Van Gogh’s Sunflowers legal dispute. Plus, Singapore’s art scene and photographer Grace Lau
01/20/23 • 39 min
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Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in Tokyo are the subject of a legal claim in the US relating to Nazi loot. The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent and resident Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey tells us why Sunflowers (1888-89) is at the centre of the dispute, 35 years after it was sold for a record price at auction, and why the heirs of the German Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who owned it until the 1930s, now value it at a staggering $250m. Our editor-at-large Georgina Adam has just returned from Singapore, where the first Art SG art fair took place last week. How successful was this new event in the art market calendar, and what does it tell us about Singapore’s ambitions to become an art hub? And this episode’s Work of the Week is Portraits in a Chinese Studio, a photographic work by the artist Grace Lau. In the project, which marks Chinese New Year, Lau is subverting the tradition of colonial 19th-century portrait studios in a shopping centre in Southampton on the south coast of the UK.
Grace Lau: Portraits in a Chinese Studio, Marlands Shopping Centre, Southampton, UK, 21 January-12 February
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Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in Tokyo are the subject of a legal claim in the US relating to Nazi loot. The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent and resident Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey tells us why Sunflowers (1888-89) is at the centre of the dispute, 35 years after it was sold for a record price at auction, and why the heirs of the German Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who owned it until the 1930s, now value it at a staggering $250m. Our editor-at-large Georgina Adam has just returned from Singapore, where the first Art SG art fair took place last week. How successful was this new event in the art market calendar, and what does it tell us about Singapore’s ambitions to become an art hub? And this episode’s Work of the Week is Portraits in a Chinese Studio, a photographic work by the artist Grace Lau. In the project, which marks Chinese New Year, Lau is subverting the tradition of colonial 19th-century portrait studios in a shopping centre in Southampton on the south coast of the UK.
Grace Lau: Portraits in a Chinese Studio, Marlands Shopping Centre, Southampton, UK, 21 January-12 February
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode
The art world in 2023: market predictions, big shows, museum openings
In the first episode of the year, we look ahead at the next 12 months. Anny Shaw, the acting art market editor at The Art Newspaper, peers into her crystal ball and tries to predict the fortunes of the art market this year. Then, Jane Morris, one of our editors-at-large, José da Silva, our exhibitions editor, and host Ben Luke select the museum projects, biennales and exhibitions that they are most looking forward to in 2023.
Events discussed:
The Grand Egyptian Museum: no confirmed opening date. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/keywords/grand-egyptian-museum
The National Portrait Gallery reopens on 22 June. https://www.npg.org.uk/
Factory International, Manchester, also opens in June. Yayoi Kusama’s You Me and the Balloons opens there on 29 June, as does the Manchester International Festival. https://factoryinternational.org/
The Sharjah Biennial: Thinking Historically in the Present opens on 7 February. https://sharjahart.org/biennial-15
The Gwangju Biennial: Soft and Weak Like Water opens on 7 April. https://www.gwangjubiennale.org/gb/intro.do
Celebration Picasso 1973-2023 https://celebracionpicasso.es/en/calendario
Vermeer opens at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on 10 February. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/stories/themes/vermeer
Manet/Degas opens at the at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, on 28 March and then at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, on 24 September https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/whats-on/exhibitions/manet-degas
Juan de Pareja: Afro-Hispanic Painter, opens at the Met on 3 April https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2023/juan-de-pareja
Simone Leigh opens at the ICA, Boston, on 6 April, then at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., on 3 November before travelling to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Californian African American Museum in 2024 https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/simone-leigh
Barkley Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick opens at Frick Madison, New York, on 21 September https://www.frick.org/sites/default/files/pdf/press/2022/Hendricks_Release_Final_07_13_22.pdf
Alma Thomas: Composing Colour is at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in D.C., from 15 September https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/alma-thomas
The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century opens at the Baltimore Museum of Art on 5 April and the Saint Louis Art Museum on 25 August https://artbma.org/about/press/release/baltimore-museum-of-art-and-saint-louis-art-museum-co-organize-monumental-exhibition-exploring-the-global-significance-and-impact-of-hip-hop
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith opens at the Whitney Museum, New York, on 19 April https://whitney.org/exhibitions/jaune-quick-to-see-smith
Remedios Varo: Science Fictions is at the Art Institute of Chicago from 29 July
Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life opens at Tate Modern in London on 20 April https://www.tate.org.uk/press/press-releases/hilma-af-klint-piet-mondrian-forms-of-life
Marina Abramovic is at the Royal Academy in London from 23 September https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/marina-abramovic
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Next Episode
Kusama x Louis Vuitton: art and luxury. Plus, Michael Rakowitz’s Tate/Iraq gift and photographer Rosy Martin
This week: as robotic figures of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama appear in windows of Louis Vuitton stores in New York, London and Tokyo, Ben Luke talks to Federica Carlotto, a specialist in art and luxury, about the latest collaboration between Kusama and the LVMH brand. What does it tell us about what the former creative director of Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, called the “monumental marriage between art and commerce”? Also this week, the artist Michael Rakowitz hopes to give a public sculpture he made for Trafalgar Square in London to Tate Modern and an Iraqi institution. He explains how it prompted Iraq to request the return of one of the lamassu, the ancient Assyrian sculptures that inspired Rakowitz’s work, from the British Museum to its country of origin. And this episode’s Work of the Week is I didn’t put myself down for sainthood (2018), a piece made by Rosy Martin in collaboration with Verity Welstead. The photographic ensemble is in the opening displays of the new Centre of British Photography in London. We speak to James Hyman, the art dealer, collector and co-founder of the centre, about the work.
You can hear our interview with Michael Rakowitz when he unveiled the sculpture in Trafalgar Square in the episode from 22 March 2018 and an in-depth conversation with Michael in the episode of the A brush with... podcast from 9 June 2021.
Headstrong: Women and Empowerment, Centre for British Photography, London, until 23 April.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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