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WITH ALL EYES ON VENICE for this year’s Biennale, here’s a quick round-up of things you might have missed in the deluge of information coming out of La Serenissima. Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine continues to loom large. On Wednesday, artist Vadim Zakharov, who represented Russia at the Biennale in 2013, staged a protest outside the country’s pavilion with a sign that reads in part, “the murder of women, children, [and] people of Ukraine is a disgrace to Russia.” (The Russian Pavilion is currently empty after its artists and curator withdrew in February because of the invasion.) In somewhat lighter news, Mary Weatherford has just opened an exhibition at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani based on Titian’s famed painting The Flaying of Marsyas (1570–76). ARTnews senior editor Alex Greenberger has rounded up 10 of the best offerings in Cecilia Alemani’s main exhibition, where an installation by Precious Okoyomon has emerged as a clear favorite.
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THE ART MARKET. With May just around the corner, what buyers might hope to bid on during the coveted New York evening sales next month is coming into focus. Earlier this week, Christie’s announced a modestly sized Pollock that could fetch $45 million. And the auction house will also offer a massive Richter painting for $35 million that was once owned by Eric Clapton. (Though Clapton sold it for $34 million a decade ago, which likely points to some stagnation in Richter’s secondary market.) Melanie Gerlis reports on a new art investment platform called Mintus, which is offering shares of a 1966 Warhol self-portrait, has on its advisory board former Sotheby’s CEO Tad Smith and LGDR partner Brett Gorvy, who also serves as the firm’s chief curator.
The Digest
The Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York has received a donation of 20 charcoal drawings by Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco that are set to go on view next year. [The Art Newspaper]The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has announced its slate of fall exhibitions, which includes showings of Diego Rivera and Toyin Ojih Odutola. But most exciting is the news that Bay Area Chicana artist Amalia Mesa-Bains, whom ARTnews profiled back in 2018, will have a major exhibition at the museum, which will include her powerful 1993 installation piece Venus Envy, Chapter I. [Press Release]Currently on view at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne is an exhibition dedicated to the art of the the Jogi family, who over three generations “invented an art style.” [The Guardian]An exhibition opening this week at the Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile (Chat) in Hong Kong will feature a “bizarre” new video by Japanese artist Kato Tsubasa that “reflects the political changes that the artist has observed in the city over the past two years,” Enid Tsui writes. [South China Morning Post]Elsewhere in Italy is a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of Donatello that is spread across Florence’s Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and Musei del Bargello that showcases just how revolutionary the Renaissance master was. [The Art Newspaper]
The Kicker
BECAUSE WE CAN’T RESIST, here’s one last Venice-related item, albeit not in a way you might expect. The New York Times has a lengthy profile on collector Laura Mattioli Rossi, whom the paper has dubbed a “Peggy Guggenheim in reverse … an Italian, not an American, living in New York, not Venice, near Canal Street, not the Grand Canal.” Mattioli is the founder of the private foundation Center for Italian Modern Art in New York, as well as the heir to her father’s legendary Italian Futurist collection, which he started in 1949, the year before her birth. And it is her father’s example that has guided her in establishing CIMA. Mattioli said, “My father wanted to tell the story of Italian art in the first half of the century. For me, he set the example of opening his collection to the public and lending it to museums.” [The New York Times]
Source: artnews.com