Art Industry News: A Fugitive at the Center of the $80 Million Knoedler Scandal Speaks Out for the First Time + Other Stories

Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most
consequential developments coming out of the art world and art
market. Here’s what you need to know on this Friday, April
24.

NEED-TO-READ

Confederate Groups Fight Florida Statue Removal –
City officials in Lakeland,
Florida, are embroiled in a legal battle against confederate
heritage groups, which are challenging the relocation of a
statue of a confederate soldier from a downtown park. Their case was dismissed
last year but they took it to an appeals court this week, claiming
the removal violated their freedom of speech. A judgment has yet to
be made, but the defense is arguing that the group’s First
Amendment rights were not violated because the monument still
stands, albeit in a different location. (Courthouse
News)

Open Letter Protests Museum Educator Layoffs –
More than 1,200 people in the arts
field have signed an open letter decrying the dismissals of
education staff at major museums during the pandemic. The letter,
which is signed by art historians, curators, and educators, cites
“disconcerting” redundancies at museums including MoMA, MOCA LA,
and MASS MoCA. The letter defends the important role played by
these workers, who push “criticality and innovation” and attract
“donors and supporters.” (The Art
Newspaper)

Fugitive in the Knoedler Case Gives a Rare Interview –
José Carlos Bergantiños Diaz, who
has been charged in connection to the Knoedler Gallery’s sale of
$80 million worth of fake art, has broken his silence. The former
dealer spoke to documentary filmmaker Barry Avrich for his film
about the saga, Made You
Look, and admitted that
he discovered the art student who was able to execute forgeries
that fooled hedge-fund managers and other titans of industry. But
Bergantiños Diaz denied that he ever instructed Pei-Shen Qian to
execute the paintings for profit, or that he was involved in the
scheme to sell them. The former art dealer, who is now living in
Spain, blamed his ex-girlfriend Glafira Rosales for selling the
works through Knoedler. “I was never ambitious; Glafira was the
ambitious one,” Bergantiños Diaz told the filmmaker.
(New York
Times)

Jerry Saltz Doesn’t Know How to Make Coffee –
If you follow Jerry Saltz, you
might have picked up on his unorthodox coffee habits. The
69-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winner drinks a scary amount of
refrigerated gas station coffee, and thinks his coffee runs are
essential travel, even during a pandemic. Apparently it’s crucial
to his writing (and is probably the reason “criticism never
sleeps”). Why does he do this? He has admitted on several occasions
that he doesn’t know how to make it himself. Fascinated by this
eccentricity, music writer Dan Ozzi follows the breadcrumbs in an
effort to understand the madness. “Maybe this whole coffee
ignorance is one long piece of performance art,” he writes. “Maybe
it’s Jerry’s commentary on the wastefulness and excess of American
consumerism in late-stage capitalism. Or maybe he’s just an obtuse
idiot.” (Reply
Alt)

ART MARKET

Ben Brown Is on the Move in Hong Kong – Ben Brown Fine Arts has relocated from the
Pedder Building in Hong Kong—home to many top international
galleries—after it was unable to get a rent reduction to offset
losses from the pandemic. The gallery is moving to a new and bigger
space in a converted factory in Wong Chuk Hang, which is home to
another cluster of art spaces. (Financial
Times)

Dominique Lévy Says Online Fairs “Don’t Work” –
The Swiss art dealer Dominique Lévy
is unimpressed with Art Basel’s online viewing rooms, saying that
the experiment in Hong Kong showed that the format doesn’t work.
Lévy says that business is down 90 percent, and that she does not
believe anyone will want to come to an art fair until there is a
vaccine. If Art Basel is held in the fall as scheduled, her gallery
will still participate because she holds an “unconditional”
allegiance, but “I don’t believe that an online Art Basel has a
future,” she says. (CNN
Money)

Taipei Dangdai Launches Online Initiative – It’s not only rescheduled art fairs that are
launching online components. The young art fair Taipei Dangdai is
debuting an online iteration of its own in partnership with the
digital arts platform Ocula. Called Taipei Connections, it’s an
extension of the fair’s January edition and will exhibit works from
select participating galleries. VIP clients will have access
beginning April 30, with an official launch on May 2.
(Art Market
Monitor)

COMINGS & GOINGS

Artist Tina Girouard
Dies at 73 – A seminal figure of the New York art scene in
the 1970s and a key figure in the Pattern & Decoration movement,
Girouard has died at the age of 73 from a stroke. She was both an
artist and a founder of the iconic artist-run space 112 Greene
Street. In 1971, she, Gordon Matta-Clark, and Carol Goodden also
opened FOOD, a short-lived but influential restaurant in SoHo.
(ARTnews)

Photographer John Pfahl
Dies of Coronavirus – American artist John Pfahl, a
landscape photographer who was known for manipulating the natural
world by placing unlikely objects like rope, foil, and lace into
his scenes, died on April 15. He was 81. (NYT)

Michelangelo Pistoletto
Survives Coronavirus at 86 – A bit of good news: the
exuberant Italian sculptor has survived COVID-19, though he is
still in the hospital getting treatment. In an interview from his
hospital bed, he said, “the role of art in this pandemic is
sensitivity.” (Le
Figaro)

FOR ART’S SAKE

The Black Plague Saw an
Uptick in Art Commissions – The devastating 14th-century
plague, which killed an estimated 50 million people, also led to an
uptick in portraiture. An analysis of more than 3,000 wills in
Italian cities has revealed that epidemics prompted many
will-makers to commission portraiture of themselves.
(Le Journal des
Arts)

The Virus Puts £500
Million in Museum Projects on Hold – Delays due to
the pandemic are costly to museums, and institutions in the UK have
put an estimated £500 million ($617 million) worth of projects on
hold, including major revamps and new building constructions. Like
many institutions, the Museum of London furloughed staff this
week—but it has not stopped looking for a construction firm to
build its new £335 million home. (TAN)

This New York Sculpture
Park Is… Actually Open? – Art Omi, a nonprofit
sculpture park in Ghent, New York, has remained open despite a
statewide closure of public gathering spaces. The town is pushing
back, saying it will not close the private park as it provides a
place for people to exercise during lockdown. (Hudson Valley
360)

Gallery Attendant Up for
BP Portrait Award – Michael Youds, a gallery
attendant at the National Galleries of Scotland who is also an
artist, has been shortlisted for the 2020 BP Portrait Award, which
comes with a £35,000 prize. The two other shortlisted artists
are Jiab Prachakul and Sergey Svetlakov. (BBC)

The post Art Industry News: A Fugitive at the Center of the
$80 Million Knoedler Scandal Speaks Out for the First Time + Other
Stories appeared first on artnet News.