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The Headlines
ACCIDENTAL DEATH. An inquest has ruled that London-based artist Sarah Cunningham, 31, died accidentally in November last year, reports George Nelson for ARTnews. The rising artist was represented by Lisson Gallery and went missing in the early hours of November 2 in Camden. Her body was later found on the tracks at Chalk Farm Underground Station. On April 9, London’s Poplar Coroner’s Court determined that Cunningham had jumped down onto the northbound train track, rather than falling, and walked into the tunnel. A train hit her 18 minutes later, but a coroner found she did not intend to take her own life.
CONTROVERSY IS BREWING over a new, enormous statue in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Plaza of a nude woman standing in a mountain yoga pose by Bay Area artist Marco Cochrane, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The 45-foot, 32,000-pound wire sculpture titled “R-Evolution” was unveiled April 10, and originally made for the 2015 Burning Man festival, where it would have likely blended right in. But on the San Francisco waterfront, visible from blocks away and lit up at night, it has sparked criticism for its seemingly idealized depiction of women, along with concerns about the male gaze and the lack of collective input on its approval. To the artist and supporters of the work, it represents “feminine strength and liberation.” There is often “an immediate pejorative bias” to art from Burning Man, said Jennifer Raiser, in defense of the temporary sculpture. She is the author of “Burning Man: Art on Fire.” However, others, such as nearby gallerist Rebecca Camacho, found it “disappointing and confusing” that the city permitted a private entity to “come in and commandeer very public space.”
The Digest
As the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York opened its major Rashid Johnson exhibition this week, workers protested the institution’s decision to fire 20 staffers without notice. The museum stated that the layoffs were made due to post-pandemic financial constraints. [Hyperallergic]
The Fendi fashion house, in coordination with the Autonomous Institute of Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este, has restored the 16th-century Grotto of Diana monument in the Villa D’Este in the Tivoli. It is due to reopen to the public on May 6, after some 50 years of having been closed in Tivoli, a UNESCO World Heritage site near Rome. [WWD]
Art workers in Spain are voicing opposition to their country’s high, 21 percent VAT on art, particularly in comparison to the 5.5 and 7 percent rates applied in France and Germany respectively, as of this year. [Le Journal des Arts]
The immersive teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi museum opens today in the city where the “global brand director” of the Japanese art collective, Takashi Kudo, spent much of his childhood. Kudo told a reporter he was drawn to “this vision of the Saadiyat Cultural District.” [The National]
The Kicker
GLENSTONE, the private contemporary art museum in Potomac, Maryland, has fully reopened after an 18-month, closure of its central building for renovations, and the Washington Post’s Sebastian Smee has taken a tour. [The Thomas Phifer-designed building had roof and window problems that needed fixing.] Although some changes are apparent, including moving older works from the permanent collection to where temporary shows were once held in the gallery, the pavilions still host long-term displays of sculptures – Cy Twombly and Robert Gober, to name a few. Meanwhile, current temporary shows feature works by Alex Da Corte and Jenny Holzer, both of which Smee reviews in-depth, with a clear preference for Da Corte, a “poet of American guilelessness.” But the museum itself is the ultimate star. What makes Glenstone so special? Smee asks. “Walking through its undulant campus … can set you dreaming about other, less strenuous and more receptive ways of being,” he writes.
