Also stuck to Yao’s painting was a speech bubble that said, “No cheese, Gromit. Look at all this cruelty on RSPCA farms!” Animal Rising wrote in its social media post: “Find out why King Charles, patron of the RSPCA [Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] should ask them to drop the Assured Scheme”, alongside a link to its website.

The RSPCA Assured Scheme is a program intended to raise welfare standards for farm animals throughout the United Kingdom. According to the RSPCA, farms, abattoirs, hatcheries, and haulers must be assessed and confirmed to have met its standards to remain in operation. A RSPCA Assured sticker is used on products to indicate their high quality.

However the Assured Scheme has faced scrutiny from animal rights activists over the exact criteria used to determine whether a farm passes inspection. Shortly before the vandalism, Animal Rising published an investigation into 45 RSPCA Assured farms, whose operations they described as “indefensible” 

In response to the vandalism, the RSPCA said in a statement: “We cannot condone illegal activity of any kind. Our staff and volunteers work extremely hard rescuing, caring for, and speaking up for animals. Animal Rising’s sustained activity is distracting from our focus on the work that really matters—helping thousands of animals every day.” 

According to the RSPCA, its Assured Scheme is “the best way to help farmed animals right now, while campaigning to change their lives in the future”. The statement added that “concerns about welfare on RSPCA Assured certified farms are taken extremely seriously and RSPCA Assured is acting swiftly to look into these allegations. After receiving the footage on Sunday morning, RSPCA Assured has launched an immediate, urgent investigation.”

Philip Mould told The Telegraph that he was “delighted to say there was absolutely no damage” to the portrait after the stickers were peeled off.

The first official portrait of King Charles III since his coronation last year, Yeo’s painting was unveiled at Buckingham Palace last month.

Bernini is renowned as a master of Baroque architecture, and the disappearance of the 18-page manuscript spurred an elaborate sting operation. The suspect allegedly met with Mauro Gambetti, head of administration at St. Peter’s Basilica, on May 27 under the belief that Gambetti was interested in buying the gilded document, which contains details of ornate features Bernini created to decorate the famous canopy rising above the basilica.

Gambetti, however, had secretly partnered with Vatican investigators to ensnare the suspect, who was reportedly accompanied by an unidentified accomplice. After handing the seller a €120,000 ($129,000) check in exchange for the manuscript, Vatican gendarmes arrived and arrested him.

The seller has been identified in Italian media reports as the art historian Alfio Maria Daniele Pergolizzi, who is believed to have stolen the manuscript from the archives of the Fabric of St. Peter’s, an institution established in the 16th century to manage the construction of the basilica and that now oversees restoration of the structure. Pergolizzi served as head of the communications department between 1995 and 2011. Per Reuters, he is being detained in a Vatican prison on charges of attempted extortion. 

Vatican News, the state’s official media channel, reported that Alessandro Diddi, promoter of justice for the Church, will decide this week whether to indict Pergolizzi.

A spokesperson for Creo, which operates the contemporary art fair dedicated to photo-based works, digital art and new media, told ARTNews that market conditions and consultations with “our community of galleries and partners” led to the decision.

“Our priority is mounting a dynamic and high-quality event, so we feel it is best to hold the fair once market conditions improve,” the spokesperson said in an email. “In the meantime, we remain committed to PHOTOFAIRS and to its role as a vital platform and convenor for the photography and contemporary art community.”

The debut of Photofairs New York last year at the Javits Center included the participation of 56 galleries from over 20 cities around the world. VIP attendees included Whitney Museum curator Rujeko Hockley, Inditex chair Marta Ortega Pérez, actor Chris Rock, actress Jane Seymour, English artist Zoë Buckman, and photographer Joel Meyerowitz.

Photofairs New Yor was founded by Scott Gray, the founder and CEO of Creo Arts. Gray also founded Photofairs Shanghai and serves as CEO of exhibition consultancy firm Angus Montgomery Arts.

In a previous interview with ARTnews, Gray acknowledged that Covid-19 was one of the challenges to bringing a Photofair to New York, as well as finding the right venue in an increasingly packed international art fair calendar.

