports. It is a complicated story, but basically: It was at an Ohio church that was sold in the 1980s to a fitness center, which did not want it, so the realtor kept it. The realtor retired to California, and after her death, a daughter, Amy Miller , kept it in her garage. She donated it to the Paul Revere Heritage Site in Canton, where the foundry was. “I don’t need a bell in my garage, and this bell has a story of its own,” Miller told the AP. “It represents what our history and our country are all about.” [AP]
Source: artnews.com