Activists tearing out replicas of works by Iraqi artist Ali Yass during a protest at MoMA PS1 (photo by Hakim Bishara for Hyperallergic)

• Dozens of protesters occupied MoMA PS1 on Sunday, March 1, calling the museum “complicit in global violence.” For the closing of the exhibition Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011, one of the participating artists, Ali Yass, planned a guerrilla action to tear his drawings off the walls; when the museum intervened, protesters ripped up copies of the works instead.
   
• Cuban artist and activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was arrested at his house in Havana while en route to an anti-censorship protest convened by the local LGBTQ+ community. Nearly 900 artists have since signed a letter calling on the Cuban government to free the artist, who could face between two to five years in prison.
   
• Dominican artists organized a “vigil for democracy” in New York City’s Times Square, joining worldwide calls for electoral transparency and accountability after the Dominican Republic’s municipal elections were abruptly halted.

A protester holds up a placard that reads “I want to live in my country, but the system won’t let me” (photo by the author)

• The Instagram account Scene and Herd (@herdsceneand) has achieved a settlement with Indian artist Subodh Gupta, who sued the administrators for defamation last year. Although Scene and Herd had to comply with Gupta’s request that the posts be removed, their ability to remain anonymous is viewed as a victory.
   
• After it was gutted by a five-alarm fire in January, the Chinatown building that housed the archives of the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) will be torn down and rebuilt, the city announced this week. Deconstruction of the building began on Thursday after it was deemed necessary due to “extensive, irreparable damage.”
   
• Norway will demolish a building famous for its Picasso murals. While the government promises to preserve the murals to be utilized in a new building, preservationists are unmoved.
   
• More than 130 queer film professionals have signed a pledge agreeing to boycott the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival over its funding from the Israeli Ministry of Culture.

Fish Print 魚拓(Gyotaku), taken at Omori, Tokyo, Japan (J.G. Wang/Flickr)

• Two Japanese biologists have found a new use for the centuries-old practice of creating ink prints of fish and sea species known as Gyotaku (魚拓) or “fish rubbing.” Originally used to record catches or brag about them in front of others, the prints will now be used as a research tool for examining marine biodiversity and tracking extinct species.
   
• New York City may build a museum to preserve and document its contributions to African American civil rights history. Thanks to a new local law passed by City Council, an 11-member task force will evaluate the feasibility of creating the institution.
   
• In honor of Women’s History Month, 272 museums around the world have joined a social media campaign to promote gender equality. With the hashtag #5WomenArtists, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is leading the charge in sharing stories and works from artists addressing issues of gender equity, immigration, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, climate change, and others.

Eustache Le Sueur, “The Rape of Tamar” (probably ca. 1640), Oil on canvas, 74 1/2 x 63 1/2 in (courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York updated the provenance of French artist Eustache Le Sueur’s “The Rape of Tamar” (c. 1640) to account for the painting’s previous ownership by Siegfried Aram, a Jewish art dealer who fled Nazi Germany for the United States in 1933. Documents from the state archives in Baden-Württemberg, collated by German researcher Joachim Peter, brought new evidence to light and spurred the new provenance changes for the painting, estimated to be worth as much as $1.5 million. This and other notable sales and acquisitions are chronicled in our latest Transactions story.

This Week in the Art World
 

Kristin-Lee Moolman has won the Norton Museum of Art’s Rudin Prize for Emerging Photographers. | via email announcement

Art historian Griselda Pollock has won the international Holberg Prize. | NYT

The National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia has filed for bankruptcy. | Artforum

The Musée d’Orsay in Paris has received an anonymous $22.3 million gift for its expansion project via the charitable group the American Friends of Musée d’Orsay. | NYT

Artist June Edmonds, exhibited at Luis de Jesus Los Angeles‘s booth at the Armory Show, is the winner of the fair’s inaugural AWARE Prize. | via email announcement

Prospect New Orleans has released the artist list for the 2020 edition of its contemporary art triennial. | Artforum

The Worcester Art Museum has appointed Rachel Parikh as its new assistant curator of Asian Art. | via email announcement

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art has awarded grants to Aleksei Taruts, Anna Engelhardt, Valentin Golev, Sara Kulmann, and eeefff group to produce projects using new technology and digital media. | via email announcement

The Mead Art Museum at Amherst College has hired Lisa Crossman as its new curator of American art and arts of the Americas. | via email announcement

Mophradat has selected artists Haig Aivazian, Inas Halabi, Joe Namy, Lydia Ourahmane, Dina Mimi, Maan Abu Taleb, Makimakkuk, and Deena Abdelwahed for the second edition of its Consortium Commissions. | via email announcement.

MOCA Tucson has appointed Laura Copelin as interim executive director and chief curator. | via email announcement

In Memoriam

Policarpo Contreras (1939-2020), Venezuelan painter | El Carabobeño

Ernesto Cardenal Martínez (1925-2020), Nicaraguan priest, poet, and revolutionary | NYT

Gerald S. Krone (1933-2020), theater manager and producer | NYT

Fiona MacCarthy (1940-2020), biographer and journalist | The Guardian

Michael Medwin (1923-2020), actor and producer | The Guardian

Lisel Mueller (1924-2020), German poet | NYT

Zara S. Steiner (1928-2020), WWI historian | NYT

François Tajan (1962-2020), French auctioneer | The Art Newspaper

Ulay (1943-2020), pioneer of performance art | ARTnews

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