The spokesperson from Creo Arts confirmed to ARTnews that Photofairs Shanghai would still take place in 2025, after it held its most recent edition with 46 exhibitors at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre in April.

THE HEADLINES

UNDER REVIEW. The Academy of Museum Motion Pictures in Los Angeles announced Monday that it will revise an exhibit on Hollywood Jewish History following backlash, as first reported in the New York Times. The exhibition, titled “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital,” opened on May 19, and was swiftly met with criticism from a group Jewish activists for its portrayal of Jewish studio founders, which some described as antisemitic. An open letter from United Jewish Writers, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter on Monday, protested the use of the words “tyrant,” “oppressive,” “womanizer” and “predator” in the show’s wall text. Some cultural critics pushed back against these detractors, noting that those descriptions were apt when applied to certain Hollywood figures who had mixed legacies. For its part, the museum has said in a statement that it “will be implementing the first set of changes immediately — they will allow us to tell these important stories without using phrasing that may unintentionally reinforce stereotypes.” 

GRAZE AND GAZE. The world’s largest art fair, Art Basel, is upon us, and the guides to must-see shows, guesses to what wares will be offered, and artist spotlights are rolling in. ARTnews’s Devorah Lauter journeyed to the bucolic outskirts of the Swiss city for a feature on the Basel Social Club, which she describes as an “art fair–cum–social gathering” set on 50 acres of farmland in Bruderholz, where cows graze between installations by Tomás Saraceno and David Medalla, among others. The Art Newspaper, meanwhile, took the party indoors, as its reporter attended the swanky dinner for the imminent art crowd at a one-off eatery at an old water reservoir in the heart of Basel. The menu included mussels served with tarragon and ginger, apparently.

THE DIGEST

A former Vatican employee has been arrested for trying to sell a manuscript by Gian Lorenzo Bernini that he allegedly stole from an official archive of the Holy See. The suspect was busted as part of a major sting operation. [The Art Newspaper]

Hundreds of protestors staged a die-in on the streets outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to protest the mass casualties in Gaza. Between the bodies, a monumental Palestinian flag was unfurled. [Al Jazeera]

In his sterling review of the exhibition “I Saw It: Francisco de Goya, Printmaker,” at the Norton Simon Museum, Christopher Knight likens the show to a balm for the “criminality, outrageous racism, gaslighting, antediluvian misogyny, pedestrian hatreds, cruel religiosities, [and] fascist violence” prevalent in American politics in recent years. This is the museum’s first presentation of all four of Goya’s main print series; it sounds like a must-see. [Los Angeles Times]

A new museum dedicated to TV sci-fi memorabilia is set for Santa Monica. Aptly called Sci-Fi World, the institution was conceived by the nonprofit called the New Starship Foundation, and boasts the support of Star Trek alumni William Shatner and George Takei. [Deadline] 

Archaeologists have unearthed around 19,000 artifacts dating to the Middle Stone Age, at a “once-in-a-decade” excavation site in the United Kingdom. [Newsweek]

The American Institute of Architects is under scrutiny after 22 past presidents of the AIA signed letters containing claims of misconduct against the organization’s executive vice president and chief executive officer, Lakisha Ann Woods. The letters accuse current leaders of “potential misspending, nepotism, cronyism, and the pursuit of personal gain.” [Bloomberg]

Oxford University will return a 500-year-old bronze sculpture of a Hindu poet and saint to India, the university’s Ashmolean Museum said. [AP News]

AY CARAMBA. The British Museum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, even the Louvre—each institution has been the target of a headline-dominating art heist, but are authorities overlooking an active thieving ring operating in plain sight, albeit in a humbler venue? Taco Bell—yes, the fast-food chain—has an art collection, and it’s been disappearing since at least 2015. In one incident at a Taco Bell in Westlake, Ohio, a thief pulled an acrylic painting, created by artist Mark T. Smith on commission and worth $800, right off the wall and walked out, to the shock of staff. (Though that location admittedly has bad luck: “It’s caught fire, they had somebody crash into it and it caught fire. That place is kind of jinxed,” Westlake police captain Guy Turner told Artnet.) The stolen paintings have been spotted for sale on online marketplaces, where a bundle of two or three could bring in thousands of dollars. When will the madness end? Justice for Taco Bell, we say. 

