Category: visual

How A Stolen Native American Artifact Ended Up For Sale In Paris

There is a loophole, in which it’s illegal to traffic certain cultural items within the United States, but exporting them is not prohibited. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which was enacted in 1990, requires repatriation of sacred or culturally significant items to their respective tribes or lineal descendants. It also instituted procedures for when said items are inadvertently discovered in excavations on federal lands. However, NAGPRA does not apply internationally. – Hyperallergic

Why Museum Workers Across America Are Unionizing

The New Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle have all formed unions this year. And the tide doesn’t seem to be slowing: On November 22, a group of workers from Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art across multiple departments—exhibitions, education, communications, and audio-visual—followed suit. – Artnet

Surge In Black Art Is ‘Exhilarating Sea Change’ That Made 2010s ‘Thrilling’: New York Times

Roberta Smith: “What made the 2010s the most thrilling of all the decades I’ve spent in the New York art world was the rising presence of black artists of every ilk, on every front: in museums, commercial galleries, art magazines, private collections and public commissions. During this exhilarating sea change new talent emerged, older talent was newly appreciated and the history of American art was suddenly up for grabs — and in dire need of rewriting.” – The New York Times

Police To Impound Rotterdam Museum Sculptures After Church Says They Were Stolen

“Police have said they plan to seize six religious sculptures that are on display at an art museum in the Belgian town of Leuven. The authorities acted following a complaint by a Belgian church that has long sought to reclaim the fragments of a 16th-century altarpiece, which were stolen at the outbreak of World War I” and ultimately ended up at Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. – Artnet

How The Art World Morphed Into The Art Industry

Consider that, in 1988, the Artnet Price Database tracked only 18 auction houses and about 8,300 artists. Over the next 24 years, those figures skyrocketed: By 2012, there were 632 auction houses and 90,275 artists. But, like any mature industry, it is now entering a period of consolidation after decades of expansion. Last year, Artnet recorded only 534 houses (a drop of around 16 percent from the high-water mark) and 71,621 artists (down 25 percent from the peak). Still, the scale and contours of today’s art world would have been largely inconceivable to dealers, auction-house professionals, and collectors 30 years ago. – Artnet

Bad Form: Company That Commissioned “Fearless Girl” Sculpture On Wall Street Sues Artist, Others Making Replicas

The financial services firm that purchased the original, State Street Global Advisors, is calling them unauthorized copies and waging an aggressive legal campaign against them. Critics say the fight proves that the company’s embrace of the Fearless Girl was always less about promoting female empowerment than it was about promoting itself. – The New York Times