Good Morning!
- Misan Harriman, chair of London’s Southbank Centre, is resigning following accusations of sharing antisemitic posts.
- The Louvre and Eiffel Tower close early due to crushing heatwave.
- Murals from the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project in Manhattan’s Bellevue Men’s Shelter could be lost for good.
The Headlines
YOU CAN’T FIRE ME, I QUIT. The chair of London’s Southbank Centre, Misan Harriman, is resigning following accusations that he shared antisemitic posts after the April 29 stabbing of two Jewish men, as well as videos allegedly containing conspiracy theories, according to the Times of London. Harriman denied the accusations and said he had always planned to step aside after a second term as chair. Tracey Emin, Peter Doig, and others signed a letter in his defense asserting that he is the victim of a “dishonest smear campaign” by right-wing British news outlets. On social media, Harriman said he would leave in a few months, when his term expires, and that he had “decided way before this madness that I was going to do two terms.” The Charity Commission and the Arts Council are reviewing the allegations.
TOO DARN HOT. Faced with a record-breaking heat wave, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower closed early this week. Museums and monuments equipped with functioning air-conditioning are offering free or reduced admission in response, according to Le Monde. The Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration in Paris is among the institutions offering free entry to visitors seeking relief from the heat. In Nantes, Strasbourg, and Lyon, public museums are pursuing similar initiatives, with organizers saying museums “should be places of hospitality.” But not all institutions can follow suit. A Louvre spokesperson said that combined exterior and interior heat, along with large visitor numbers, made conditions too warm indoors in the afternoons, necessitating early closure. The Palais de Tokyo in Paris also closed this week, as did the two towers of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, which have been shut since Monday.
The Digest
Efforts to preserve several painted-over murals from the Works Progress Administration‘s Federal Art Project have stalled at a Manhattan shelter for the unhoused, and the historic works could be lost. [The Art Newspaper]
Pioneering Korean fiber artist Song Burnsoo has died at age 83. [ArtAsiaPacific]
Mark Berlin, a trustee and international human rights lawyer at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, is resigning over a forthcoming exhibition about the displacement of Palestinians, known as the Nakba, which he says is unbalanced and lacks historical context. [The Globe and Mail]
A Knicks-themed handbag designed by Jordyn Woods, fiancée of Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, is on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. [People]
An Australian artist who won prestigious awards for two paintings appears to have copied them from two separate artists—Jean-Michel Basquiat and Nicholas Harding. [The Guardian]
The Kicker
LIGHTS ON THE LEWIS COLLECTION. When Amedeo Modigliani opened a solo exhibition packed with paintings of fully nude women at Paris’s Berthe Weill gallery in 1917, police shut it down for “indecency.” But those paintings have become some of Modigliani’s most prized works, and one of them—Nu assis au collier (1917–18)—heads to Sotheby’s in London tonight with an estimate of £45 million ($59.22 million), according to the Financial Times. “The mix of creating an uproar and then becoming institutionalized is rare,” said Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s Europe chair. The work is also the top lot among 48 pieces from the collection of billionaire Joe Lewis and his daughter Vivienne. At a total estimate of £195 million to £280 million, the sale is poised to break records for a single-owner auction in the UK.
