Singapore and Turkey Make 2024 Venice Biennale Picks, Damien Hirst Plans Phillips Show, and More: Morning Links for July 14, 2023

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The Headlines

VENICE PICK, PART 1. The 2024 edition of the Venice Biennale is coming up fast—it’s scheduled to open April 20—and today Singapore announced that it plans to present artist Robert Zhao Renhui at its pavilion. The Singapore Art Museum is organizing the show, with senior curator Haeju Kim curating. Zhao, who was born in 1983, has created research-based work in a diverse array of mediums, with an emphasis on photography, video, and installation, tackling topics like the functioning of ecosystems and humanity’s relationship to the natural world. He was in the just-closed Gwangju Biennale in South Korea and the 2019 Singapore Biennale, among many other international outings.

VENICE PICK, PART 2. Turkey is going with Gülsün Karamustafa for the Venice Biennale, ArtReview reports. Esra Sarıgedik Öktem is curating. Karamustafa, who was born in 1946, is a key figure in the Turkish art scene, working across painting, film, and other mediums. Issues of political mistreatment are central to her incisive practice, which was celebrated last year in a Charles Esche–curated solo show at the Lunds Konsthall in Sweden. A series of “Prison Paintings” from the 1970s are based on her incarceration for political activisim in Turkey following the 1971 military coup. She has made appearances in the biennials of São Paulo, Gwangju, Istanbul, and other cities.

The Digest

The Israeli government is trying to evict Nissim Kahlon from a small cave on the Mediterranean coast that he has turned into an intricate artistic home, replete with mosaics and elaborate architectural featuers. Officials say he is illegally squatting. Kahlon said, “I am ready for them to bury me here.” [The Associated Press]

Damien Hirst will show more than 100 new works—102, to be exact—from three series at Phillips in London. The show, held “with the support” of White Cube and Gagosian, runs July 20 through August 18; prices range from $100,000 to $1.3 million. [Financial Times]

A government agency in Budapest fined a bookseller 12 million forints (about $36,000) for placing Alice Oseman’s 2016 LGBTQ+ graphic novel Heartstopper in its youth-lit section, saying that violated a law on presenting homosexuality to minors. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has called the law “a disgrace.” [The Associated Press]

Belgium’s Hart Magazine said it is considering legal action for trademark infringement against the Hermitage Amsterdam over its plan to change its name to H’art Museum. The institution cut its ties with the Russian Hermitage following the invasion of Ukraine, and is set to adopt the new name in September. [Het Parool]

A four-inch-tall vase that a couple purchased at a thrift store in England for all of £2.50 (about $3.30) has been identified as the work of Namikawa Yasuyuki (1845–1927), and has been estimated to sell for a rather larger £9,000 ($11,800) at Canterbury Auction Galleries. [CNN]

Seeking a deal on a new Manhattan luxury apartment? Units at 35 Hudson Yards have been moving slowly, and are now being offered at a discount by Related. Also, the company said it is looking into how to reopen safely Thomas Heatherwick’s nearby Vessel sculpture, the site of four suicides. [The Wall Street Journal]

The Kicker

REYNOLDS REUNION. Sunday will mark the 300th birthday of painter Joshua Reynolds, but art critic Jonathan Jones is not celebrating. In the Guardian, he awarded a total of one star (out of five) to the Reynolds tricentennial show now on view at Kenwood House in London. “Like the aristocracy, he just won’t go away,” Jones writes, terming him a “forgettable painter” who “has no imagination.” As you examine a work by the artist, Jones says, “you stand there trying to seem engaged while your brain is wandering off to think about the light socket on the wall or the best bus route home.” If you want to decide for yourself, the show runs through November 19. [The Guardian]