30/12/2022 Art Industry News: A Sweeping Documentary Series About the NFT Phenomenon Is Coming to Amazon Prime + Other Stories

Plus, the International African American Museum delays its opening, and a documentary on Nan Goldin gets shortlisted for the Oscars.

Billboards display NFT art in Times Square during the 4th annual NFT.NYC conference on June 20, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)Billboards display NFT art in Times Square during the 4th annual NFT.NYC conference on June 20, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)

Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know on this Thursday, December 22.

NEED-TO-READ

Why Some Misunderstood Simone Leigh’s Loophole of Retreat –Following Simone Leigh’s“Loophole of Retreat: Venice” symposium, which focused on the intellectual and creative labor of Black women, a critical evaluation of the event by Seph Rodney forHyperallergichas, according to Rizvana Bradley, entirely missed the point.(Artforum)

An Exhaustive List of Art Nepo Babies –With “nepo baby” still the term of everyone’s lips after a viral feature byNew York Magazine,ARTnewshas compiled its own version for the art world. The list extends particularly long for dealers but also includes auction-house executives, art advisors, and the artists themselves. Did you know Art Cologne director Daniel Hug is the grandson of artist László Moholy-Nagy? (ARTnews)

A New Amazon Series Will Explore NFT Culture –Crypto winter, be damned! Amazon Prime is planning a new documentary series calledNFTMe.With a focus on 50 key pioneers within the space, from artist Refik Anadol to music producer Peter Rafelson, the six episodes will explore the cultural impact of NFTs. (Coin Telegraph)

Trinidad Art Dealer Dies During Attempted Robbery –Mark Pereira of 101 Gallery in Trinidad and Tobago, known as a champion of Caribbean art, was shot by thieves who broke into his home earlier this week. Police are investigating the murder.(ARTnews)

MOVERS & SHAKERS

International African American Museum Delays Opening –The opening of the highly anticipated museum in Charleston, South Carolina, has been pushed back due to faulty humidity and temperature control systems. Originally scheduled to open in January, it is still expected to debut in the first half of the year.(New York Times)

Nan Goldin Doc Gets Shortlisted for the Oscars –Laura Poitras’sAll the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which chronicles the life of artist Nan Goldin and her fight against the Sacklers, made the Oscars shortlist for best documentary feature. Final nominations will be announced January 24. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Amsterdam Museum Returns Salt Cellars to Heirs –Four silver salt cellars held at museums in Amsterdam will be returned to the heirs of the German Jewish collector Emma Budge following an investigation into their provenance and the binding advice of the Dutch Restitutions Committee. (Codart)

Pace and Black Lunch Table Open Up Gallery Library –Pace Gallery’s collaboration with the non-profit Black Lunch Table, through which it is improving its archives on Black artists, has led to a six-month Wikimedia Fellowship to expand online entries for historically excluded artists. The research will culminate with an exhibition at the New York gallery’s library for Black History Month in February.

Arts

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-industry-news-december-22-2022-2234789

Interesting NFTs
Meebit #17522
The Meebits are 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters, created by a custom generative algorithm, then registered on the Ethereum blockchain.
The Scion
A young figure caught in a moment of distraction, aware only ephemerally of his unconscious being, as it engages in psychological and psychedelic layer spaces. His right arm casually cradles a moray eel; the figure is comfortable but not truly aware of the potentials for danger in such negligence. His shirt reads “Bello” in Pokemon style font, harkening back to a childhood straddling the millennial threshold. To his right side, out of the unconscious deep, shrouded alien heads propagate as a fractal totem, each new iteration a more sophisticated rendering of emotional masking over the cold mystery of the greys. As the scion of the Budgie-Sattva, the young man, in his distraction, is also simultaneously aware of higher levels of self discovery. To his left a psychological topology sets beneath the oracle side of an 8 ball ,hovering; its message a purest concept of acceptance. The “Scion” lettering is in 80’s HeMan style bold declaration. The lower right side of the painting is like a hybrid of melon, feathers, and seeds. The crystals in the background bring light; conducted, refracted, reflected, and dispersed, to balance the dark shadow of the figure’s physical body. The aura of the scion succeeds in layers to point, with a finger, and the crown chakra, toward a center of a mandala existing as nigh pure application of strokes, in essence painterly abstraction, but also revealing hints of the Aura of migraine, and the bi-hemispherical nature of the brain–noting concerns of the possibility of inherited mental disease. Yet the flourish of chakra as it sets against that center is robust, active, coherent, and reveling against all fear. Fundamentally, the piece speaks to the activation of one’s potential to begin to “Know Thyself”, and find greater awareness out of the enigmas of the mind–as an inculcated seed given to the rich soil of one’s own birthright.
Domestic - 2017
“Domestic is the manifestation of the cultural patriarchy in my home. The wooden "woman's" tragedy of false desire. It was done in a moment of breakup. The hollow 3d body & its lost eyes, invites you to fill up. Trying to reach out, encumbered and wrapped in its own fragility, the new mother rises."
YouTube Lab
YouTube logo factory. 10-second loop, 30 fps. Created using Cinema4D, X-Particles, TurbulenceFD, Octane, and After Effects.
CryptoKitties
Good day! My name's Kitty #341568. I once peed on Mother Theresa's cat. They had it coming. It wasn't heavily publicized, but I once had a brief relationship with Puss in Boots. I can't wait to wake you up at 4am for seemingly no reason.