“They will go up to the artworks, and lick them, rub up against them. They are very curious,” said Roman Mathis, one of several farmer’s hosting the event. He said he had to work late into the nights leading up to opening day, repeatedly adjusting the fencing around the contemporary art installations, as weather conditions regularly shifted where and how works by over 150 artists, including performers, could be shown.

Following last-year’s widely acclaimed event in a former mayonnaise factory, BSC took a gamble this year in convening art and nature so literally in this outdoor venue, with works installed in fields, planted in forested nooks, or tucked inside barns, especially given Basel’s unpredictable weather. While severe storms have been averted thus far, the first day alone saw a mix of rain and shine, and by evening, as showers poured down on visitors, many were grumbling.

“The biggest challenge for us has been navigating with the changes in climate, and not knowing what fields we can use,” because of heavy rains, said Paris-based dealer Robbie Fitzpatrick, one of BSC’s co-founders. It has forced the team to play it by ear, and accept that “we don’t know, we’re flexible.”

In fact, two works that were to be displayed have been withdrawn due to rain, according to Fitzpatrick: Jean Tinguely’s tractor sculpture, Klamauk (1979), which can’t withstand “a drop of rain,” and another “high-value” work, Beni Bischof’s Made on Earth by Humans (2023), a souped-up DeLorean car (of Back to the Future fame).

But some artworks actually welcomed the inclement weather. The suspended circular drums in Margaret Raspé’s Regenrommein (Raindrums), 1988/2023, reverberate with sound them. It is one of the event’s poignant highlights. Since the 1960s, Raspé has addressed issues of climate and ecology through various mediums; a related film is also on view in the forest, along with videos by other artists.

Locating all the works on view is also part of the adventure for this year’s BSC, though daily tours are offered. An interactive map on the website informs visitors of where to wander. Though cell reception can be spotty, it’s a perfect excuse to get lost amid the undulating green fields and wildflowers.

As pieces were still being installed on opening day, part of the affair’s go-with-flow attitude, Fitzpatrick said, “People are asking me where the artworks are. The artworks are everywhere!”

It may not be an easy walk in the field, but it is an experience more than worth the journey that feels lightyears away from the commercial bustle of the Messeplatz, where Art Basel opens to VIPs on Tuesday morning. “This project is not an art fair, and it shouldn’t be confused with that, and the aim is really to present all of these different facets that comprise the ecosystem of our artistic community. The emphasis is really on the artists,” said Fitzpatrick.

Basel Social Club is technically a nonprofit event that is free to visit and includes participation from commercial galleries, artist-run projects, and foundations like the Pinault Collection and the Beyeler Foundation, who present a range of artistic practices and artists, from the very young to the historically established. Artists are given carte blanche, and commercial participants pay a flat fee of 2,500 Swiss Francs (around $2,788), while artist-run projects can participate for free. This year, the event has added a concert to its programming, headlined by Haddaway & Wolfram  on Wednesday night.

Young dealer Mischa Lustin of London’s Galerina said BSC “is a better fit for us because we have friendly relationships with the people organizing,” adding that the event is “a little more fun and a little less cringy” than a typical art fair. He described Galerina as “practically non-commercial,” with a marked rock ’n’ roll edge. On cue, he opened his leather jacket to show several “smuggled” artworks by Sarah Staton pinned to the garment’s inner lining. Jewel-like, mini sculptures made of gold-plated bronze, they are priced between 100 to 900 Swiss Francs ($111–$1,003).

Other memorable highlights include Himalayan artist Aqui Tami’s ephemeral, vulva-shaped sculpture made out of the muddy earth and titled Shrine for Boju. She said the work “honors our grandmother, the divine feminine presence” and later performed a ritual of thanks with the piece.

