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The Headlines
POLICE BLOTTER. Two Belgians who were arrested by Dutch police following the jewelry robbery at TEFAF in Maastricht earlier this week have been released without charges, the Associated Press reports. An investigation has cleared them; no one else has been arrested in connection with the brazen crime. And in Glasgow, Scotland, on Wednesday, the Evening Standard reports, five people involved in a climate protest were arrested for allegedly gluing themselves to a painting (a 19th-century Horatio McCulloch landscape, for the record) at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, and spray painting the institution’s walls and floors.
Related Articles
‘GROW OR GO’ is art collector Alain Servais‘s memorable phrase for the need for galleries to keep expanding to compete in this sharp-elbowed art industry. This week brings news of two more outfits that are growing: In Seoul, an international powerhouse, the Pace Gallery, has taken another 1,500 square feet in the building it moved into last year, the Financial Times reports, and it will also soon open a teahouse (with cocktails!) and an outdoor courtyard for sculpture. And the Art Newspaper reports that Zurich’s Galerie Peter Kilchmann will open a Paris branch in October with about 1,880 square feet. First up: a solo show from artist Leiko Ikemura.
The Digest
The Thai artist, educator, and activist Thanom Chapakdee has died at 64, after being hospitalized with stroke-related complications, Pamela Wong reports. He was a cofounder of the U-Kabat performance group and a co-organizer of the Asiatopia performance festival. [ArtAsiaPacific]
The next director of the Copenhagen Contemporary museum will be Marie Laurberg, who is currently artistic director of the Kunstmuseum Brandts in Odense, Denmark. She takes the place of Marie Nipper, who was tapped to lead the ARKEN museum in Ishøj. [ArtReview]
A Francis Bacon portrait of fellow artist Lucian Freud went for a cool $52 million amid otherwise subdued Sotheby’s sales in London, Angelica Villa reports. [ARTnews]
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York has filled the last vacant spot in a wall with photographs of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. [The Associated Press]
Gagosian director Antwaun Sargent—who guest-edited an issue of Art in America, our sister publication, last year—got the profile treatment from Ruth La Ferla to coincide with the exhibition he has organized of the late Virgil Abloh’s work at the Brooklyn Museum. [The New York Times]
The NFT field is not looking so hot these days. “Without question, the NFT market has fallen off the cliff this June,” one expert said. This will be the first month since June of last year with sales below $1 billion, and many of the most popular tokens have seen their prices decline of late. [Bloomberg]
Architectural Digest ventured into a home in Napa Valley, California, that is owned by “two San Francisco tech executives.” It features work Sally England and Nicholas Shurey—and, in the laundry room, wallpaper by Gucci. [Architectural Digest]
The Kicker
A JOINT VENTURE. Writer and director Lena Dunham has directed the latest music video for musician and artist Issy Wood, and in an interview with Vogue discussed her interest in Wood’s work. “I loved Issy’s paintings—it’s that feeling that you can’t explain when you see something that aesthetically pleases you, like when you scratch a dog’s ear and its leg kicks,” Dunham said. The video’s song, “Both,” is the first single from an album that Wood will release in August. [Vogue]