To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.
The Headlines
LOST AND FOUND RENAISSANCE PAINTING. Researchers in Pompeii have revealed that a painting initially thought to be a copy, hanging in a local church, is in fact an original work that went missing, by Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna, reports ANSA. The painting depicts Christ descending from the cross, and it will be displayed in the Vatican Museums in Rome beginning March 20, for three months. After being asked to analyze the painting in need of cleaning, “we immediately understood that under the layers of repainting there was an extraordinary pictorial material. The restoration revealed iconographic and technical details that confirm Mantegna’s authorship, returning to art history a masterpiece that was thought lost,” said Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums. After it is exhibited in Rome, the painting will return to its home at the Shrine to the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary at Pompeii.
LADY LIBERTY ROW. A row has been brewing between the White House and a French politician, who said in a speech in Paris on Sunday that drew cheers from the crowd, that the US should “Give us back the Statue of Liberty. It was our gift to you, but apparently you despise her. So she’ll be happy here with us,” reported Le Parisien and AFP. The center-left politician Raphaël Glucksmann was specifically addressing Trump supporters and his government, “who have chosen to side with tyrants,” and “the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom.” The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded at a press conference, that the US would “absolutely not,” give back the monument, “and my advice to that unnamed, low-level French politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now.” Glucksmann shot back on social media that nobody was coming for the statue, and his comment had been symbolic.
The Digest
South Korean artist Lee Bul will be represented by Hauser & Wirth, and the gallery will feature two works by her in its Art Basel Hong Kong booth next week, with a solo show planned for next year in its New York space. As a result, Lee will no longer work with her longtime dealers Thaddaeus Ropac and Lehmann Maupin, however, representation will be shared with the artist’s Seoul gallery, BB&M. [ARTnews]
The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has announced that Sarah Sze is the first recipient of its new Meraki Artist Award, funded by collector Fotene Demoulas. It comes with a $100,000 cash prize intended to recognize contemporary women artists. [Artforum]
The Nordic Biennale of Contemporary Art, MOMENTUM, has announced its list of participating artists for its 13th edition, titled “Between/Worlds: Resonant Ecologies.” [ArtReview]
Hong Gyu Shin, the young South Korean owner of New York’s Shin Gallery, invited art critic John Vincler to his home, where a small Vincent van Gogh shares a floor-to-ceiling wall display of eclectic creators, including street artist Richard Hambleton,Sam Francis, and Eugène Delacroix. Shin, who started his gallery while in college, discusses the art market, his goals “to open a museum on Mars,” and his gallery’s expansion since its 2013 founding. [Cultured Magazine]
A new Japanese restaurant will open this spring in the subterranean level of the iconic Hotel Chelsea in New York, named after the artist Teruko Yokoi, who lived in the hotel from 1957 through 1960. The restaurant will display a collection of Yokoi’s artwork, which is also the subject of a solo show at Hollis Taggart gallery in Chelsea from May 1 through June 14. [Eater and press release]
GUELPH TREASURE RESTITUTION TWIST. Fresh documents and a new claim have surfaced in a long-running dispute over a $300 million art trove, known as the Guelph Treasure, reports The New York Times. Heirs of a “consortium” of owners of the treasure have long insisted it was looted by Nazis, but the group, all Jewish art dealers, have not been successful in their legal claims to date. Now, as the arbitration process for art restitution is evolving in Germany, new documents plus a new claim have revived their complicated case. The trove itself, owned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, and housed in the city’s Museum of Applied Art, includes gem-encrusted medieval ecclesiastical artifacts. The new archival documents were discovered by lawyers representing Alice Koch, an heir to one consortium member, and they reportedly show that Koch was forced to pay a “Reich flight tax” in 1935 using proceeds from the Guelph Treasure sale just prior, effectively allowing them to flee the country in the nick of time.
The Kicker
GUELPH TREASURE RESTITUTION TWIST. Fresh documents and a new claim have surfaced in a long-running dispute over a $300 million art trove, known as the Guelph Treasure, reports The New York Times. Heirs of a “consortium” of owners of the treasure have long insisted it was looted by Nazis, but the group, all Jewish art dealers, have not been successful in their legal claims to date. Now, as the arbitration process for art restitution is evolving in Germany, new documents plus a new claim have revived their complicated case. The trove itself, owned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, and housed in the city’s Museum of Applied Art, includes gem-encrusted medieval ecclesiastical artifacts. The new archival documents were discovered by lawyers representing Alice Koch, an heir to one consortium member, and they reportedly show that Koch was forced to pay a “Reich flight tax” in 1935 using proceeds from the Guelph Treasure sale just prior, effectively allowing them to flee the country in the nick of time.
