Stolen painting to allegations of sexual harassment: Some art news around the world

A SUMMARY OF THE MOST EXCITING ART NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

While we focus on Indian art, we can’t obviously function in a vacuum. It’s a small world and everything is connected, especially on the web. So, let’s train our spotlight across the world map to see what’s going on — from art trends to socio-political issues to everything that affects the great aesthetic global consciousness. Or, let’s just travel the world and have some fun!

Painting stolen from Ramiken Crucible\’s group show

A historic London hotel, known for its distressed walls and overdue restoration, was the scene of artwork theft last week. On October 12, a burglar stole the oil painting Präparat by German artist Sarah Księska from West London’s Averard Hotel. The work was on display as part of a group exhibition the previous night by Lower East Side, New York gallery Ramiken Crucible, coinciding with London’s Frieze art fair.  “It was a burglary,” Mike Egan, the gallery’s founder and co-director, told ARTnews. “It wasn’t as if they stole it from the opening.” Egan has strong suspicions about who stole the painting: two German-speaking men who attended the opening and also spoke to his friends. “I think they sensed it was really valuable.” Read about the whole incident on Art news.

Participation of a Russian Gallery in Paris art fair lead to a ukrainian artist collective to pull out

The Kyiv-based artist association Understructures has pulled out of Paris Internationale, after realizing that a Russian gallery was also participating in the French art fair. The event, which focuses on emerging art, had its VIP and press preview on Tuesday, October 18. Vitya Glushchenko, the organizer of Understructures, told Artnet News that his collective only noticed last week that the Moscow-based gallery Iragui was exhibiting in the fair. Glushchenko emphasized that his group’s departure from the fair was not a “gesture” as much it was as a necessity, given the ongoing war in Ukraine. “We do not want to victimize ourselves, but to be clear: no cooperation with Russian-based tax-paying businesses is possible now,” he said. Glushchenko said his group noticed the inclusion of the Moscow gallery as they prepared their contributions for the Paris fair last week. Understructures planned to launch its publication oberih (meaning “item that protects” in Ukrainian), which shares stories and images of people living through the war in Ukraine. Created together with the art gallery LC Queisser, based in Tbilisi, Georgia, 90 percent of the proceeds made from the sale of oberih go towards Ukrainians affected by the invasion. Its first iteration launched at Liste Basel in June. Read more on Artnet news.

Johann Konig shutters Vienna gallery amid allegations of sexual harassment 

After just a year, dealer Johann König will close his space in Vienna, which his gallery is now billing as a temporary venue. The German publication Der Standard reported news of the Vienna closure earlier this month. The closure came several weeks after Die Zeit published an investigation that detailed multiple women’s allegations that König had sexually harassed them. The women quoted in the Die Zeit report, some of whom were not named, accused König of having made lewd comments and unwanted sexual advances toward them. König has vehemently denied the allegations, describing the Die Zeit article as “defamation.” Read more on Artnet news.

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