The Headlines
WE THE LUCKY FEW? Billionaire Ken Griffin is officially the owner of the only two known surviving copies of the US Constitution in private hands, reports the New York Times . On Monday, Griffin announced that he had acquired an original print of the document via a private sale for an undisclosed amount, and that he would exhibit it in New York for the country’s 250th anniversary. Griffin famously paid $43.2 million in 2021 for another first printing of the Constitution, setting a record for the highest auction sale in that category. The first copy he purchased is on view at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and the second is scheduled to be exhibited as part of a broader show about American history at the South Street Seaport Museum in Manhattan, starting May 27. Only 14 official copies of the Constitution made in 1787 are known to have survived, making them extremely rare. “The Constitution is far more than a founding document—it is one of humanity’s greatest achievements and a testament to the promise of America,” Griffin said. A close reading would do us all well.
GETTING ORGANIZED. A union for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has accused the institution of unfair labor practices in a complaint that it filed on Monday, reports the Washington Post. In federal unfair-labor-practice charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) accused the center of unlawfully firing dozens of employees and using a contested plan to close for renovations as a false pretense for slashing jobs. “This is not a normal closure-related layoff,” said Matthew D. Loeb, president of the IATSE. Donald Trump previously announced that the center would close for two years on July 4 for major renovations, but those plans have also been challenged by two lawsuits alleging that this is an attempt to save face after Trump’s actions caused ticket sales to plunge and artists to cancel events.
The Digest
Artist Anish Kapoor said the US should be boycotted from the Venice Biennale because of the government’s “abhorrent politics of hate” and “incessant warmongering.” [The Guardian]
After it took legal action to demand more state funding for a planned renovation, the Van Gogh Museum is in mediation talks with the Dutch government over public financing. [The Art Newspaper]
The Musée d’Orsay has inaugurated a new gallery space dedicated to Nazi-looted artworks in its possession—known as “orphans” because their rightful owners are unknown—following their return to France from Germany by Allied forces. [Le Figaro and AFP]
Amy Sherald brought her Outwin Boochever Prize–winning paintings to life at the Met Gala yesterday when she dressed as the little girl in her 2014 painting Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance). [ARTnews]
The Holocaust Museum LA will reopen on June 14, following a 10-month closure and a $70 million expansion as part of the Goldrich Cultural Center, which includes the broadening of its programming on inclusion and community, as well as the doubling of its footprint. [The Los Angeles Times]
The artist Bracha L. Ettinger has installed a “shared psychic” exhibition space until May 10, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, and brought to life with her ghostly paintings in violets and reds, overflowing piles of seashells, thistles, sketchbooks and writings, all in the same small Hotel Metropole room in Venice where Sigmund Freud wrote The Interpretation of Dreams. [ARTnews]
The Kicker
SECOND LIVES. The Milan-born star curator Cecilia Alemani wowed the art world with her 2022 Venice Biennale, “The Milk of Dreams,” and last year drew accolades for her curation of Site Santa Fe. But as the New Yorker reports, her “heart is with the High Line ,” in New York City, where the artworks are loved or hated by whoever happens by the art-filled public walkway. “They might be provoked, they might be challenged, they might be inspired, but there’s always an active relationship,” she said. “In museums, the encounter is more prescriptive.” The recently installed Buddha sculpture by Tuan Andrew Nguyen has replaced a beloved, giant pigeon titled Dinosaur by Iván Argote, which will be sorely missed by fans. “Maybe they can think of [the new sculpture] as a reincarnation,” Alemani said.
