Warhol Portrait of Debbie Harry Resurfaces, French Artist to Spend 10 Days in a Bottle, Student Buys a ‘Chagall’ for $2, and More: Morning Links for July 31, 2024

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THE HEADLINES

GENIUS IN A BOTTLE. French artist Abraham Poincheval (b. 1972), who is known for locking himself up in unexpected structures – an armor, a stuffed bear, a rock – has decided to repeat the experience inside a giant bottle, moored to the dock of the Saint-Denis canal, in Paris. Some find the idea genius; others ludicrous, reports Beaux Arts. How long will the intrepid artist stay on the River Seine? Ten whole days, for the entire duration of the Olympic Games that is! Poincheval has thought of everything to survive in his transparent glass bubble. All around him are pieces of luggage, and containers, as well as a sleeping bag, a stock of water and food. This life-size survival capsule generates its own electricity thanks to solar collectors and a wind turbine. “It’s a space that everybody can see. And I, too, can see anyone that walks by me. I take note. Time is on hold, here, at odds with the Games.”  

A REAL STEAL. It’s every art lover’s dream and a California student is living it, reports Artnet. “Just found out this random oil pastel I bought secondhand for like $2 is a Chagall and worth at least like $20,000,” read a post on X by Shannon Kim, followed by a string of laugh-cry emojis. She turned the piece up at an estate sale in Orange County, California. “It was in a giant pile of posters, all priced at $1 or $2,” she said. “It seemed like the people who lived there were art fans, because there were posters hanging everywhere in addition to artworks. I looked closely at the back and I saw it said Chagall and I was like, ‘Marc Chagall, are you serious?’” She also noted a vintage-looking label on the back from Jan Mitchell Gallery, of 5 West 8th Street, New York, suggesting that it might be the real deal. She brought it to a family friend who works at Christie’s and, spotting a signature, weighed in informally, saying it’s authentic and offering a $20,000 valuation, though not everyone is buying her attribution of the work. Kim has no plans to cash in on her find. “I didn’t buy it because I thought it was a Chagall,” Kim said. “I just picked it up because I thought it was a really beautiful piece of work.”

THE DIGEST

A long lost Andy Warhol portrait of singer Debbie Harry, the lead singer of the band Blondie, that has been hanging in rural Delaware, is going up for sale for potential millions. The work from 1985, as well as a signed disk of 10 Warhol images, was made on an early home computer when Warhol was an ambassador for the Commodore tech company, as part of a promo at Lincoln Center. The price is undisclosed for now. [Page Six]

The Palm Springs City Council has announced a plan for relocating the controversial Seward Johnson sculpture Forever Marilyn [Monroe], located on a public street leading to the Palm Springs Art Museum. This would be a major step towards resolving litigation that seems to be dragging on. The work has drawn protests as well as a lawsuit from leaders in the local art and design community, who see the giantess with her white dress blowing up above her waist as cheesy, sexist or both. [The Art Newspaper]

At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, American runner Tommie Smith ran 200 meters in 19.83 seconds, clinching the gold but establishing a new world record. Later, Smith and the third place winner, John Carlos, raised their fists in protest of Black suffering, both at home and globally. Glenn Kaino’s Bridge is a sculptural reiteration of this symbolic gesture. It debuted last Friday in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Luce Foundation Center for the first time since the museum acquired the sculpture in 2022. [The Architect’s Newspaper]

French designer Philippe Starck got the profile treatment from Tachy Mora, who points out how eclectic his production his, from hotels to yachts, to innovative electronic devices, and objects of all kinds. “He has created a genre of his own, bold and provocative, in which there is room for everything from a classic Louis XV-inspired chair made of polycarbonate, to lamps in the shape of a gun or the most captivating and least practical juicer in the world.” [EL PAÍS]

A great deal of L.A. County’s most inspiring and entertaining structures went up in 1920s. L.A. City Hall, the downtown Central Library and the (much-amended) Hollywood Bowl are three of that era’s most famous buildings, and the Hollywood sign (1923) and Watts Towers (begun in 1921) date to the same decade. Beyond them are dozens of other remarkable buildings that went up between 1919 and 1930. Here is a top 10. [Los Angeles Times]

THE KICKER

LOGO-POOPERS. The London Museum shocked the internet by launching its new logo: a humble pigeon who, as the locals might say, has just gone to the loo. The gleaming white porcelain bird is accompanied by a glittering gold splatter of its droppings. The newly rechristened London Museum (formerly the Museum of London) chose this urban animal as a symbol for the U.K. capital because it has remained “an impartial and humble observer of London life” for nearly 1,000 years. The controversial logo has been designed by Uncommon Creative Studio, who enlisted the help of 33 Londoners from 32 boroughs, including a chef, a DJ, a children’s TV producer, a boxer, and a tattoo artist. “A good logo gets people talking,” said the museum’s director Sharon Ament. “The pigeon and splat speak to a historic place full of dualities, a place where the grit and the glitter have existed side by side for millennia.” [Artnet]