Art Industry News is a daily summary of the most important developments in the art world and the art market. Here’s what you need to know on Tuesday, April 25.
NEED TO READ
Meet the entertainer who spent his nights guarding the Met – Nobody spends more hours in a museum than security guards, so Greg Kwiatek decided to take advantage of his quiet night shift to study the Met’s collection. By day he produced his own paintings inspired by his work by night, and now that work is included in a group exhibition at the Fierman Gallery on New York’s Lower East Side. (New York Times)
How art historians use the code – When can a computer take over from an art historian? A Getty digital art historian has created data visualizations that reveal new connections between 19th-century Spanish artists and help curators tell alternative narratives about art history. (Getty)
Louise Bourgeois Spider Auction Heads – From the Franco-American modernist’s most iconic series, inspired by her complex relationship to motherhood, a monumental 1996 Spider is heading to an auction for the first time in over a decade. It is expected to fetch up to $40 million at Sotheby’s New York Contemporary auction on May 18. (Press release)
T-Rex will be exhibited at the Art Foundation in Antwerp – The mighty dinosaur skeleton was bought last week from the Koller auction house in Switzerland by the non-profit Phoebus Foundation, which now plans to keep the artifact on public display at its new Boerentoren cultural center in Antwerp. (AFP)
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Names of Prix de Rome recipients – A total of 36 recipients of the American Academy in Rome’s biannual award have been announced, seven of whom are visual artists: Dread Scott, Estefania Puerta Grisales, Zachary Fabri, Nao Bustamante, Mike Cloud and Kamrooz Aram. (ART news)
The Andy Warhol Foundation Adds New Board Members – The foundation has expanded its board of trustees to include artist and choreographer Guadalupe Maravilla, chief curator and artistic director of the Mississippi Museum of Art’s Center for Art and Public Exchange, Ryan N. Dennis, art attorney Sarah Conley Odenkirk and investment manager for Rockerfeller University, Paule Volent. (Press release)
LACMA Supporters Fund 10 New Acquisitions – The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 37th Annual Collectors Committee fundraiser saw the addition of works by Max Ernst, Nick Cave, Theaster Gates, Miyoko Ito, Bernardo Polo, Moriguchi Kunihiko and Analia Saban to its permanent collection . To learn more about how museums like LACMA organize their acquisitions strategy, read more at Artnet Pro News. (Press release)
FOR ART
NPG successfully raises funds to share Omai’s profile – The National Portrait Gallery in London has successfully raised the £25 million (about $31 million) needed to follow up on his agreement with the Getty Museum in Los Angeles to jointly acquire Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Mai (Omai). After raising half the sum with the help of a one-time grant of £10 million (about $12.5 million) from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, a grant from the Art Fund of £2.5 million pounds (about $3.1 million), plus other private and public donations. The work will be exhibited when the gallery reopens on June 22 before traveling to Los Angeles in 2026, then splitting the time equally between the UK and the US (Press release)
Mr Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Mai (Omai) (circa 1776). Image courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London and Getty.
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