Pope Visits Venice Biennale, Dakar Biennale Postponed, Vienna Actionism Show Protested, and More: Morning Links for April 29, 2024

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THE HEADLINES

DAK’ART POSTPONED. The 15^th edition of Dak’Art – Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain in Dakar, Senegal has been postponed at the last minute from its original May 16 opening date, to November 7. Reasons are due to “the national and international context, and the desire for new authorities in the sector to organize the Biennale under optimal conditions,” that meet its standards, said a statement by Senegal’s ministry of culture, released April 24. The new program is scheduled to run from November 7 to December 2, 2024, under the maintained artistic direction of curator Salimata Diop. However, this late in, many have already booked their international travel to Dakar for the event, while hundreds of Off-site exhibitions have not been canceled. The Quotidien de l’Art also reported that in the months leading up to the scheduled opening, “no organization for the transport of artworks” featured in the official exhibit were ever initiated, while the Biennale’s government-backed organizers have refused audits of spending for the partly publicly funded event, notably after some 2 million euros reportedly went missing from accounts.

THE DIGEST

People who grew up in a former commune founded by the Austrian actionist artist Otto Muehl, who was convicted of child sexual assault and rape, have protested against a new museum’s inclusion of his oeuvre. The March-inaugurated Vienna Actionism Museum features artists from the region’s controversial, post-war movement, known for its graphic performance works. [The Art Newspaper]

An engraved gold pocket watch found on the body of the wealthiest man on the Titanic just sold on Saturday for £1.175 million ($ 1.47 million), breaking a record for Titanic memorabilia at Henry Aldridge & Son in Wiltshire. John Jacob Astor was wearing the watch when he drowned with the sinking ship in 1912, after ensuring his wife, Madeleine, made it onto a lifeboat. [The Associated Press]

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto will reopen tomorrow, after closing on March 26 when union-members went on strike over wages and protections of part-time workers. Strikers were able to negotiate an 11.4% raise, which will be implemented retroactively, to December 2021, among other benefits. [CBC]

Austrian artist Andreas Joska-Sutanto has spent the last eight years cutting up Hitler’s Mein Kampf [My Struggle] manifesto and rearranging each letter to write a cookbook with recipes for pizza, asparagus salad, tiramisu, and more. After 900 hours of work, he is only a quarter of the way through the book, and comments: “I want to show … that you can turn something negative into something positive by deconstructing and rearranging it.” [AFP and France 24]

THE KICKER

GROWING CENTER. The remarkable story of the artist Judith Scott and the art center where she thrived, is unwoven by The Guardian’s Katy Hessel, in her bulletin about women artists. “Fanatical about fiber,” Scott worked on her bundled sculptures for months, which included all manner of wrapped found objects, furniture, ropes, tubes and tassels, “as if mummifying something sacred,” writes Hessel. Age 61 when she died, Scott was part of the Oakland California’s Creative Growth Art Center for people with developmental disabilities – she was deaf and had Down Syndrome. But before arriving there, she endured placement in a series of institutions in horrible conditions. Creative Growth has placed the works of its artists in prestigious museums around the US, and is now celebrating its 50^th anniversary over the course of three years of events and exhibitions, including two shows with SFMOMA in San Francisco.