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The Headlines
SYNESTHESIA. The U.K. rapper Skepta (“Shutdown,” “That’s Not Me”) is making his debut as a curator this week at Sotheby’s in London, CNN reports. The grime star has guest-curated the house’s “Contemporary Curated” sale, which has previously been helmed by celebs like Virgil Abloh. Bidding begins today in the auction, which includes work by Alex Katz, Banksy, and a painting by Skepta (his first). “When you make music—because it comes with music videos, styling, set design, and everything else—you naturally get subsumed into the world of art as well,” he told the outlet. Meanwhile, BTS leader RM, who is a collector, recorded audio commentary for 10 works included in the audio guide for a show about Korean modern art (his area of expertise) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Korea JeongAng Daily reports. That exhibition, “The Space Between: The Modern in Korean Art,” opens Sunday.
Related Articles
BRING YOUR APPETITE. There is a feast of artist profiles today. Rick Lowe, the cofounder of Project Row Houses in Houston, is about to inaugurate a show at Gagosian in New York, and spoke with the Wall Street Journal. Light and Space legend Fred Eversley is readying one that will open at the same time as the Orange County Museum of Art’s new home in Costa Mesa, California, and spoke with the New York Times. Haegue Yang is in the South China Morning Post. And with a show about to open at Fotografiska in New York, photographer David LaChapelle chatted with the Guardian about his indelible images, and his life in Hawaii. “I’ve always found peace in the forest, always found direction there,” he said. “I’ve found God in nature.”
The Digest
The hotly anticipated Washington, D.C. branch of Miami’s Rubell Museum will open next month with a show of nearly 200 works from the collection of ARTnews Top 200 Collectors Don and Mera Rubell. Titled “What’s Going On,” it will include Carrie Mae Weems, Keith Haring, and Maurizio Cattelan. [The Art Newspaper]
The Calder Gardens, a Philadelphia art space dedicated to the modernist sculptor, has revealed its designs. Herzog & de Meuron is the architect behind the project, which is set to open to the public in 2024. [ARTnews]
Private-equity maven Michael ByungJu Kim has pledged $10 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art that will go toward the renovation of its wing for modern and contemporary art. Late last year, the financier Oscar Tang and his wife, Agnes Hsu-Tang, gave $125 million for the $500 million project. [Press Release/The Met]
A gilded ceramic piece just under a foot tall by Grayson Perry was stolen from the Hidden Gallery in Bristol, England. The editioned work is titled Alien Baby (and does, indeed, depict a somewhat unusual-looking baby). The police are investigating. [The Guardian]
If you saw (or saw photos of) Pierre Huyghe’s outdoor environment at 2012’s Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, you know Human, the Ibizan hound that wandered around the area, one leg covered in pink. Sadly, Human, whom Huyghe found at a shelter, has died. She is believed to have been 13. [ArtReview]
A new director has been named for the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago: Vanja V. Malloy. She is coming from the Syracuse University Art Museum, where she has been director and chief curator since 2019. “Malloy is a brilliant and inspired choice,” artist Theaster Gates, who teaches at the school, said. [Press Release/University of Chicago]
LISTICLE ALERT. The Windy City’s Newcity Art published its annual “Art 50” list, which acknowledges “gallerists, collectors, administrators and more who make Chicago’s art world run,” and National Geographic has a toothsome guide to “six mystery islands” that (probably) “existed only in the imaginations of ancient explorers.”
The Kicker
THROWING PUNCHES. Artist Zoë Buckman, whose works forthrightly address feminism, reproductive freedom, and other topics, currently has her first show up in the United Kingdom at Pippy Houldsworth. In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion, her work—which has included a neon uterus adorned with boxing gloves—has taken on extra potency, as the Guardian pointed out . “The U.K. is fucked, but not nearly as fucked as America,” she told the paper. “My friends in the U.K. have the right to sexual healthcare and they have support. In the U.S., choice is reserved for the elite and the blessed.” [The Guardian]