ANTONY CROOK/MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
Performance Art
Calvin Tomkins profiles Alex Poots, the artistic director of New York’s The Shed (formerly Culture Shed), which is poised to become one of the city’s greatest performance art centers when it is completed in spring 2019. [The New Yorker]
At the British Museum this past weekend, the performance art group BP or Not BP? protested Trump and his views about climate change. [Hyperallergic]
The President-Elect
Salem State University in Massachusetts has shut down an art exhibition after students complained that work in the show was offensive. The artists claimed that the work was meant to display inhumanity and hatred in the time of President-Elect Donald J. Trump. [Inside Higher Ed]
It remains hard to know what Trump will do with the White House’s art collection. Moreover, it is a mystery what works will hang in the White House during his presidency because he has no auction or art-fair presence. [Wall Street Journal]
At a protest called “Dear Ivanka” in New York yesterday, members of the art world spoke out against Trump. Curator Alison Gingeras was among the marchers. [NY1]
Department of Resold Leonardo Paintings
Sotheby’s is trying to block a lawsuit over a Leonardo da Vinci painting that was bought at an estate sale for less than $10,000, meant to be sold for $80 million, and, much to a Swiss art dealer’s surprise, offered to a Russian billionaire for $47.5 million. [The New York Times]
Art Basel Miami Beach
Kendrick Lamar will perform at the Faena Art Dome in Miami on the first day of Art Basel. [Paper]
According to one art market observer, the art world has taken a “ ‘let’s not talk about it’ approach” to dealing with the Zika virus at this year’s Art Basel in Miami. [W Magazine]
Art and Politics
Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves has won the New School’s 2016–18 Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics. [Artforum]
In an attempt to confront the loss of cultural property, the British army is looking to create a modern-day Monuments Men (and Women, in this case). [The Art Newspaper]
Extras
Pictures of Rosemarie Castoro’s show at Broadway 1602. [Contemporary Art Daily]