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The Headlines
UCCA PAYCHECK? In Monday’s Breakfast Newsletter, ARTnews enlightened our loyal readers about the crisis facing China’s private art museums, including the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art. Corporate backers tightening their belts are reportedly to blame, as is the Chinese government’s “unwillingness to provide backing for art that does not fit in with the range of artforms that the Communist Party condones.” It’s now come to light just how bad the problem may be, with the UCCA, one of the oldest and most prominent non-profit contemporary art institutions in China, having withheld employee wages for six months. Art Asia Pacific points out that that most UCCA staffers had not received full wages from January to June this year.
I AM PETER DOIGE. The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has upheld a $2.5 million sanctions ruling in favor of the artist Peter Doig, marking a significant victory in a legal dispute spanning over a decade. The Art Newspaper reports that the case started when Robert Fletcher, a retired Canadian prison officer, claimed he purchased a painting in the 1970s from an inmate he believed was Doig. However, Doig denied ever creating the work and proved he had never been imprisoned in Canada, as he was a teenager living in Toronto at the time.
The Digest
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has announced the recent repatriation of several antiquities to Italy, Spain, and Hungary, with some dating to the 6th century BCE. The objects were recovered amid criminal investigations into multiple antiquities trafficking networks. [Manhattan DA]
Denmark is debating the fate of a mermaid statue that is to be removed from public view after being decried as “ugly and pornographic” and “a man’s hot dream of what a woman should look like.” [Guardian]
The State Museum of Pennsylvania has closed its extensive Native American collection in compliance with a federal law mandating the repatriation of Native American human remains and cultural items held by federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding. [Penn Live]
An incredibly rare first edition of JRR Tolkein’s classic The Hobbit was sold for £43,000 ($57,000) at a local auction house in Bristol, UK. [Artnet News]
The Kicker
FRICKIN’ FUNNY. Just in case the $220 million spent on the Frick Collection’s revamp wasn’t enough to entice visitors to its Fifth Avenue building, the museum has enlisted the services of comedian Steve Martin to wax lyrical about the artwork on show. As Hyperallergic reports, in a video posted on the Frick’s website and social media, Martin strolls through the ornate galleries, offering a playful take on the museum’s history and its founder, steel magnate Henry Clay Frick, a prominent industrialist with a controversial legacy tied to labor suppression. “Consider what you or I might be drawn to on any given day at the Frick Collection,” Martin muses, highlighting quirky details like the gilded beard of a 15th-century Hercules sculpture. The museum had spent five years in temporary quarters at the Marcel Breuer-designed building on Madison Avenue, the former home of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Since returning to its original location in April, the Frick Collection has welcomed 231,972 visitors, a sign that both the makeover and Martin’s charm are drawing crowds back to this beloved New York institution.
