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Jorn Weisbrodt
by Paddy Johnson and Rea McNamara on August 19, 2015
- Jorn Weisbrodt, Rufus Wainwright’s husband, will be stepping down from his position as artistic director of Toronto’s Luminato Festival after the 2016 season. Weisbrodt ran the festival for five years, and was responsible for opening up his well-connected rolodex — he is known for his longstanding relationship with Robert Wilson — and elevating the populist Festival with high brow fare, like the Wilson and Glass opera Einstein on the Beach and the North American premiere of Wilson’s Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. The announcement, however, comes after a year of great change — founding CEO Janice Price left earlier in the year to helm the Banff Art Centre, and her replacement, British art world leader Anthony Sergent, had to be cleared by Ottawa. And “there has been no word about the 2015 attendance, ticket revenue and whether the annual budget will show a surplus, a break-even result or a shortfall.” [Toronto Star]
- American Apparel may be going out of business. The beleaguered company saw their second quarter sales fall 17.2%, lost 85% of their stock value in 2015, and they’re struggling to meet the next interest payment on their debt to Capital One. Deadline is October 15, so you may or may not be shopping in the near future at Brandy Melville. [Forbes]
- Man gets stuck in rain-soaked skate bowl, tweets himself out. [The Guardian]
- A mutual fund for fine art? The recently launched startup Arthena wants to bring crowdsourcing to art-buying, especially those who can’t affording bidding on Sotheby blue chip works: investors buy an “equity share” of a collection, and that money is pooled with other investors. It’s like a timeshare, basically. [Marketplace]
- Hasted Kraeutler gallery closed earlier this month amid disputes between the two owners Sarah Hasted and Joe Kraeutler. According to artnet News, Kraeutler claims that after hiring a forensic accountant he learned that Hasted was spending money she shouldn’t have. Hasted claims she semi-retired from the gallery last year and Kraeutler, in taking over the gallery, learned he couldn’t swing it financially on his own. Now, Sarah Hasted is suing her partner Joe Kraeutler and his father. [Baer Faxt]
- Vaping is good for you! OK, it’s not, but according to Public Health England, it’s 95% less harmful than tobacco cigarettes, and might get you closer to quitting. [The Guardian]
- Ben Sutton weighs in on the controversy surrounding the missing prints of Cal Lane, which were purported to be lost in transit only to turn up at an online auction site specializing in selling off wayward freight. Besides being the nightmare of gallerists everywhere — this is why it’s vital to work with a good customs broker and maybe not ship valuable works via UPS — Sutton suggests that the “vast unchartered alternate economy” of online auction sites might be a new additional nightmare. [Hyperallegic]
- Dee Barnes, the one time host of the fox show on Hip Hop Pump It Up, watched F. Gary Gray’s just-released film about N.W.A, Straight Outta Compton, and talks about what’s missing—namely Dr. Dre’s brutal attack on her for a segment that ran on her show that he didn’t like along with an array of other women he abused (a summary of all the women Dre has beat up here). The misogyny described in this story is terrifying. [Gawker]
- Terence Dick reviews the inaugural group show at Toronto’s newest artist-run gallery, Younger Than Beyoncé, which takes a page from New Museum’s generational triennial and only curates artists under the age of 33: “I’m far enough over the hill to know youth is not so much a place of originality as possibility, and the challenge new artists face is to come up with fresh variations on age-old ideas.” [Akimblog]
- In the wake of cutbacks, high profile thefts and conservation troubles, Italy’s culture ministry has appointed 20 new museum directors. Are Italy’s museum problems really about leadership issues, not, say, austerity? Apparently the new hires are being told not to expect money from the government—they will need to raise money from gift shops, cafes and private investment. Great. [artnet News]
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