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 Tuesday, September 13.
NEED TO READ
Georg Baselitz Interview – The German painter who has lived under two dictatorships told the Guardian‘s Jonathan Jones that Germany has “never been democratic”—and not even modern German “democracy” can salvage that. “The artist has to behave as if he himself is the only potential intellectual power.” The famed artist, who is now in his 80s, is the latest subject of a new Taschen book. (Guardian)
French New Wave Maverick Jean-Luc Godard Has Died – The auteur who revolutionized the language of cinema and inspired filmmakers and artists around the world for decades has died at the age of 91. Best known for his reinvention of cinematic narrative and use of jump-cuts, Godard began as a critic with Cahiers du Cinéma. His art-house masterpiece À bout de souffle (1960) kicked off the French New Wave movement. Godard, who later ventured into media art, saw film as an art object, and was even commissioned by MoMA to create The Old Place (2000), made with his collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville. (Guardian)
V&A Weighs Return of Artifacts to Ghana – The Asante gold regalia seized by a British raid in 1874 that are kept at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum may have a chance to return home after the museum’s director Tristram Hunt visited Ghana. Such a move would put pressure on the British Museum, which houses an even bigger Asante collection. (The Art Newspaper)
Unsigned & Controversial Warhol Heads to Auction –Self-portrait (red) from 1965 will be offered at Larsen Art Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, in October with presale expectations at $500,000 to $700,000. The work is offered by the 91-year-old New York collector Richard Ekstract (who wished to get his “estate in order”), and says he received the unsigned work for helping Warhol with a party. It comes from the same series that has has been a subject of a $20 million lawsuit against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. (TAN, Scottsdale Progress)