Ex-Cons Tour Deller's Venice Show, Strikes Hobble UK Museums, and More

A general view of an art work of Jeremy Deller at the exhibition "English Magic"

Published: May 30, 2013

– Ex-Cons Visit Deller in Venice: Eight carefully chosen ex-inmates, all previous winners of the annual Koestler Awards for arts in prisons, will travel to the Venice Biennale as part of an initiative sponsored by the British Council and the Koestler Trust, a charity that promotes arts in the British criminal justice system. The timing for such a trip is apt, as Jeremy Deller features so-called "prison art" in his Biennale pavilion that was produced at drawing workshops run by the artists at several prisons in the U.K. "Bringing ex-offenders to Venice, to work with us at the British Pavilion, makes real the theme of social justice that runs through Jeremy Deller’s exhibition," said Andrea Rose, director of visual arts at the British Council. [Press Release]

– Strikes Shutter British Museums: Workers at most of the U.K.'s major museums are planning to walk out Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as part of action coordinated by the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) in protest of cuts to pay and pension. Institutions including the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, and the British Museum are expecting to have to limit access to certain galleries as a result, while Tate Liverpool will close completely. Strikers plan to form a human chain around the Museum of Liverpool on Friday. "These strikes highlight the huge gap between the valuable work our members do and the contempt being shown to them by ministers who are imposing cuts and refusing to even talk to us," PCS secretary general Mark Serwotka said. [BBC]

– Velvet Underground and Warhol Settle Banana Split: After the Warhol Foundation attempted to license the banana art on the cover of the now-classic 1967 record "The Velvet Underground & Nico" with Apple for iPhone and iPad accessories, founding band members Lou Reed and John Cale sued. Although Andy Warhol designed the banana, the band claimed trademark rights to the design and called it a "symbol, truly an icon" of the Velvet Underground. Both sides have chosen to settle the dispute outside court rather than facing a trial that would have commenced July 29. "The parties have reached a confidential agreement to settle the case," wrote Warhol Foundation lawyer Joshua Paul in a letter to the judge. [Reuters, Bloomberg]

– Kevin Spacey Portrait Heads to NPG: Kevin Spacey is soon to join Michael Parkinson, Grayson Perry, Sienna Miller, and Rupert Murdoch in a show of paintings by British portrait master Jonathan Yeo at the U.K.'s National Portrait Gallery. "We decided to put him in character as Shakespeare's notorious villain," said Yeo. "Partly as a nod to the tradition of theatrical portraits of the past, and partly as a celebration of what may go down as his most memorable stage role." [Guardian]

– Stolen Masterpieces May Have Been Burned: Investigators are analyzing ashes found in the home of the mother of one of the suspects in the heist of seven artworks form Kunsthal Rotterdam last year for fear that they might be the charred remains of works by Picasso, Monet, Matisse, and Gauguin that the thieves burned after it became apparent that they would be virtually impossible to sell. The ashes were found in the home of Olga Dogaru, whose son Radu Dogaru is one of six Romanian nationals arrested in connection with the heist. [AFP]

– Noland Prevails in Jancou Case: On May 1 a New York state court dismissed dealer Marc Jancou's $6-million lawsuit against artist Cady Noland over the artwork "Cowboys Milking" (1990), which the artist disowned days before the gallerist was due to sell it at Sotheby's in 2011 because it was damaged. Jancou plans to appeal the decision, and is already appealing a November 2012 ruling dismissing his case against Sotheby's for withdrawing the disowned artwork from the sale. [TAN]

– Cleveland Museum Pays for Nazi Loot: The Cleveland Museum of Art has agreed to pay restitution for a 17th-century drawing by German artist Johann Liss to the family of art collector Arthur Feldmann, who died in 1941 after being arrested by the Nazis. Feldmann’s collection of Old Master drawings was allegedly confiscated by the Third Reich, although the museum acquired the drawing from a London art dealer in 1953. Museum director David Franklin claims "there was some vagueness as to whether the drawings were seized by the Nazis or not." But, he went on to say, "we felt it was the honorable thing to meet the family halfway and give them the benefit of the doubt." [The Plain Dealer]

– Death Row Inmate to be Gilded in Gold: Danish artist Martin Martensen-Larsen plans to cover the corpse of Texas death row inmate Travis Runnels in gold after his death in a bizarre monument that mimics the Lincoln Memorial. While Runnels's execution date has not been set, he has already agreed to give his body to the artist. Although the artist is dealing with some problems due to "abuse of human corpses" laws, allegedly two galleries in Texas and D.C. have already agreed to show the work. "I am not celebrating the prisoner, it is American society, or in this case Texas, which places him on a pedestal through the media attention, millions of dollars spent on appeals and through the execution itself which promises redemption," said Martensen-Larsen. [TAN]

– Wildlife Painter Gets Deep: In a twist on plein air painting, the wildlife artist Jonathan Truss takes to the open waters to create his figurative drawings and paintings of great white sharks — albeit from the relative safety of a diving cage (see below). Truss's daredevil dives in the name of realism build on a long tradition that includes J.M.W. Turner, who famously had himself tied to a ship's mast during a storm so he could witness the weather's full force. "I wished to show what such a scene was like," Turner later wrote, "I got the sailors to lash me to the mast to observe it, I was lashed for four hours, and I did not expect to escape, but I felt bound to record it if I did." [Guardian]

– L.S. Lowry Doodles Do Good at Auction: A trio of drawings that L.S. Lowry gave to Angelo Salvini, his favorite waiter at the George Hotel in West Yorkshire — including one sketched on the back of a hotel menu — sold for a total of over £64,000 at Bonhams on Wednesday, far surpassing the auction house's £31,000-£43,000 estimate. "Known in the region as somewhat of a 'local celebrity,' Salvini struck up a bond with the artist over the course of his visits and as a sign of his gratitude Lowry drew these works for him on separate occasions," a Bonhams spokesperson said. [Telegraph]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Wildlife painter Jonathan Truss in the shark tank