Cloud Canyons (1963/2016), the late artist David Medalla’s white, rain-proof sculpture of overflowing biodegradable soap columns was popular among the many visiting children who ran after the sudds as they blew away. Priced at about €250,000 ($268,000), the piece was brought by Berlin’s Mountains gallery. (The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles this week opens a major survey for Medalla, who died in 2020.)

On, Sunday, amid a sunny break in the clouds, Paulo Nazareth’s iconic performance Moinho de Vento/Windmill (2018) was re-enacted with 13 local immigrants come from Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, kicking off BSC’s live programming. Dressed in white, the performers solemnly walked through the green fields while holding Dutch ceramic coffee grinders, which they silently ground, leaving a trail of beans behind. We were told the grounds are not harmful to the surrounding environment.

“Richard Serra once said, ‘Sidney prefers to hurry slowly,’ and we think that captured him perfectly,” Felsen’s family said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the news. 

Felsen, his fraternity brother Stanley Grinstein, and Kenneth Tyler founded Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited) in 1966. Since then, the workshop has collaborated with a range of renowned artists, among them John Baldessari, Philip Guston, and Man Ray.

Gemini’s output, as well as the friendly relations its founders fostered between printmakers and artists, ushered in a new era for the medium in the United States, effectively raising it to the status of painting and sculpture.

Josef Albers was the first artist invited to make a print; Felstein was known to mail postcards that acted as cold invitations to collaborate. Soon, Robert Rauschenberg followed, becoming one of the most prolific visitors to Gemini.

Rauschenberg’s Booster, from 1967, was the largest lithograph the artist had made as of then, and Claes Oldenburg’s Profile Airflow (1968) was Gemini’s first multiple edition. (Both publications were included in a 1991 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art dedicated to Gemini.) A 2010 Artforum review of a Rauschenberg show cited how significant the shop was to the artist and his peers, offering an environment that gave them “free rein and seemingly unlimited resources.”  

Under those conditions, Gemini became a clubhouse of sorts for Los Angeles’s emergent artist community—the workshop even reportedly hosted raucous all-nighters. And as its network expanded, Gemini became a landing pad for East Coast scenesters, too. Claudine Ise, writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1999, noted that Felsen made Gemini into “an arterial channel between the Los Angeles and New York art worlds.”

Felsen was born in Chicago in 1924, and moved with his family to Los Angeles as a teenager. A dapper dresser often spotted in a seeksucker suit and straw Panama hat, Felsen first worked as an accountant while taking painting and ceramics classes in the evenings at Chouinard Art Institute (now known as CalArts). 

He was an avid amateur photographer, too, and after founding Gemini would frequently take snapshots of famous artist at work. In 2003, he published a collection of photographs in the book The Artist Observed.

In 2016, to mark the 50th anniversary of Gemini, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted a survey exhibition, organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., of noteworthy Gemini projects from 1966 to 2014, many of which had rarely been exhibited in their entirety. Titled “The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L.”, the show included historic pieces by Johns, Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella, as well as more recent series by Serra and Julie Mehretu.

An exhibition devoted to Gemini G.E.L.’s history is on view now at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Even as recognition mounted, friends and peers said Felsen remained unchanged, soft-spoken and dedicated to Gemini up to his death. “It was innocence,” Felsen told the Los Angeles Times in 2016. “We thought it was gonna be a hobby, that it would be fun to hang around the artists, maybe build up a collection.”

The election results among staff at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) were unanimously in favor on June 6. Voting with UAW Local 2110 occurred a month after workers at the institution announced their intention to organize for a variety of issues including fair wages and better benefits.

AFAM was created in 1961 and changed its name from the Museum of Early American Folk Arts in 2001. The institution’s public galleries are located near the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts in Manhattan, while its administrative offices, archives, and collections center are located in Long Island City, Queens. The museum’s collection of approximately 8,000 works of art from the United Stated and abroad, with the oldest examples from the turn of the eighteenth century. The union will include curatorial, retail, education, and information technology staff.

