NADA Adds New Members, and More from July 31, 2019 -ARTnews

Nick Cave, Accumul-listic Quest, as part of one of Apple’s art walks.

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Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Gary Simmons Added To Mike Kelley Foundation’s Board of Directors
Artist Gary Simmons has joined the board of directors of the Mike Kelley Foundation. Simmons, whose multimedia work addresses topics of race and class, joins the board alongside members such as curator Stephanie Barron, artist Catherine Opie, and  Joan Weinstein, the new director of the Getty Foundation.

Kaufmann Repetto Appoints New Director
Amanda Schmitt has been named the new director of Kaufmann Repetto gallery’s New York branch. Schmitt, who was previously been the director of programming at the Untitled, Art fair, will begin at the gallery in September, just as it opens its new space in the city’s Tribeca neighborhood.

NADA Adds New Members
Ahead of the opening of its first Chicago fair in September, the New Art Dealers Alliance has named 17 new members: APALAZZOGALLERY, (Brescia), Assembly Room (New York), Baxter Street at Camera Club (New York), Bombon Projects (Barcelona), HESSE FLATOW (New York), Koenig & Clinton (New York), Lawrence & Clark (Chicago), Harlan Levey Projects (Brussels), Magenta Plains (New York), Philip Martin (Los Angeles), Berthold Pott (Cologne), Ricco/Maresca Gallery (New York), Sargent’s Daughters (New York), signs and symbols (New York), SOCO Gallery (Charlotte, North Carolina), Soft Opening (London), and UV Estudios (Buenos Aires). NADA advocates for young galleries, and runs an annual fair in Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach.

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

As Its Acquisition Looms, Sotheby’s Reports Soft Second-Quarter Results
Just months before Sotheby’s may soon go private, in a $3.7 billion deal that involves telecom magnate Patrick Drahi acquiring the publicly traded auction house, the company released second-quarter results that were largely flat or slightly down compared to the second quarter of 2018. Total sales were off about 10 percent, falling from $3.5 billion to $3.1 billion, and net income held just about steady, decreasing from $57.3 million to $57 million. Private sales for Q2 of 2019 totaled $511 million, a slip of 6 percent from the same period in 2018. Tad Smith, Sotheby’s president and CEO, said in a release, “We are very pleased with our second-quarter and first-half performance. The proposed acquisition of our company is on track, and we remain focused on serving our global clients.” The deal has to be approved by shareholders, and some have filed suit in an effort to scuttle the sale. If it goes through, it is expected to close by the end of the year.

—Annie Armstrong

World Monuments Fund Names New CEO
Bénédicte de Montlaur will be the next CEO of the World Monuments Fund, which supports the conservation and preservation of over 600 sites around the globe. De Montlaur, who will begin in her new position on October 1, most recently served as cultural counselor of the French Embassy in the United States, and she worked for the last 20 years as a senior diplomat at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  She said in a statement, “I’m excited to help further WMF’s mission of working with local communities to sustain their heritage sites, advocate for endangered monuments, and explore modern approaches that enable truly sustainable heritage solutions.”

Apple Teams With Artists, Going Big on Augmented Reality
As part of a collaboration with the New Museum in New York, Apple has launched three new initiatives involving augmented reality art. The tech giant will be offering art walks in six international cities—including San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo—in which participants can experience new interactive works by Nick Cave, Cao Fei, John Giorno, Carsten Höller, and other artists. Cave has also made an additional piece, Amass, which will be on view at every Apple store in the world. Additionally, Apple has tapped artist and educator Sarah Rothberg to create a 90-minute session in augmented reality coding that will be presented at its stores.

Paula Cooper Gallery Makes Two Appointments
New York’s Paula Cooper Gallery has hired Suzanne Egeran as a director and Cara Zhuang as a representative in Asia. Egeran previously held positions at White Cube, Lehmann Maupin, and Max Hetzler galleries, as well as the New Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She has managed her own advisory firm since 2009, and she founded Egeran Galeri, a contemporary art space in Istanbul. Zhuang cofounded Twins Art Gallery in Shanghai, where she will be based in her new role. From 2009 to 2018, she was senior project manager of “Glasstress,” an exhibition of contemporary glass works that coincides with the Venice Biennale.

Art Aspen Fair Showcases Adrienne Elise Tarver for Inaugural Artist Commission
Art Aspen, which ran for its 10th year this past weekend in Colorado, selected the New York–based artist Adrienne Elise Tarver as the first recipient of its new Artist Commission program. The award provides a stipend and production support for the creation of a new work at the fair. Tarver, who’s shown at Ochi Projects in Los Angeles, the BRIC Project Room in Brooklyn, and elsewhere, presented a swooping, shimmering installation of arboreal forms called In Fertile Shadows (2019). “My work uses plants and the tropical environment as a starting point to look at the complexity of origin stories and histories of displacement,” Tarver said in a statement. “From medicinal herbs to banana republics to the social status of pineapples, our interaction with, cultivation of, and domestication of flora have shaped our current understanding of the environments we enjoy today. Thinking about utopian mythologies and the desire to manifest paradise, I ask viewers to interrogate commonly accepted narratives and discover new realities amongst the foliage.”