#MeToo
Erie Art Museum director Joshua Helmer has left his position after the New York Times reported that he engaged in harassment of female employees at his previous job with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. [ARTnews]
Dealers
Enid Tsui profiles French dealer in Chinese works of art Christian Deydier, who at age 70, has just opened a gallery in Hong Kong. “Dealers in Hong Kong were spoiled,” he says. “In the 1980s, the Taiwanese came and bought everything. In the 1990s, so much was coming out of China without any control. Then a few years ago prices went crazy and now that [the] market has become quieter, the dealers complain.” With China having established much better border controls, the market for Chinese works of art now sources material from around the world. But, as Deydier tells Tsui, “the Chinese do not come to France to buy so I am here instead.” [South China Morning Post]
Collectors
ARTnews Top 200 collector Cheung Chung-kiu is buying Rutland Gate, a 45-room private residence in London for “upward of £200 million” ($261 million). Whether the record price for a London residence was paid to maintain the mansion or develop the property remains unknown. [Barron’s Penta]
Colin Gleadell profiles James Birch, who discovered Turner prizewinner Grayson Perry, lost a girlfriend to Jay Jopling (who lost the same to Damien Hirst), worked in Christie’s Old Masters department, and sought out Andy Warhol at Studio 54. [The Telegraph]
Museums
The Louvre has hired an expert in the French art market of the 1940s on a yearlong contract, suggesting the museum may be taking restitution claims more seriously than in the past.
Jing Travel has an interesting take on the Kemper Art Museum’s use of an Ai Weiwei exhibition to engage with Chinese students on campus. The Kemper is part of Washington University in St. Louis, where 15 percent of the students are from China, and St. Louis has a growing local Chinese-American population. “Although US museums are experiencing a surge of Chinese visitation as travel habits shift from shopping to culture, St. Louis remains somewhat beyond the traditional tourist trail through America—though not, it merits mentioning, on account of a lack of arts institutions. However, as this trend is only projected to increase, the first logical step for cultural institutions in mid-sized US cities should be to connect with local Chinese organizations, clubs, and schools.” [Jing Travel]
Despite a Hispanic population of nearly 45 percent and growing, and a recent $700 million museum spending spree, Houston doesn’t seem to have any plans for a major Hispanic cultural institution. [Houston Chronicle]
Artists
In a long op-ed piece, Ai Weiwei draws connections between multinational corporations and their global supply chain connections to Xinjiang, where some one million Uighurs are being detained. [New York Times]
Beijing artist Cao Fei, who normally works as a multimedia and video artist, has a large outdoor sculpture debuting at the National Gallery of Singapore; it comes after solo shows at MoMA PS1 in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Her first major solo show in China comes later this year in September at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. [Straits Times]
Art Market
France 24 has a video overview of the €3 billion Paris auction market. Although the report laments that the market is dominated by “foreign” auction houses, it proudly reminds the audience that both Sotheby’s and Christie’s are now owned by French “businessmen.” [France 24]