Van Gogh Show Break Musée d’Orsay Attendance Records, Bonhams CEO Departs, and More: Morning Links for February 12, 2024

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The Headlines

SIKKEMA MURDER INVESTIGATION. Alejandro Prevez, the man suspected of killing New York gallerist Brent Sikkema, has reportedly testified that Sikkema’s ex-husband paid him $200,000 to commit the murder. Brazilian police are seeking to arrest the victim’s ex-husband, Daniel Sikkema, identified by authorities as an “intellectual and main author interested in crime,” according to the Daily Mail. “The boss is Daniel Sikkema,” wrote Prevez’s lawyer, Greg Andrade, in a text message to Artnet News.

MONET GETS SOUPED. After Leonardo da Vinci last month, it’s Claude Monet’s turn. Two French climate activists threw soup onto Monet’s painting Le Printemps (1872) in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon on Saturday. The same group, Riposte Alimentaire [Food counterattack], splashed soup on Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in the Louvre on January 28. The Monet painting was protected by glass, but the museum said it would be inspected for restoration and is filing a legal complaint. The two activists were also reportedly arrested.

The Digest

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protestors gathered in the Museum of Modern Art and outside the Brooklyn Museum Saturday. Images show people in MoMA’s atrium holding banners which said, “Free Palestine, From the River to the Sea,” and “Ceasefire Now.” Activists also accused members of the MoMA board of trustees of funding “genocide, apartheid,” and “settler colonialism.” [ARTnews]

Climate activist Jackson Green has been arrested and charged with vandalizing a memorial to Black Civil War soldiers at Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art in November 2023. Green painted the words “Honor Them” in red paint on the wall next to The Shaw 54^th Regiment Memorial (1900) by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The damage cost over $700. [The Art Newspaper]

Tove Langridge, the owner of the “Instagram-famous” Australian gallery TW Fine Art in Brisbane, has been charged with nine theft offences, and faces up to five years in prison if convicted. Police seized 20 artworks from the gallery, and artists allege they were never paid for sales. [The Art Newspaper]

The Musée d’Orsay’s current director, Christophe Leribault,” will head the Chateau de Versailles. The chateau’s current president, Catherine Pégard is stepping down after twelve years, three years longer than is permitted according to public service age and mandate limits. [Le Monde]

German artist Karl Horst Hödicke, known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings, has died at the age of 85. He was a key figure in the late 1970s “New Savages” or “Junge Wilde” movement in Germany. [Artnet News]

The entire contents of Charles Darwin’s personal library are being revealed for the first time in an extensive catalog released Feb. 12. It details thousands of titles of books and material, which took nearly two decades to compile, with subjects ranging from biology to art. A virtual version of the library is available with 9,300 links to copies of the works. [The Guardian]

Bruno Vinciguerra is stepping down as global CEO and executive chairman of Bonhams after leading the auction house for over five years. [Observer]

The Musée d’Orsay’s recent Van Gogh exhibition about the final two months of the artist’s life in Auvers-sur-Oise, has broken its previous attendance records for an exhibition. 793,556 people attended the show, which included immersive V.R. experiences. [Le Monde]

The Kicker

ART SHIELD. The artist Andrei Molodkin is holding valuable artwork hostage, threatening to destroy paintings by Picasso, Rembrandt, Warhol, and others, if WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, were to die in prison, reports The New Yorker. Molodkin has so far gathered 16 artworks donated by artists and collectors, worth about forty million dollars in total, for his art project named Dead Man’s Switch. Meanwhile, Assange is appealing the US order for his extradition from London, in a trial later this month. If Assange dies in prison, Molodkin said the artworks stored in a large safe in the south of France would be destroyed by triggering a chemical explosion inside the vault. However, if Assange is eventually freed, the art will be returned to their owners. “It’s a kind of human shield, but in the form of art. An art shield,” said Stella Assange, Julian’s partner.