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The Headlines
FERTILE GROUND. After pushing its 2021 edition to this year because of the pandemic, the closely watched Istanbul Biennial has released its list of artists and catalogue contributors, ArtAsiaPacific reports. They number 82, and include Cooking Sections, Crip magazine, and Lida Abdul. Helmed by David Teh, Amar Kanwar, and Ute Meta Bauer , the exhibition will run from September 11 through November 14. The show has eschewed a thematic focus and instead takes “composting” as its guiding process. Intriguingly, the webpage with the contributor lineup notes that it is “a live document that is continually being updated as the 17th Istanbul Biennial compost continues to turn and grow.” Never a dull moment in the biennial world these days.
HUMAN RESOURCES. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has tapped Anslem Elumogo-Gardner to be its first chief of staff, per ArtDaily. Elumogo-Gardner was previously VP for operations and program impact at the Greater Southwest Development Corporation. The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, has hired Kenneth Brummel to be its curator of 20th-century art, Artfixdaily reports. He was most recently associate curator of modern art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. And the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio has named Lanisa S. Kitchiner to be its consulting curator of African art, the Toledo Blade reports. She was director of education and scholarly initiatives at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art.
The Digest
The only copy that exists of a new recording that musician and artist Bob Dylan made of his song “Blowin’ in the Wind” sold at auction at Christie’s in London on Thursday for £1.48 million (about $1.77 million). [Variety]
Indigenous artists in Canada are calling on federal authorities to take action against copycat and knockoff works that they say are being imported from abroad, exploiting their cultures. “These things have got to be stopped,” artist Richard Hunt said. “We need the government’s help.” [CBC]
Manga artist Kazuki Takahashi, who created the wildly popular Yu-Gi-Oh! manga series, which began as a comic and became a trading-card game, films, video games, and more, has died at 60. [The New York Times]
More than 40 prominent artists and writers have signed an open letter calling on President Biden to condemn Saudi Arabia’s human-rights record when he meets with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman next week. They include Kiki Smith, Alec Soth, and Teju Cole. [Artforum]
Writer John Gapper took a look at the somewhat peculiar practices of the art industry, in which skyrocketing auction prices can hurt an artist’s career. “A lot of insiders got a great opportunity to buy my works and immediately flip them, with no incentive to further my career,” artist Lucien Smith said. [The Financial Times]
The South Korean girl group Aespa paid a visit to the studio of KAWS. [@kaws/Instagram]
The Kicker
TEXT MESSAGES. This is Barbara Kruger’s moment. She has a show open at David Zwirner in New York, a major commission about to open at the Museum of Modern Art, and her incisively political works are flooding social media. What does she make of the vast reach of her art? “As someone who never thought anyone would know my name or my work, it is both amazing, satisfying and haunting, and could only happen in a time when the virality of images is so accelerated,” she told the Guardian. “And, horrifically, when the virality of plague, war and grievance is so punishingly prevalent.” [The Guardian]