Art Industry News: A 91-year-old’s mysterious unsigned Warhol is headed for sale at a small auction house in… Arizona + other stories

Art Industry News is a daily summary of the most consistent developments coming out of the art world and the art market. Here’s what you need to know this Tuesday, September 13.

MUST READ

Georg Baselitz interview – The German painter, who has lived under two dictatorships, told GuardianJonathan Jones that Germany “has never been democratic” – and not even modern German “democracy” can save it. “The artist must behave as if he himself were the only potential intellectual power.” The famous artist, now in his 80s, is the latest subject of a new Taschen book. (Guardian)

French New Wave Maverick Jean-Luc Godard has died – The auteur who revolutionized the language of cinema and inspired filmmakers and artists around the world for decades has died aged 91. Best known for his reinvention of cinematic narrative and use of jump-cuts, Godard began as a critic with Cinema notebooks. His art-house masterpiece Breathless (1960) started the French New Wave movement. Godard, who later ventured into media art, saw film as an art object, and was even commissioned by MoMA to create The Old Place (2000), made together with his collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville. (Guardian)

V&A weighs return of artefacts to Ghana – The Asante gold regalia seized in a British raid in 1874 and kept at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum may have a chance to return home after museum director Tristram Hunt visited Ghana. Such a move would put pressure on the British Museum, which houses an even larger Asante collection. (The art newspaper)

Unsigned and controversial Warhol goes up for auction – Self Portrait (Red) from 1965 will be offered at Larsen Art Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, in October with pre-sale expectations of $500,000 to $700,000. The work is being offered by 91-year-old New York collector Richard Ekstract (who wanted to get his “property in order”) and says he received the unsigned work to help Warhol with a party. It comes from the same series that has been the subject of a $20 million lawsuit against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. (TAN, Scottsdale Progress)

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Photographer William Klein dies aged 96 The innovative artist who rose to prominence by subverting the rules of his craft has died in Paris aged 96, his assistant confirmed. Klein captured the duality of city life in glossy fashion spreads Vogue and gritty cityscapes, as well as in his two-part film about the arc of Muhammad Ali’s fighting career and political activism. The first US-based show of his work at New York’s International Center of Photography has been extended to Thursday. (New York Times)

Artist Lewis Stein dies aged 77 Conceptual artist Lewis Klein, who was born in Manhattan in 1945, will be remembered at Tibet House on September 18, according to Essex Street Gallery. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp, Ad Reinhardt and Andy Warhol, Stein was a “consciously contrarian artist who embraced conceptual approaches to explore the larger systems that surround seemingly innocuous objects and images,” writes curator Alex Bacon. (ART news)

The National Gallery is launching a play about one of its paintings – Image Perfect Christmasa festive theater performance that follows two children’s journey through the wintry landscape, is the National Gallery’s first attempt to commission an original theatrical performance inspired by a painting – specifically Hendrick Avercamp’s A winter scene with skaters near a castle (1608-1609). The piece is the gallery’s attempt to reach a new audience after a drop in visitor numbers during the pandemic. The show runs from 26 November to 23 December. (Evening Standard)

FOR THE SAKE OF ART

Dan Colen’s Sky High Farm collaborates with Balenciaga – For the latest installment of its charity-based collaborations, the New York-based nonprofit teams up with Balenciaga for a collection of denim workwear featuring photographs of the farm’s rooster, pig and lamb by Ryan McGinley. (complex)

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