Other institutions located in New York City and across the Northeast that have unionized with UAW Local 2110 include the Dia Art Foundation, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

On June 6 and 7, hourly-wage employees at the Glenstone Museum held their own vote, joining Teamsters Local 639. A press statement said the group of 89 workers included all of the institution’s hourly guides, café workers, registration, grounds, engineering and maintenance, community engagement, and housekeeping staff. 

Glenstone staffers have called for livable wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions. A press statement on the vote said that many of the hourly workers had second jobs, part-time employees did not receive health care benefits, and that staff had been forced to work outdoors “during extreme heat and cold”.

A private museum, Glenstone was founded by billionaires Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales for the couple’s personal collection in 2006. The couple live across a pond from the institution’s galleries and have appeared on ARTnews’s Top 200 Collectors List since 2010. A expansion of the museum, designed by architect Thomas Phifer, was completed in 2018 at an estimated cost of $219 million.

According to the Washington Post, staffers faced union-busting strategies from museum leadership, including an appeal signed by Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales delivered to the homes of workers on June 3. The letter stated, “It is our sincere hope that you give due consideration to voting NO and keeping the Teamsters out of this special place we’ve built together.”

“We have said from the beginning of this process that we respect the right of our associates to decide whether to join a union,” the museum said in a statement to The Washington Post, which first reported the news of the union election results. “We accept the results of this election and intend to negotiate in good faith with the goal of achieving an equitable contract for the members of this new bargaining unit.”

“These workers defeated a sophisticated union-busting assault personally waged by some of the wealthiest people in America,” Local 639 president Bill Davis said in a statement. “I want to welcome them to our local union, and I look forward to helping them negotiate a first Teamsters contract.” 

At the end of April, a critical report from France’s court of auditors, who assess the use of public funds, revealed that the Centre Pompidou‘s economic model is unsustainable. The report outlines the financial strain on the museum caused by its forthcoming renovation, as well as its establishment of a new branch in Massy, France.

According to the report, costs have increased since the project began. The court estimated that this undertaking will cost €358 million ($383 million), nearly €100 million more than the French government’s initial estimate of €262 million ($282 million). An additional €207 million ($223,000) has been requested from sponsors by the museum’s chairman Laurent Le Bon to account for the difference.

Per the court, the institution must raise the money itself by the beginning of 2025 at the latest. As of now, it has raised €39 million ($42 million). Of the €39 million, €20 million ($21.5 million) came from Seoul’s Hanwha Culture Foundation. Centre Pompidou leadership has “very little time left” to raise the necessary €168 million, the court has warned.

Le Bon’s fundraising campaign has focused on individual American sponsors, as well as countries including Saudi Arabia. Le Bon has agreed to share program plans this month and finalize it before the start of the new year.

According to the Art Newspaper, Le Bon has admitted that he may have to “adapt his plans according to the funds collected.”

On Instagram, activist Derrick Ingram accused Wiley, a painter most widely known for doing Barack Obama’s official portrait, of having raped him in 2021. Ingram alleged that the assault happened in Wiley’s SoHo apartment.

“Posting something to Instagram doesn’t make it true,” Jennifer Barrett, an attorney for Wiley, said in a statement to ARTnews. “Yet, in today’s world, anyone can spread blatant lies with a single post, and the public accepts it at face value.” She said there was “no evidence” for Ingram’s claims.

Ingram, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist and the executive director of social justice non-profit Warriors in the Garden, said he was in a three-month-long relationship with Wiley, whom he accused of “extreme violence” and “severe emotional manipulation” during their time together. According to the timeline laid out by Ingram, the alleged rape happened during their relationship. He said he planned to sue Wiley in New York.

Barrett said that Ingram and Wiley had had a “one-time consensual encounter.” Ingram did not respond to a request for additional comment.

In the text posted as an image to his Instagram, Ingram explicitly named Wiley. In an accompanying caption that did not name Wiley, he wrote that he had been assaulted by “a predator that met me at my most vulnerable and knew that I was just starting to heal. He actively exploited my pain and today I am taking back my power.”

