India Art Fair in New Delhi Expands to Mumbai, Hauser & Wirth Appoints Mirella Roma as Its New CEO, and More: Morning Links for September 19, 2024

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The Headlines

TOUGH TRUTHS. A traveling German exhibition documenting the experience of refugees granted asylum in the country was removed soon after it was installed. The reason: because it reportedly “polarized” visitors and employees at the Pirna city administrative building, where it was featured. The show titled “It’s not quiet in my head,” addresses, via first-hand interviews, the experiences of refugees coming to Germany’s Saxony from Syria, Afghanistan, and several African countries. The show includes information about their escape routes and personal accounts of racial profiling by German police, as well as feeling trapped and unsure about wanting to stay in Germany. In response, the district’s hosts removed the show, because it “understandably aroused the displeasure and incomprehension” of locals who complained, according to Zeit Online. In a statement, the exhibition’s organizers and a refugee support group called Schwarzenberg, said they were shocked, calling the cancelation “outrageous.”

INDIA FAIR TO ALIGHT IN MUMBAI. The India Art Fair (IAF) in New Delhi is expanding to Mumbai next year, reports The Art Newspaper. The initiative – named India Art Fair Contemporary (IAFC) – will feature some 70 galleries, mostly from India, and will exclusively offer art made after 1970, and includes design, unlike its New Delhi parent. There are some questions, however, about how the new fair will jive with the existing, recently launched Art Mumbai fair, which takes place at the same time. IAF’s organizers offered the conciliatory message that they intend to draw the events together, as opposed to splitting the attention of fairgoers, as part of building a “major market moment for Mumbai” around both fairs.

The Digest

Hauser & Wirth has appointed Mirella Roma as its new CEO. She succeeds Ewan Venters, who will remain as chief executive of Artfarm, the gallery’s independent hospitality group. Roma has worked with the gallery for 27 years, during which time she rose to executive director in 2013 and a full partner in 2020. [ARTnews]

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has officially terminated plans to establish a satellite campus at the South Los Angeles Wetlands Park as part of its “de-center” project. The budget turned out to be more expensive than they had bargained for. [ARTnews]

In more LACMA news, the museum is pushing the premiere of its new David Geffen Galleries building to 2026.  According to a memo obtained by the LA Times, the museum is also “brainstorming” public programs for the empty new space. [The Los Angeles Times]

Artists Jennie C. Jones and Gala Porras-Kim have been awarded the Heinz Award for the Arts, which comes with a cool $250,000. [Artforum]

Michigan State University (MSU) abruptly canceled a September 13 exhibition opening event at its Broad Art Museum, and a controversial artwork by Alia Farid was moved to a different area, where new signs warn of its “connections to Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The curators of the exhibit, titled “Diasporic Collage,” Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez and Dalina Perdomo Álvarez, told reporters they had not agreed to the changes. [Hyperallergic]

Norway’s Rafto Prize of $20,000 for champions of human rights was awarded to the imprisoned Cuban and self-titled “artivist,” Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara. [Barron’s and AFP]

Several new sculptures are being unveiled ahead of London Sculpture Week from September 21 to 29, including the famous Fourth Plinth commission and the annual Frieze Sculpture exhibit. The plinth artwork unveiled on Wednesday in Trafalgar Square is by Teresa Margolles and titled Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant). It’s meant to give “visibility to the trans community,” said the artist. [AFP, Artnet News]

The Kicker

NO IDEA. Careful what you ask an artist. The Financial Times’ Jan Dalley “made the mistake of asking” artist Tracey Emin “about the evolution of the ‘ideas’” for her new paintings showing at White Cube Bermondsey until November 10. “I have no ideas,” Emin quipped. But the cringe moment soon passed (well, almost) after Dalley asked how Emin’s process works. “Here’s what happens,” Emin said. “I go in, and I paint red all over the canvas. Then I paint the bed on it. Then I paint the people on the bed. Then I don’t like them so I paint them out. Then I paint blue all over it. Then I don’t like it so I turn it upside down. Then I think, ‘Wow that really looks like a house’, so I paint the house on it…” You get the drift. “I never know what I’m going to paint until I’m painting,” the artist added.