ARTINFO Week in Review: Carlos Slim’s Museum Flop, Speaking Out for Ai Weiwei, Remembering Glenn Beck’s Art Criticism, and the Week’s Other Top Art Stories
The most-talked-about stories on ARTINFO, April 11-15:
– The blockbuster story of the week was Art + Auction editor Benjamin Genocchio‘s takedown of the new Museo Soumaya in Mexico City, built to house the collection of the world’s richest man. It’s a lively read, but the headline says it all: “Carlos Slim’s Museo Soumaya: Money Can’t Buy Taste.”
– In an ARTINFO Op-Ed, Dia Art Foundation director Philippe Vergne weighs in about the arrest of Ai Weiwei, calling for supporters to stand up for the artist and join the protests at Chinese embassies this weekend.
– Amid continuing international condemnation of the Chinese government’s detention of Ai, China counterattacked, issuing a variety of insinuations against the artist through state-controlled media sources, including “plagiarism” and even “bigamy.”
– With Glenn Beck parting ways with Fox News, Julia Halperin took a look back at some of the finer moments in his unlikely career as an art pundit.
– Ben Davis considered the legacy of “hipster” culture, asking what was behind all the vitriol aimed at the figure and looking at what the real origins of the hipster might be.
– Noah Horowitz, author of “Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market,” surveyed the state of the art market, and the rise of exotic new art investment funds.
– Judd Tully had some memories of West Coast “finish fetish” master John McCracken, who passed away at 76.
– In a new series, ARTINFO Definitions, we surveyed various figures — including Phillips de Pury Co.‘s Zach Miner, “Paper Monument” co-founder Roger White, and academic Terry Smith — to get to the root of what the word “emerging” really means in the contemporary art world.
– The Art Production Fund‘s gala (photos here) was so hot that even senator Kirsten Gillibrand sent along a letter to say how excited she was to be associated with it.
– SUNY Purchase prof Christopher Robbins touched off a minor tabloid furor with his class instructing students on how to squat rent-free in abandoned condos.
– Chinese auction buyers have been “incredibly slow” to pay for their purchases of antiques leading “auction houses around the globe to demand deposits from high bidders.”
– Our IN THE AIR blog highlighted footage from French artist Cyprien Gaillard‘s new installation in Berlin, branded a “conceptual frat house.”