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Money
Following its decision to launch a Saudi Arabian edition, the Desert X biennial has become embroiled in more controversy. A foundation that has donated to the biennial since 2017 has said it will no longer offer the exhibition funding. [Los Angeles Times]
A Sanyu painting of five nude women is headed to auction at Christie’s in Hong Kong with a $33 million estimate. [ARTnews]
New York officials are threatening to cut funding from Uovo, an art storage facility, because of its “aggressive and coercive tactics” in dealing with a newly formed workers’ union. [The Art Newspaper]
The Talent
Ellen Salpeter, former director of the ICA Miami, has been named the president and CEO of Westbeth Artists’ Housing, a storied New York organization that provides affordable housing and studios to artists. [ARTnews]
Growth
The Centre Pompidou in Paris will open a 237,000-square-foot “art factory” outside the city that will act as a storage facility for most of the institution’s holdings. [ARTnews]
While it undergoes a $3.8 million expansion, the London arts organization Studio Voltaire will close to the public. [Artforum]
Museums
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in California has received 3,000 quilts by African-American artists via a bequest from the late collector Eli Leon. [The New York Times]
What, you ask, is something that actor Michael Imperioli can’t live without? His membership to the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. [The Strategist]
Awards
Artist Joan Jett Blakk has won the 2019 Queer|Art Prize for sustained achievement, which comes with $10,000. [Artforum]
Fifty years on, the theft of a Caravaggio painting in Sicily is still a mystery. [The Guardian]