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The Headlines
HISTORIC MODERN IDIAN ART SALE. M.F. Husain’s 1954 painting Untitled (Gram Yatra) became the most expensive work of modern Indian art ever publicly auctioned, when it sold yesterday for $13.8 million at Christie’s in New York, reports Karen K. Ho for ARTnews. That price, which includes fees, shattered the estimate of $2.5 million to $3.5 million, and was over four times the artist’s previous record of $3.1 million. The South Asian modern and contemporary art category continues to gather momentum, despite a fragmented market. The painting is made of 13 separate vignettes of Indian village life, and was made five years after Indian independence, as “Husain and all his colleagues [were] trying to figure out at the time what it means to be a modern Indian artist,” said Nishad Avari, the New York-based head of Christie’s South Asian modern and contemporary art department.
SF ART INSTITUTE TAKES SHAPE. The historic San Francisco Art Institute, which closed in 2022 after 152 years of operation, and was bought by a nonprofit led by Laurene Powell Jobs, will undergo renovations and feature a visual arts program “rooted in studio practice,” but it will not be an accredited art school, reports The San Francisco Chronicle. Local preservation architecture firm Page and Turnbull just filed for approvals of a renovation project with the city’s Planning Department, and it will be working alongside Jensen Architects, particularly for the building’s interior. Changes will reportedly include converting a few existing studios on the Spanish-style property into temporary residences for artists, and some former offices will likely become studios as well. Meanwhile, the main entrance will be renovated to allow public access to the famous building, with its 1930 Diego Rivera mural. A new name for the institution, and more details about its plans are expected in the coming months.
The Digest
Marina Abramovic has announced a new NFT project in partnership with TAEX, called “Marina Abramovic Element.” It includes three NFT drops with games and collectible items aimed at creating an immersive experience into the artist’s practice, which begins with a preview at Moco Museum London, on April 8, followed by an NFT release in May. [FAD Magazine]
Chinese multidisciplinary artist Zhichao Huang, also known as Dennis Huang, has died at age 84. He is known for his colorful blend of Eastern and Western painting styles, abstract sculptures and ink paintings. [ArtAsiaPacific]
A former home of Surrealist founder André Breton, which is currently a museum dedicated to the artistic movement, caught fire earlier this month in the town of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie in southwest France. Most of the artworks and collected items in the museum were spared, but the building and furniture were damaged. [Le Quotidien de l’Art]
Former UK art collector James Stunt was found not guilty of participating in a money-laundering scheme that involved buying gold with suspect funds. Stunt, who was declared bankrupt after his divorce from heiress Petra Ecclestone, has always denied the charges. [The Art Newspaper]
Shanghai’s Museum of Art Pudong is hosting a first exhibition of the fashion brand Loro Piana in China, as part of the centennial celebration of luxury house LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Titled “If You Know, You Know: Loro Piana’s Quest for Excellence,” the show tells the story of the brand’s family legacy and process, while allowing visitors to touch displayed items, opening March 22 to May 5. [WWD]
The co-founders of São Paulo’s newest gallery, Yehudi Hollander-Pappi, and former Mendes Wood DM staffers Matheus Yehudi Hollander and Sofia Pappi, discuss their ambitions, which include being transparent about their financial backer, Yehudi’s mother and art collector Monica Hollander. “A good gallery is a money pit,” said Yehudi Hollander. “You have to burn cash to support great artists making new work and spark ideas.” [The Art Newspaper]
The Kicker
GOLDEN BLINDSPOT. News of the recent conviction of three men for stealing Maurizio Cattelan’s golden toilet from Blenheim Palace in England has made headlines, but the BBC shows another perspective to the 2019 burglary at the 18th century castle and family home of Winston Churchill, that of the museum staff. Surprisingly, they were not only unprepared, never having deemed the functioning artwork a security risk, but even in the moments after it happened, workers did not immediately suspect anyone would come for the 227 pound, 18-karat gold toilet, titled America (2016). One reason for this, suggested by founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation, Edward Spencer-Churchill, was that nobody would want to touch a toilet that had been used by so many. “It’s not going to be the easiest thing to nick,” Spencer-Churchill told the Sunday Times a month before the theft. “Firstly, it’s plumbed in and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it,” he added. When alarms sounded in the early hours of September 14, 2019, as thieves ran off with the golden lavatory, staffers searched the museum before realizing it was gone. One staff member admitted her first thought, after there had been a break-in, was that someone might have snatched the museum’s lock of Churchill’s childhood hair. While undoubtedly precious to some, the statesman’s strands of hair was left untouched, and is still on display. The golden toilet was most certainly melted down and sold, worth about $3.6 million for the precious metal alone.
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