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The Headlines
THE FOOD FIGHT. On Sunday, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris confirmed to press that a climate protester had attempted to throw soup at its art last week but was stopped, the AFP reports. The museum declined to specify the targeted work, but Le Parisien had reported that attempts had been been made on a Vincent van Gogh self-portrait and a Paul Gauguin by the alleged protester, who was wearing a shirt for Just Stop Oil, the group behind many of the recent art attacks. The Orsay has filed a criminal complaint. Speaking of Just Stop Oil, two of its members were arrested after allegedly spraying paint on the front of a Rolex store in London on Friday, the Press Association reports, and today the group shared video of its supporters spraying the Home Office, the MI5 building, and the Bank of England and News Corp headquarters in the capital city.
MARGO FEIDEN, the colorful art dealer of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, died in April at 77, the New York Times reports, but her death went largely unnoticed until now. Feiden made her name selling Hirschfeld’s drawings of celebrities, but she also wrote a diet book called The Calorie Factor (1989), learned to pilot an airplane (and took photographer Diane Arbus for rides), and became an expert at repairing lithographs. Later in life, she said that she had a run-in with the radical feminist Valerie Solanas in 1968, a year before she opened her gallery. Solanas told her about her plan to shoot Andy Warhol, Feiden said, but when the future gallerist told the police, they did not believe her.
The Digest
Staffers at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio voted to unionize last week, joining the growing wave of unionization at art museums in the United States. Next up: contract negotiations. [Artforum]
Artist Cindy Sherman is one of five new trustees of the International Center of Photography in New York. She also posted a characteristically disturbing image to her Instagram, encouraging viewers to vote because “it’s too scary if you don’t.” [The New York Times]
Cambridge University and the Natural History Museum in London said that they are willing to return human remains taken from Zimbabwe in the 19th century. Leaders in Zimbabwe have been searching in the U.K. for the skulls of anti-colonial leaders from the era. The institutions said they do not have those. [BBC News]
All 193 of the “Paintings for the Temple” made by the pioneering artist Hilma af Klint are becoming NFTs in a project from Stolpe Publishing, Acute Art, the Gallery of Digital Art, and the artist’s namesake foundation. “I love her work and find it great that she finally gets the attention she deserves,” GODA’s artist adviser, KAWS, said. [Ocula]
The upcoming sale of material from writer Joan Didion’s estate includes pieces by Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly, and Billy Al Bengston, who died earlier this month. “When someone is as good as her, you can’t tell what makes them good,” Bengston said. [The New York Times]
In an act of profound commitment, someone dressed up as Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s installation piece Can’t Help Myself (2016–19), which involves a robot arm sweeping a red liquid substance. (You may recall that the work went viral, accompanied by misinformation, about a year ago.) [@Guggenheim/Twitter]
The Kicker
MASTERPIECE THEATER.On Twitter, playwright Jeremy O. Harris revealed that he is now engaged, and that his partner proposed to him at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, near paintings by Kehinde Wiley, Amy Sherald, and Kerry James Marshall. (This guy sounds like a keeper!) “What art boy wouldn’t die from that memory alone???” Harris wrote. [@jeremyoharris/Twitter]