The Headlines
AFTER THE FIRE. Overt the past couple decades, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a once-industrial waterfront neighborhood, a collection of 19th-century warehouses has become a haven for artists. Then, last Wednesday, a massive fire ripped through one of those buildings, at 481 Van Brunt Street, burning up studios, artworks, and more. According to the New York Times , the fire has raised fears not just about the remaining studios but also about the future of Red Hook more broadly. More than 200 firefighters battled the blaze, which was still smoldering by Friday. “I’ve always feared a fire,” said artist Rebecca Spivack, who had worked in a third-floor studio since 2009. “They’re old buildings with woodworkers and chemicals, it was always a risk.” Now, Spivack and other artists are worried that the area could be destined for the gentrification path of SoHo and TriBeCa. Uncertainty looms.
A MIGHTY ACQUISITION BY A SMALL DANISH MUSEUM. Artemisia Gentileschi, the queen of the Italian Baroque movement, has long been admired by collectors and galleries. In recent years, her prominence has surged as museums seek to increase representation of female artists in their collections. Now, joining the ranks of prestigious institutions such as the Getty, the Met, the Uffizi, and London’s National Gallery is an unlikely new owner of Gentileschi’s work: a small museum in rural Denmark, as the Times reports. The Nivaagaard Collection, located in a coastal village north of Copenhagen, has just unveiled its latest and most significant acquisition: Susanna and the Elders, a nearly seven-foot-high masterpiece by Gentileschi. Museum director Andrea Rygg Karberg secured the painting amid stiff competition from international galleries and called its unveiling “the happiest moment.” The acquisition cements Nivaagaard’s reputation as a leading museum for women’s art from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. With four female artists from before the 18th century featured in its modest three-room space, Nivaagaard now surpasses the Louvre, which lists just three pre-1700 female painters in its 500,000-work online catalogue.
The Digest
Ai Weiwei claimed that the German newspaper Die Zeit censored an article he wrote and then portrayed him in “a distorted and unjust manner.” [ARTnews]
Florida’s state-ordered removal of street artworks has continued to rankle locals, who have questioned the true motive behind the move. [The Washington Post]
Austrian mega-dealer Thaddaeus Ropac opened a new gallery in Milan on Saturday. It’s his seventh international outpost. [Finestre sull’Arte]
After years of civil war in Syria, the world’s oldest synagogue paintings were feared to be destroyed, but experts are rejoicing after they were revealed to be safe last week. [Time of Israel]
The Kicker
KICK IN THE TEETH. The Vagina Museum in London has stopped shipping its merchandise to the US due to Donald Trump ’s trade tariffs. Those tariffs include a 10 percent baseline fee on imported goods, and have made international shipping too expensive for the small charity-run museum, which celebrates the female anatomy and sells a range of feminist and body-positive products, like postcards, tea towels, and magnets. While US customers only made up a small chunk of its online sales, the museum’s director, Zoe Williams, emphasized that every sale contributes to supporting their mission. “Our online shop is an important fundraising tool,” she told the Telegraph. “We’re disappointed that tariffs have made it financially unviable to continue shipping to our friends in the US, as it increases costs both for us and for customers.”
