Briefing

Art Basel is suing Adidas for trademark infringement, asserting that the German sportswear company did not receive permission to mark ‘Art Basel’ on a limited-edition series of sneakers it distributed during the fair’s 15th edition in Miami Beach last November. Art Basel holds a registered trademark on its name. The complaint notes that the brand is one of the fair’s most ‘valuable and important corporate assets’, and that Adidas’ use of the mark implied a nonexistent affiliation.

The UK’s snap General Election takes place next week: the organization ‘Games for the Many’, made up of Labour-supporting video game designers and tech activists have created a ‘Corbyn Run’ game in which the Labour leader grabs money from bankers and dodges Conservative ministers. Read Benjamin Ramm on what the UK political parties are saying about the arts in their election manifestos.

Eungie Joo has been named contemporary art curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The role has been newly created for Joo, who joins this month. Joo was previously artistic director of the 5th Anyang Public Art Project in Anyang, South Korea in 2016. She curated the 2015 Sharjah Biennial and was a longtime curator at the New Museum in New York, leaving in 2012.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, has unveiled the final design for its USD$400 million renovation, with the work expected to finish in 2019. The first stage of its expansion by Diller Scofidio + Renfro was completed this week, concentrated on the east section of MoMA. It’s a makeover that will ultimately move the museum away from discipline-specific galleries to a more chronological and thematic approach, drawing on a more diverse selection of artists. The New York Times has the story.

An LGBTQI refugee rights group has seized Spanish artist Roger Bernat’s ‘Replica of Oath Stone' from documenta 14 in Athens, in protest against what they see as the exhibition’s exploitation of asylum seekers in Athens. They’re calling their action ‘#rockumenta 14’. ‘You tried to instrumentalize us’, the group said in a public statement, ‘but…we dance to our own music’.

Marie Cosindas, the American photographic pioneer, has died at the age of 93. Born in Boston to Greek-American parents, she studied at the Boston Museum school. Cosindas was one of the first photographers to experiment with colour – invited by Polaroid to test their first colour films – and acquired a reputation for her painterly style. She was championed by John Szarkowski, the Museum of Modern Art’s photography curator who gave Cosindas her first solo show in 1966. She spent her later years teaching photography at Boston University.

Cao Fei has revealed the latest BMW Art Car, following up on previous contributions by Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons and John Baldessari. Cao Fei is the youngest and first Chinese artist to be commissioned for the project. The BMW Art Car #18 was revealed at Beijing’s Minsheng Art Museum – Cao Fei commented: ‘As the speed of thoughts cannot be measured, the #18 Art Car questions the existence of the boundaries of the human mind’, incorporating augmented reality and video art. The multimedia installation of her work will be on show at Shanghai’s BMW Experience brand centre along with a VR edition at the UBS Forum at Art Basel in Switzerland this month.

The Norman Foster Foundation – the UK architect’s research centre and archive – has opened in Madrid. The refurbished palatial building features a steel-and-glass ‘pavilion of inspiration’ designed by Foster, alongside an underground library, and a canopy designed by Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias. The centre will house Foster’s architectural drawings as well as artwork from his collection, including work by Henry Moore and Ai Weiwei. An inaugural conference on Thursday celebrated the opening with invited speakers including Olafur Eliasson and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Lévy Gorvy gallery has announced that Dan Colen will join its roster. The gallery, with spaces in London and New York, will represent Colen in an international partnership with Gagosian and Milan’s Massimo de Carlo. Lévy Gorvy has acquired a reputation for representing blue-chip artists: the gallery’s New York location will feature Colen’s first show there in March 2018.