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The Headlines
ALVIN LUCIER, the avant-garde composer of unconventional means and immense influence, has died at 90, the New York Times reports. Trained in classical composition, Lucier had early encounters with pieces by radical figures like Arnold Schoenberg and John Cage that pushed him to make venturesome work. His most famous piece may be I Am Sitting in a Room (1969), in which he recorded himself reading a text that begins with those words, then played it and re-recorded it, repeating the process until it became a tangled, otherworldly sonic field. “I just wrote that text in real time the night I did the recording,” Lucier said in a conversation with the musician John Olson published in ARTnews in 2017. “I was thinking of [composer] Robert Ashley. The idea that everyone’s speech has irregularities. We’re all imperfect, aren’t we?”
Related Articles
ARTIST ACTIVITIES: Hank Willis Thomas has a new show at Kayne Griffin in Los Angeles, and is in the Guardian. Carrie Mae Weems has a new show at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, and is in the New York Times. Meriem Bennani is creating a “speculative documentary,” and is in T: The New York Times Style Magazine. And last but not least, Robert Wilson is presenting his staging of Puccini’s Turandot (1924) with the Paris Opera, and is also in the Times, which reports that he has “184 stage productions to his name.” Said Wilson, “I forget that I’m 80, because I’m fortunate that I’m still working. I’m booked for the next two years, solid.”
The Digest
Many details of collector Don and Mera Rubell’s forthcoming museum in Washington, D.C., remain unknown, but Kriston Capps reports that the 31,000-square-foot structure will have an observation space that will allow visitors to watch resident artists work. The building is scheduled to open next year. [The Art Newspaper]
Former Christie’s heavy hitter Loïc Gouzer has cofounded an NFT company called Particle that will sell fractional shares in physical artworks. Its first acquisition: Banksy’s Love Is in the Air (2005), for $12.9 million, at auction back in May. [ARTnews]
After six years as director and chief executive of the Shepparton Art Museum in Australia, Rebecca Coates said she is stepping down. The move comes two weeks after the unveiling of a AU$50 million (roughly $35.7 million) home for the institution. [Shepparton News]
With work currently underway on a new David Adjaye–designed home for the treasure-filled Princeton University Art Museum, the New Jersey institution is opening a temporary 5,500-square-foot gallery space on Saturday. The Adjaye building is slated to be finished in late 2024. [Planet Princeton]
Artist Marko Jakše, whose paintings are filled with surreal imagery, will represent Slovenia at the 2022 Venice Biennale, which is on deck for April. The director of Ljubljana’s Moderna Galerija, Aleš Vaupotič, is the pavilion’s commissioner; Robert Simonišek its curator. [STA and Press Release]
With federal funding, the German Digital Library has created an online database for public collections to list material acquired during the nation’s colonial era. So far, 25 organizations have submitted some 8,000 entries. [The Art Newspaper]
The Kicker
HOME IMPROVEMENTS. The Casino dell’Aurora in Rome, which includes the only known Caravaggio ceiling mural, will be auctioned next month (as was noted here recently). The Associated Press checked in with Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi, who currently lives in the building, and who helped to restore it with her late husband, Prince Nicolo Boncompagni Ludovisi . It seems that, despite their efforts, some $12.5 million in renovations are still necessary. “Really, you need to be a billionaire, not a millionaire,” she said. “You need to be a billionaire if you have a house like this, a historic home, because you want to do everything right. You don’t want to get anything wrong.” The opening bid of €353 million (about $400 million) suggests that a billionaire is likely to be the winner—unless Italy steps in to acquire the property. [Associated Press]