Ingram linked in his bio to a petition launched by Joseph Awuah-Darko, who accused Wiley of sexual assault last month. Like Ingram, Awuah-Darko claimed he had been assaulted in 2021. Also like Ingram, Awuah-Darko said he planned to take legal action against Wiley.

Barrett, Wiley’s attorney, alluded to Awuah-Darko’s allegations, which she said were untrue.

“The false claims against Mr. Wiley began as a vendetta by an individual who shared a single consensual encounter with him,” she said. “This person pursued Mr. Wiley for over a year, unsuccessfully pushing for a relationship. Recently, this individual has reinvented himself, soliciting cash contributions from followers and encouraging others to join his fraudulent Instagram campaign. His efforts have produced one other person, who also had a one-time consensual encounter with Mr. Wiley years ago and subsequently spent months sending him romantic texts seeking a deeper relationship.”

In a follow-up statement posted to Instagram on Tuesday, Wiley called the allegations from Awuah-Darko and Ingram “baseless and defamatory,” and questioned whether money, fame, and an “insatiable need for attention” had driven the two to come forward. Wiley included what he said were screenshots of text conversations between him and his accusers, which he said discredited their claims.

“What is clear,” Wiley wrote, “is that my accusers wanted far more than I was willing to give them.”

Wiley previously denied Awuah-Darko’s claims, saying, “Someone I had a brief, consensual relationship with is now making false, disturbing, and defamatory accusations about our time together. These claims are deeply hurtful to me, and I will pursue all legal options to bring the truth to light and clear my name.”

Wiley is renowned for his paintings of Black sitters that reference Old Masters portraiture techniques. A 2022 New Yorker profile labeled him “one of the most influential figures in global Black culture,” and said that with his Black Rock Senegal artist residency program, he was “shifting the art world’s center of gravity toward Africa.”

A Wiley survey held the following year at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco was a hit, drawing massive crowds. It has since traveled, appearing recently at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, with future stops planned at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Minneapolis Institute of Art in the coming year, according to Wiley’s website. Spokespersons for the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Minneapolis Institute of Art did not respond to requests for comment.

Update, 6/11/24, 10:15 a.m.: This article has been updated to include a follow-up statement from Wiley.

On May 31, the University of the Arts, commonly called UArts, informed its approximately 1,100 students and 700 staffers of the imminent closure. Confusion and outrage immediately erupted, as students scrambled for a means to salvage their in-progress degrees. UArts leadership has promised to provide its students a “pathway” to other Philadelphia schools, such as Temple University or Drexel University, while staffers have grown litigious: Only days after the announcement, nine employees filed a class action lawsuit that accuses management of violating a 1988 law that requires most employers with at least 100 employees to provide a 60-day notice of mass closings or layoffs. 

The United Academics of Philadelphia, the union representing UArts professors, has called the decision to close the school “cruel”.

The Philadelphia City Council passed a resolution on June 6 to conduct hearings about the closure. A day later, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and state lawmakers announced that they were investigating the circumstances of the closure, as well as “any transfer or loss of assets.” 

“We are looking into holding a hearing and seeing what broader investigative powers we can use in the state legislative committees to investigate,” state senator Nikil Saval said in a statement. “It should wake many of us up to the fragility of the arts infrastructure in Philadelphia, which is extraordinary given how little support it gets.”

UArts is a nearly 150-year-old institution with a formerly respected standing in the Philadelphia art community; its storied alumni roster includes Irving Penn, Alex Da Corte, and Jonathan Lyndon Chase. On May 31, however, the university revealed that it had lost accreditation with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and that it would not offer classes in the fall. Several days later, UArts’s president, Kerry Walk, resigned.

 UArts leadership has cited low enrollment and a dire financial situation as the cause of the closure, stating, “With a cash position that has steadily weakened, we could not cover significant, unanticipated expenses. The situation came to light very suddenly.” The school has not disclosed the details of its finances, but the Philadelphia Inquirer has quoted a board trustee who said at least $40 million was needed to bail UArts out of its crisis.