— Yams Collective Withdraws From WhiBi: The collective HowDoYouSayYaminAfrican? has withdrawn from the 2014 Whitney Biennial to protest Joe Scanlan’s Donelle Woolford project, wherein a white male Princeton professor hires black women to play a fictional black artist. “We’re sure that we don’t need to explain how the notion of a black artist being ‘willed into existence’ and the use of a black FEMALE body through which a WHITE male ‘artist’ conceptually masturbates in the context of an art exhibition presents a troubling model of the BLACK body and of conceptual RAPE,” the collective said in an email to all of the Biennial artists. The piece has also been met with negative responses from journalists, including Eunsong Kim and Maya Isabella in The New Inquiry. [Hyperallergic]
— Aboriginal Carvings Vandalized: Aboriginal art located on the Burrop Peninsula in Western Australia that dates back 60,000 years was vandalized by visitors who scratched “Go and work for a living” above the original artwork. The works, which have been targeted in the past, are part of nearly two million carvings that are national heritage-listed sites at Murujunga National Park. [UPI]
— Gurlitt’s Last Days Revealed: In an in-depth, inside look at Cornelius Gurlitt’s last days, the Wall Street Journal details his surprising decision to donate the work outside of Germany. [WSJ]
— Art Blasé Tees Are a Hit in Hong Kong: Anastasia Klose’s irreverent T-shirts, featuring puns like “Art Blasé,” are a huge hit at Art Basel in Hong Kong. [TAN]
— Spencer Finch’s Commission: Here’s a profile of Spencer Finch, the only artist commissioned to make a work for the 9/11 museum. [NYT]
— Turner Biopic Debuts: Mike Leigh’s JMW Turner biopic debuted at Cannes, and Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw loved it. [The Guardian]
— The Whitney Museum is donating its educational pop-up studio space to Long Island City’s Socrates Sculpture Park. [NYT]
— Pieces from the esteemed collection of Edwin A. and Betty Jane Bergman fetched millions this week at New York sales. [Chicago Tribune]
— A young boy who bought a watercolor for $2 learned it was actually an Albert Neuhuys original worth $1,500 when he appeared on “Antiques Roadshow.” [HuffPo]
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