Briefing

Nicole Eisenman’s piece Sketch for a Fountain for Skulptur Projekte Münster – the once-a-decade public art show installed across its namesake city – was badly damaged by vandals on the night of 19 July 2017. The temporary fountain is composed of a mixture of bronze and plaster figures (the latter which slowly degrade under the spray of the fountain over the course of the exhibition). On Wednesday night, the head of one of the plaster figures was removed. Minor repairs will take place on the sculpture, but the head will not be replaced. The attack follows on from the theft of an LED panel from an Ei Arakawa work at the sculpture show last month. You can watch our recent frieze film in which artistic director Kasper König takes us on a unique tour of Skulptur Projekte Münster, exploring the changing meaning of sculpture in public space today.

The daughter of the influential Brazilian artist Lygia Pape (who died in 2004) claims that LG Electronics have reproduced images of her mother’s work for use in a smartphone advertising campaign without permission. Paula Pape has filed a copyright infringement suit against the Seoul-based electronics manufacturer, alleging that it has used Lygia Pape’s 2003 sculpture Tteia 1,C (a metalized thread installation currently on view at New York’s Met Breuer) in promotional material for its K20 V mobile phone, despite her estate denying LG’s requests to use the art. ‘That LG and others stole her work for their crass commercial purposes is not only against the law, it is an affront, an ugly reminder that enormous corporations such as LG believe themselves beyond the law’, Paula Pape said.

Paris’ Centre Pompidou has signed a deal to open a satellite gallery space in Shanghai. Its new branch will host 20 exhibitions over five years, housed in a wing of the West Bund Art Museum (currently under construction, with work expected to be completed at the end of 2018), designed by David Chipperfield. The gallery called the new deal, which comes after a decade of negotiations with Chinese authorities, ‘the most important long-term cultural exchange project’ between France and China. The Guardian has the story.

New York’s Off Vendome Gallery is to close. The gallery, originally founded in Düsseldorf, and run in Chelsea by Matt Moravec since 2015, has since shown artists including Ian Cheng, Max Brand, Win McCarthy and Jeanette Mundt. The gallery is currently part of the gallery-hosting programme Condo New York.

And more bad news across the Atlantic: London’s Breese Little has also announced its closure (after the end of the exhibition ’31 Women’ on 29 July, recently reviewed for frieze by Ellen Mara De Wachter). The gallery said they had been unable to sustain the scope and depth of their programme, and rather than compromise, had decided to permanently close: ‘It’s been a huge privilege to work with the energetic community of artists, curators and institutions who have contributed to our programme over the years’, gallery directors Josephine Breese and Henry Little said in a statement.

A new Yorkshire Sculpture International triennial has secured GBP£750,000 from the Arts Council England’s ‘Ambition for Excellence’ programme, bringing together Henry Moore Institute, Leeds Art Gallery, The Hepworth Wakefield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It will take place from July to September 2019, with an engagement programme launched next summer.

Journalist Daisuke Tsuda has been selected as artistic director of the 2019 Aichi Triennale, held in Nagoya (capital of Aichi prefecture, Japan). Tsuda is editor-in-chief of POLITAS, faculty member at Waseda University, representative director of the online activist group Movements for Internet Active Users, and author of several books.

The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation have announced a new annual prize which offers American arts journalists a USD$50,000 unrestricted grant. The inaugural winners are Phong Bui, Charles Desmarais, Bob Keys, Jason Farago, Jeff Huebner, Carolina Miranda, Christina Rees and Chris Vitiello. The jury was made up of Lisa Gabriella Mark, Paul Ha and Walter Robinson. ‘These are the brave ones, the writers who live by their work and say that they think’, said Mark.