Director of Belgium museum of fine arts accused of harassing employees

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!

Nigerian photographer Stephen Tayo shows his range in New Londaon exhibition

Lagos-based 28-year-old photographer Stephen Tayo has made a name for himself as a vivid documentor of Nigerians’ unique fashion sense for theNew York Times,VICE, andVogue, as well as a portraitist of major African cultural figures like Burna Boy and Davido. This fall, however, Tayo was featured in Human Stories: The Satirists, a group exhibition at London’s NOW Gallery. The show, which also featured Thandiwe Muriu, Bubi Canal, Leonard Suryajaya, Nyugen Smith, and Thy Tran, explored satire in photography and how it can be used to develop and nurture interconnected identities of gender, race, and class. In recent years, Tayo has become increasingly recognized by the art world for his portraits. Renowned art critic, curator and Gagosian director Antwuan Sargent featured Tayo’s work in his 2019 book The New Black Vanguard, and the accompanying exhibition at Aperture Gallery in New York in 2020. Read more at UK Daily News.

Director of Belgium museum of fine arts accused of harassing employees

Employees at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels accused the museum’s director, Michel Draguet, of regularly making “disgusting” remarks that came across as both “racist and sexist,” according toLes Grenades,a project by the Belgian public service broadcaster RTBF, which offers “topical content from a gender and feminist prism.” “We are faced with someone who is stuck in a past century,” an employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, toldRTBF. The comments come after an open letter, signed by 31 of the museum’s 176 employees, was released December 16. In the letter, employees complained of “appalling working conditions” at the museum. Since then, six employees have reached out toLes Grenades-RTBF and anonymously detailed the director’s alleged behavior, including the use of sexism as a form of intimidation. Read more at Art News.

China\’s art fairs boosts up as Covid 19 restrictions ease

As mainland China began scrapping restrictions in an abrupt about-face on its rigid zero-Covid policy, art fairs scheduled for the year’s end were unexpectedly able to proceed. Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair (GZCAF) ran from 9 to 17 December as a boutique version at new venue the Future Club, while the Nanjing Art Fair International (NAFI) in the Jiangsu province capital is scheduled to run from 23 to 25 December at the Nanjing International Exhibition Centre. Shanghai Art021, which in November was suspended after one day because of a single Covid case, is staging the two-location pop-up Art Week Encore (15-30 December). One portion shows around 100 works by 40 galleries at 8 Hengshan, a 1,200 sq. m new downtown complex, while another is being held in the Pudong free trade art complex FTZ Art. Around nine overseas galleries still have staff and works in Shanghai, he says. More on Art Newspaper.