Good Morning!
- In the latest shake-up since President Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center, two more key staffers have been laid off.
- Canadian artist Armand Vaillancourt is demanding San Francisco officials cease and desist from deaccessioning and potentially destroying the 1971 city fountain that bears his name.
- Two Nazi-looted still life paintings by 17th-century Dutch artist Abrosius Bosschaert are believed to have surfaced from an abandoned safety deposit box.
The Headlines
MORE KENNEDY CENTER CUTS. The Kennedy Center has fired the head of its jazz programming, as well as the last member of its social impact team, reports the Washington Post. Kevin Struthers, senior director, music programming, and Malka Lasky , a social impact staffer and coordinator for the center’s free Millennium Stage shows, were laid off on Wednesday with no explanation, per reports. The firings are the latest shake-ups to roil the center since President Donald Trump took over the institution, ousted its former leaders, and replaced them with his own political allies. Trump is currently chairman of the Washington D.C. art center’s board of trustees.
CEASE AND DESIST. The Canadian artist who made the iconic Brutalist water fountain in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Plaza, Armand Vaillancourt, 96, has sent a cease-and-desist letter via his lawyer, in an attempt to block plans to demolish the art piece made in 1971, reports the Art Newspaper. A redevelopment project by the city’s Recreation and Parks Department specifically requires that the San Francisco Arts Commission, which owns the sculpture, “proceed with the formal deaccession of the Vaillancourt Fountain … and its removal.” The sculpture remains fenced off today, because it is crumbling in parts, and considered a hazardous risk. News of the plans have sparked a fierce outcry from groups demanding the sculpture be preserved. The artist is among them, and his letter sent via a lawyer, dated August 29, demands all those involved, “immediately cease and desist from taking any steps whatsoever that may endanger or damage the Vaillancourt Fountain.”
The Digest
Two floral still life paintings by Dutch artist Abrosius Bosschaert (1573-1621), that were looted by Nazis and French collaborators, appear to have surfaced at an Ohio auction house. The paintings were recovered from an abandoned safety deposit box, and if authenticated, will be returned to the descendants of Adolphe and Luci Haas Schloss, a Jewish family of art collectors who lived in Paris during World War II. [The Columbus Dispatch]
In his will, Giorgio Armani named LVMH and L’Oréal among his preferred buyers of his private luxury label, kicking off a competition to take control of his namesake brand. Luxottica was also named among the three preferred buyers. The designer who died last week at the age of 91 was also an active arts patron. [The Financial Times]
The Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris has fired its director, Simon Baker, and is quickly looking for a replacement. Baker was selected to lead the French museum after heading the photography department in London’s Tate Modern, and for seven years, presented acclaimed international exhibitions. According to reports, his firing comes after he was the subject of an internal investigation conducted at the museum for “psychological harassment,” and the departure of several staff. [ Le Monde]
Severe drought in Iraqu’s Khanke northern region is causing a humanitarian crisis, as well as exposing about 40 of ancient tombs believed to be about 2,300 years old, located along the banks of the receding Mosul Dam. More archaeological sites are expected to surface as the water level drops, according to researchers. [France 24 and AFP]
Five people have pulled out of a September 15th seminar about Jews living in Paris, to be held at the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaisme in the French capital. They said the cancellation was in protest against Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s funding for the travel expenses of another researcher and participant, Elisheva Baumgarten. However, Baumgarten and several Israeli universities have been outspoken against Benjamin Netanyahu ’s government and have publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza. “The university is one of the strongest forces against the current government and the war,” said two Israeli academics in a Le Monde editorial. “By boycotting us, our colleagues are not helping the Palestinians of Gaza.” [Le Monde]
The Kicker
WHAT ABOUT HUMANITY? Art critic Emily Watlington takes readers on a tour of the São Paul Bienal and the central themes it explores, for her latest Art in America read. The broad question of “what it means to be human” is certainly at the crux of the exhibition, but so is the way birds ignore borders, and how estuaries and tributaries are structured. On that note, connections between waterways reaching from “the river to the sea,” were also repeatedly mentioned by show organizers, in an echo of the pro-Palestinian slogan, Watlington notes. “The show is more about thriving than surviving, with a selection of works that insist emphatically on all of humanity’s right to beauty and dreaming and play,” she observes. Watlington goes on to give her thoughtful takes on outstanding works by Brazilian artist Gervane de Paula, Hatian painter and poet Frankétienne, Sharon Hayes, Nguyen Trinh-Thi, Leonel Vásquez, and Myriam Omar Awadi, to name a few.
