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The Headlines
CLOSE CALL. The West Bund Art & Design Fair in Shanghai closed early on Saturday, less than three days after it first opened, the Art Newspaper reports. The cause: concerns surrounding Covid-19, which had even forced one exhibitor to have its booth roped off and several staff members showing there to be quarantined. It was the second Shanghai art fair this month to fail to finish out its run, with the other, Art021, shuttering after just one day due to a single positive Covid test. The Centre Pompidou’s museum in Shanghai, which is near where the West Bund Art & Design Fair took place, also announced an indefinite closure on Sunday.
THE WAR IN UKRAINE. The latest artist to set his sights on Ukraine is Banksy, who this weekend debuted a new work there, ARTnews reports. That new piece—a spray-painted image of a female gymnast flipping herself over—appeared on a partly destroyed building in Borodyanka, a town northwest of Kyiv that was occupied by Russian forces during the initial stages of the occupation and later vacated by them. Meanwhile, the city of Kherson may now be liberated, but at least one institution there has been reshaped in the process. Per the Art Newspaper, the Oleksiy Shovkunenko Kherson Art Museum was looted during the occupation, and works from it have reportedly been taken to the Central Museum of Taurida in Simferopol, Crimea. More details are expected to emerge in the coming weeks.
The Digest
Climate activists arrived this weekend at the Egyptian Museum in Barcelona, where they threw a liquid held in Coca-Cola bottles onto a replica mummy, which was not damaged in the process. Coca-Cola had sponsored the COP27 climate summit, a move that was denounced by activists. [The National]
In light of last week’s $1.5 billion sale of Paul Allen’s collection at Christie’s, critic Blake Gopnik took the opportunity to reflect on what really drew the Microsoft cofounder to buying art. [The New York Times]
Edie Sedgwick may be best known as a model to Andy Warhol, but in fact, she was an artist too. A select few works by her are currently being sold by RR Auctions, which will put some of them on view this week at New York’s Chelsea Hotel. [Page Six]
Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, argued in an op-ed that two planned museums—one dedicated to women’s history, the other to Latino people—should be a placed on the Mall in Washington, D.C., a location that “will signal to all that America understands the power of embracing our shared past.” [The Washington Post]
Embajada, one of the top galleries in Puerto Rico, has purchased a permanent space in San Juan. The gesture, its cofounder Manuela Paz said, was meant to “fight gentrification.” [Artnet News]
Photographer Nan Goldin is in this week’s New Yorker, visiting the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with filmmaker Laura Poitras, who directed an acclaimed documentary about her and her anti-Sackler protests there and in other locations. [The New Yorker]
The Kicker
WATER THERAPY. The artist John Constable loved Branch Hill, a pond in London. He loved it so much, in fact, that he sketched and painted it dozens of times over. For years, Branch Hill has been a dry expanse of land, but Constable diehards can rejoice because it has returned once more. A new pit has been created for it and, next spring, that space will even be filled with water and host to amphibians, plants, and more. Jeff Waage, president of the Heath and Hampstead Society, which is overseeing the project, told the Guardian, “Recreating the pond allows us, once again, to visualise the landscape Constable captured 200 years ago. It’s also important for the local environment.” [The Guardian]