Frederic Edwin Church, "Cotopaxi", 1862.
- As sensationalist posters and trailers for the upcoming Salinger tell-all doc are pasted around the city, Shelley Salamensky has a run-in with a 90-year-old Queens resident who reveals his own personal relationship (and letters) to his “friend Jerry.” [Paris Review]
- The Louvre is crowdfunding $1 million of its $4 million budget to conserve the sculpture ‘Winged Victory of Samothrace’ (190 BC). This is the Louvre’s fourth crowdfunding effort in four years: in 2010 the museum raised $1 million in one month to acquire Louis Cranach’s ‘Three Graces’. [Art Newspaper]
- Ursula von Rydingsvard’s 20-foot tall bronze sculpture ‘Ona’ was installed at the entrance to the Barclay’s Center last week. The piece by the Brooklyn-based artist joins the Barclay’s Center other borough-based works by Mickalene Thomas and José Parlá. [BlouinArtInfo]
- Orchard Street isn’t going to be the same without Invisible Exports and now Rachel Uffner Gallery. The gallery is upsizing to a 3,000 square foot space on Suffolk Street. She’ll join Lisa Cooley (a former Orchard Street dweller), Thierry Goldberg, and Laurel Gitlen, who each have spaces one block over on Norfolk. Are all these stories about mid-tier gallery struggles just myths? [Gallerist]
- The Detroit Institute amends their donor policy to safeguard future gifts from being sold to pay down the city’s $18b debt. [The Art Newspaper]
- Hyperallergic has an Art Reader’s Guide to the mayoral elections. [Hyperallergic]
- Tomorrow, Patti Smith gets on a train with a rotating cast of James Turrell, Ryan Trecartin, Lawrence Weiner, Cat Power, and others. It’s part of a rotating cast of artists who will perform on stops along the way, in an initiative to both spread public art and sell jeans (it’s sponsored by Levi’s). Tomorrow’s New York opening event is sold out. [Station to Station, via @manbartlett]
- Speaking of Levi’s branding around art, the New York Times has a quick piece about Dior Homme commissioning art for its window displays: a way of “personalizing” the stores, says Dior Homme designer Kris Van Assche. “‘It’s not about interfering with the store in a very dramatic or overwhelming way,’ he said. ‘It’s attracting the attention for a minute, then letting the customer go about whatever he feels like.’” Artists have been working with department stores forever, but at least they were clocking out. [New York Times]
- Josh Baer has some smart thoughts on that Ann Freedman interview that ran last week in New Yor Magazine. “The Baer Faxt has received some spirited letters of defense from Ann Freedman supporters and on the heels of her “exclusive” statement to New York Magazine that included the incredible statement on the Knoedler fake cases that she “is the central victim” we have a few questions. Now that it appears that the defense that the works were not fakes seems to be have evaporated – will Freedman and Knoedler offer $$$ (tens of millions) back as refunds to the “lesser” victims??? What about the red flags of raising prices 6-700%?? What about their assertions to buyers about some experts who never saw works (although many did) and cataloging that would never happen? “Central Victim,” hmmmm.” [The Baer Faxt]
