27/01/2022 Art Industry News: Melania Trump’s NFT Sale Came in 30 Percent Under Its Starting Bid Amid a Massive Crypto Crash + Other Stories

Plus, the MFA Boston will return a stolen Dutch painting, and Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe pays tribute to Virgil Abloh on the cover of Teen Vogue.

U.S. first lady Melania Trump attends the joint press conference between U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House on April 24, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)U.S. first lady Melania Trump attends the joint press conference between U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House on April 24, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/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 Wednesday, January 26.

MFA Boston Returns Stolen 17th Century Painting –Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts will return a Dutch painting titledView of Beverwijk(1646) by Salomon van Ruysdael to the heirs of Jewish collector Ferenc Chorin. The painting was among a trove that Chorin, a Hungarian industrialist who helped Jews escape from the Nazi-controlled territory, hid in bank vault before fleeing the country during World War II. Chorin’s heirs plan to sell the work at Christie’s Old Masters sale in New York in April, where it is expected to fetch between $500,000 and $700,000. (Boston Globe)

German Museums May Have Looted Palace Museum Relics –Seven museums in Germany have launched an initiativeto research Chinese works of art in their collections that may have been stolen during the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-foreign uprising in 1900 that led to foreign powers’ invasion of Qing dynasty China. The project, conducted in partnership with Shanghai University, began in November 2021 and will run until 2023. (The Art Newspaper)

Melania Trump’s NFT Auction Isn’t Going According to Plan –The former U.S. first lady has sought to reinvent herself as a crypto entrepreneur, most recently offering up a hat she wore during a state visit with the French president, a watercolor of her wearing the hat, and an accompanying NFT as a “head of state package” on her new platform. There’s just one problem: cryptocurrency has crashed. Originally offered with a starting bid of $250,000, the bundle appears to have sold for around $170,000, with the exact dollar value fluctuating in line with the volatility of Solana, Mrs. Trump’s cryptocurrency of choice. (New York Times)

How China Cultivates Museum Patrons –Private art museums in China are working hard to recruit wealthy, art-loving patrons in an effort to strengthen their governance and boost their bottom lines as the country’s economy remains clouded by the pandemic. Today Art Museum in Beijing, for example, is experimenting with a two-tier patronage system, in which second-tier patrons are asked to donate 50,000 yuan ($7,907) each year. China is home to an estimated 1,860 private museums. (South China Morning Post)

COMINGS AND GOINGS

Jacob Safra Sells His Gentilleschis –Two paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi from the collection of banking heir Jacob (Jacqui) Safra—Susanna and the Elders(ca. 1638) andPortrait of a Seated Lady(1620)—will be hitting the auction block during Thursday’s Old Masters sale at Sotheby’s New York. Both lots are backed by financial guarantees; together, they’re estimated to fetch $3.8 million to $5.5 million. (ARTnews)

Pace Verso Reveals Winter NFT Lineup –Artists Zhang Huan and Lucas Samaras will release NFT projects with Pace Verso,the gallery’s Web3 armthat launched in November. Pace Verso also launched a collaboration with Leo Villareal and the NFT platform Art Blocks. The1,024 unique digital works sold out within three hours. (Press release)

Ghana Reveals Venice Biennale Pavilion –After itsacclaimed debut at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Ghana will return for its sophomore outing with a presentation of work by Na Chainkua Reindorf, Afroscope, and Diego Araúja. Nana Oforiatta Ayim, director of ANO Institute of Arts & Knowledge in Accra, is back to organize the presentation, which is designed by architect DK Osseo-Asare. For more Venice updates, check outour up-to-date round-upof pavilions. (Press release)

Phillips Mounts Private Selling Exhibition of Ghanaian Artists –Amidan explosion of demandfor work by young African artists, Phillips London is mounting a selling showtitled “Birds of a Feather” featuring work by six young artists from Ghana: Awanle Ayiboro Hawa Ali, Courage Hunke, James Mishio, Araba Opoku, Abdur Rahman Muhammed, and Kwaku Yaro. The show, produced in collaboration with Ghanaian-based agency Artemartis, runs from February 1 to 10. (Press release)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe DesignsTeen VogueCover –Another Ghana-born painter,Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, paid tribute to the late designer Virgil Abloh in a special issue ofTeen Voguewith a new portrait on the cover. Quaicoe was chosen for the project in part because Abloh was “the son of Ghanaian parents,” perTeen Vogue. (ARTnews)

Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe's cover for 'Teen Vogue.' Courtesy of 'Teen Vogue.'

Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe’s cover for ‘Teen Vogue.’ Courtesy of ‘Teen Vogue.’

Arts

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-industry-news-melania-trumps-nft-sale-2064307

Interesting NFTs
Gen9 Googly Chestnut
Ciao! I'm Gen9 Googly Chestnut. I believe the world is flat. I am 86% gremlin, 79% Mad Scientist, and otherwise bad at math. I think you'll love me beclaws I have cattitude.
Beautiful Worlds
Welcome to the ‘Beautiful worlds’ where nature and technology have merged into a single entity. These are Ai generated and hand finished visions of solarpunk future in which I would really like our future generations to live and prosper: the future we might have if we took the very “alternative route” which now lies before us: replacing states and corporations which free federations of communities and cooperatives, using decentralist and ecological technologies to create a world beyond economic scarcity and social hierarchy, defined by autonomy, mutual aid, diversity, and inclusiveness. The long-term goals of solarpunk are freedom and well-being for all by adopting and developing such ecological technologies as: solar, wind, wave and geothermal energy rather than oil or gas to generate electricity; a world of decentralized eco-cities, permaculture and vertical farming, free and open-source software, open-source hardware, small-scale fabrication laboratories, micro-manufacturing, 3D-printing, and countless examples of commons-based peer-production online: meeting the maximum amount of needs, in the shortest time, using the minimum possible amount of energy. It’s a world of decentralized and confederated eco-communities, using technology for human-centric and eco-centric ends rather than for accumulating power and profit – mending the metabolic rift between first nature (the natural world) and second nature (human culture) – and where social hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and disability are considered horror stories from the past “oil age”. Solarpunk desires societies of polycultural ethnic diversity and gender liberation, where each person is able to actualize themselves in societal environment of free experimentation and communal caring; This philosophy proposes that in order for the social and natural worlds to reconcile, humans must first transform their relations to each other – recreating society along egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic lines – and then transform their relations towards nature – adopting an attitude to cooperation, rather than domination, towards the planet and its nonhuman forms of life. Text by Connor Owens. This artwork took me a year to create and for you it will take a year to discover. Master autonomously updates once a day at 12am with one of 366 original artworks. Enjoy!
Classical Collage
voronoi fun with some well known art
Michael Jordan - Crown Collection
“All you needed was one little match to start that whole fire.”- Michael Jordan. In regards to both the action on the court and everything that happened off of it, Jordan provided a spark that changed the future in so many different ways throughout his tenure in Chicago, and even decades after the fact. And, in the end, he got everything that he wanted when he began his NBA journey: he turned the team and organization as a whole into a respected program, like the dynasties he looked up to as a child. Having steered the Chicago Bulls to an incredible six championship rings in eight years from 1991-1998, scooping up five MVP awards in the process, Jordan is one of just a handful of superstars who have truly transcended their sports. Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s (right) relationship both on and off the pitch was arguably the foundation of the Bulls’ incredible success. Scottie Pippen was present with Jordan for all six championships in eight seasons. Dennis Rodman (left) His relentless and smart play perfectly suited what Jordan and Jackson wanted to do to take the Bulls to greater heights. Although his exploits off the court earned him special fame, Rodman was unquestionably one of the greatest basketball players of his generation and one of the finest defensive players in the history of the game.
Coffin Dance (Dancing Pallbearers)
The most famous global meme of 2020, which has become a true symbol of the COVID-19 pandemic era. The token is issued with the support of the Ukrainian PR community, by Benjamin Aidoo team in collaboration with Matthew “DigiNeko” Ordrick, who in late March 2020 uploaded the video to YouTube which started a trend on the Internet. The owner of this token is going to get good luck for eternity. Format: 690  x  388 GIF