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The Headlines
TRUMP ENDS PRESIDENT’S ARTS COMMITTEE. The news from the US executive branch keeps rolling in at high speed. In the latest art-related update, Trump has disbanded the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). Former president Joe Biden had revived the committee in 2022, which advises the executive branch on policy decisions and engagement with the philanthropic and private sectors, reports The Art Newspaper. The move is not too much of a surprise, given Trump had already dissolved it back in 2017, after most of its members quit in protest against the then first-term president’s response to a white nationalist rally and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
CHELSEA HOUSING FOR ARTISTS AND GALLERIES THREATENED. Artists and galleries are up-in-arms over the pending sale of an iconic Chelsea building and former warehouse, established by contemporary art gallery owner and philanthropist Gloria Naftali, reports Hyperallergic. Naftali, who passed away in 2022 at the age of 96, transformed a West 26th Street warehouse in New York City into affordable housing for hundreds of artists and galleries. She also reportedly told tenants they would hold onto their rentals after her death. Yet her family estate has put the commercial building up for sale for $170 million, according to the Commercial Observer. Derek Wolman, a real estate attorney for Naftali’s estate reportedly said the aim of Naftali’s family foundation was to support the arts, Holocaust education, and causes that fight antisemitism, and that, “the Raymond and Gloria Foundation cannot afford to maintain the building in its current form and also carry out its mission to support the numerous charitable purposes for which it was formed.” Still the foundation hopes to “find a buyer who will keep the character of the building intact as a community for artists where they can create and showcase their work,” he added.
The Digest
There has been much talk about star artist George Condo’s “doubleheader” exhibitions opening in New York at Hauser & Wirth and Sprüth Magers. Because the works are made on paper with pastel, dealers could feel justified in lowering his notoriously high prices, relatively speaking, that is. Prices for the new works range from $600,000 to $1.5 million, and many observers are weighing in on whether that’s too high, despite reports that the pastel paintings are all selling, fast. [Artnet News]
Tensions are reportedly rising at Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa, commonly known as the Africa Museum, between its current director, Bart Ouvry, and the curator in charge of the museum’s cultural programming, Nadia Nsayi. The latter has been outspoken in criticizing the institution for not doing nearly enough to address Belgium’s colonial history. “The museum gives the impression of having been decolonized, but I still see a paternalism towards its African partners,” Nsayi publicly stated. [Le Journal des Arts]
An Indian state leader is offering $1 million to anyone who can decipher an ancient script from the Indus Valley Bronze Age civilization. The riddle has stumped scholars for over a century, and as a result, little is known about its authors. However, the question of their origins is the subject of a heated cultural war over Indian identity. [The New York Times]
Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum and her firm, Marina Tabassum Architects, have been selected to design the 2025 Serpentine Pavilion in London. [Artforum]
Cultured Magazine and Saltwater have announced a $1 million Los Angeles Artist Relief Fund. It will offer grants to artists impacted by the wildfires. [Cultured Magazine]
The Kicker
IN THE CROSSFIRE. Claire Tabouret is caught between two fires, in more ways than one. The French artist based in Los Angeles has had to contend with fears of nearby wildfires, and she is also implicated — though in a very different, far less life-threatening way — in the fire that tore through the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019. Tabouret was selected to design new stained-glass windows to replace several 19th-century ones in the Notre-Dame as part of its renovation following fire damage, though the originals panels were not harmed in the disaster. As of last week, the controversial contemporary art project backed by France’s president is being challenged in court by conservationists. The New York Times recently talked to Tabouret about her commission and the recurring topic of fires, which the artist explains is also referenced in her stained-glass sketches for the cathedral, in the form of “tongues of fire.” But while Tabouret adroitly defends the idea of inserting a contemporary creation into the historic French one, she doesn’t mention news that the entire project may be threatened due to the first of what may be several formal legal attempts to block it. We can imagine it must be all the more challenging for an artist to move forward on the commission of a life-time, while the very project heads to court. It’s a shame that the NYT did not report on asking her just that, nor on the new legal action. Still, Tabourt’s views on the core issue are clear: “The idea of using and reusing and transforming is part of the history of this building,” she said. “Each renovation does modify what was before. So it would be kind of weird to freeze it in time… We have to trust our art,” she added, “the same way every century before us trusted our artists.”
