COURTESY ARNAUD’S
The “Breakfast with ARTnews” newsletter with morning links is now available as a Spoken Edition on iTunes, Spotify, and other platforms.
Art of the Cities
Prospect 4 is proving to be a hit in New Orleans, and will only draw more visitors as revelers head to the Big Easy to celebrate the city’s 300th anniversary in 2018. At Bloomberg, Mary Romano takes readers through a few highlights on view at Prospect, while pointing out some of the excellent places one can have a meal, a bite, or a fantastic cocktail. Arnaud’s Restaurant makes a mean Sazerac. [Bloomberg]
Sante Fe, New Mexico, has long been a haven for artists and art lovers. And now, the collector Jochen Zeitz—whose private collection is housed at the newly opened Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, in Cape Town—is adding to that tradition. Alex Postman at Condé Nast Traveler takes us inside Zeitz’s Rancho Alegre, a lodge 25 miles southwest of the city where visitors can stay for a week among the Native American artworks that its owner has collected for decades. [Condé Nast Traveler]
In Los Angeles, the Hammer Museum is hiring dancers to participate in a staging of Tino Sehgal’s selling out (2002) as part of an upcoming exhibition called “Stories of Almost Everyone.” Hammer curatorial assistant Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi posted the listing to Twitter, and it explains that the institution is looking for nine dancers who will be part of the work for the show’s five-month run, and that they must be “male and female dancers who have an interest in performing striptease.” [Twitter]
In Chicago, the Strangers’ Home Missionary Baptist Church has for four decades had on its side a mural by William Walker, a message of interfaith hope called All of Mankind. At PBS, Jennifer Hijazi discusses that work and many others in an article about how public art is being threatened in Chicago and other cities, and how some residents are trying to protect it. [PBS]
Matters of the Market
The Fine Art Group, a fund that allows lenders to post art as collateral, is making a big push into Asia, Don Weinland of the Financial Times reports. Hong Kong and Shanghai offices will open in 2018 to better serve clients there, and Fine Art Group founder Philip Hoffman is optimistic about the company’s prospects. “We see the lending capabilities easily at $1 billion over the next 10 years and have the backing from investors to do this,” Hoffman said. [The Financial Times]
Museum Oddities
Margaret Carrigan at Artsy goes through some of the world’s strangest museums, including Miami Beach’s World Exotic Art Museum, the stuffed animal mecca that is the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris, and a museum in Turin, Italy, devoted to fake fruit. [Artsy]
We’ve reminded you in previous newsletters, but it’s worth repeating: If anyone has any leads as to who orchestrated the 1990 heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, now is the time to confess. As Samira Said and Ralph Ellis at CNN explain, the $10 million reward for any information on the theft of 13 priceless works of art expires at the stroke of midnight, January 1, 2018. [CNN]
Too few New Yorkers know about the Louis Armstrong House Museum, an institution in Queens devoted to the life and career of the jazz legend, set in the house where he lived from 1943 until his death in 1971. Corynne Cirilli at Architectural Digest tours the house, and shares the news that the museum has recently broken ground on a $23 million research center it hopes will bring more visitors its way. [Architectural Digest]
Downtown Manhattan
At the New York Post, the writers Kevin Fasick, Tina Moore and Max Jaeger investigate a very eye-catching work of art that sprang up this week on the side of a building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan—the work is a 40-foot-tall male member. The artist who claimed responsibility, Carolina Falkholt, says she was commissioned by an arts group called the New Allen, but the building’s owner begged to differ, and painted over the image Wednesday. “It was just not the right thing, so we covered it as soon as possible,” the owner, Samy Mahfar, told the Post. “To be honest, I was extremely offended.” [The New York Post]
On Bleecker Street and Lafayette Street, Noho Star is living out its last days after decades in the neighborhood, Bowery Boogie tells us. The beloved haunt, a favorite of artists and writers and theater folk, was opened by the late painter Kiki Kogelnik and her husband, George Schwarz, who died last year. The last night for Noho Star is December 31. [Bowery Boogie]
W‘s Stephanie Eckhardt speaks with Jemima Kirke, the artist and actress who currently has a show up at Lower East Side gallery Sargent’s Daughters. The paintings depict friends and relatives in wedding dresses, a not-so-oblique nod to the artist’s recent divorce, which Kirke discusses with wit and candor. [W]
Breakfast Puns
Metro UK is here to let us know that Instagram account @the_eggshibit is recreating classic works of art, but in a frying pan. Puns abound—one caption reads “Yolko Ono would approve.” [Metro UK]
Update, January 2, 2018: This post has been updated to note that the Hammer auditions are for a paying dance position, not a volunteer job as previously stated.