Stephen Friedman Gallery Plans New York Location, National Gallery of Canada Reports Ransomware Attack, and More: Morning Links for May 11, 2023

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.

The Headlines

JUMPING ACROSS THE POND. London’s Stephen Friedman Gallery, which reps artists like Yinka Shonibare, Pam Glick, and Deborah Roberts, is opening a branch in the gallery-rich Manhattan neighborhood of Tribeca, Melanie Gerlis reports in her Financial Times column. The 5,000-square-foot space is at 54 Franklin, the former address of the Postmasters gallery, which moved to a nomadic model last year. (That is in the 10013 ZIP code, the priciest in the city for residential real estate, the Wall Street Journal just noted.) The new location is slated to open later this year.

POLICE BLOTTER. The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa said that it is in the process of recovering from a ransomware attack that occurred last month, the Ottawa Citizen reports. It said that, while it had lost some operational data, all of its payment systems had remained secure. “We have taken this incident very seriously,” the museum’s interim director, Angela Cassie, told the outlet. Meanwhile, down in Michigan, there was a break-in at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit in the early hours of Tuesday, the Metro Times reports. No art was taken, but a police official said that money may have been taken from a cash register.

The Digest

Many U.K. arts groups are facing funding issues as they try to bounce back from the pandemic and as government entities decrease funding. Not helping matters: Attendance was down sharply at many institutions in 2022 versus 2019: 34 percent at the British Museum, and 55 percent art the National Gallery. [Bloomberg]

Officials reportedly shuttered a show in Shenzhen, China, for displaying a piece by artist Lí Wei that includes the sentence, “We are the last generation.” That phrase became a meme amid Covid restrictions in China, after a man was captured on video saying it as he resisted efforts to move him to a quarantine facility. [ArtAsiaPacific]

Some major lots in a sale of the late collector Heidi Horten’s jewelry sold below their estimates at Christie’s, but the auction still made $156 million, above its $139 million low estimate. Jewish groups had criticized the event because her husband, Helmut Horten, acquired Jewish firms sold under duress in Nazi Germany. [The Associated Press]

Architect Norman Foster just opened an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. “Buildings last as long as they’re useful,” he said in a (quite zesty) interview with writer Farah Nayeri that covered climate change and other hot-button issues. ”The history of architecture, like cities, is a history of renewal. [The New York Times]

Sotheby’s is selling a rare “Pink on Pink” Patek Philippe 1518—one of only 15 known to exist—next month with a top estimate of $4.5 million. Like the art market, the watch business may be slowing; one dealer said that “people are a little less willing to write seven figure checks compared to 15 months ago.” [Bloomberg]

Artist Ei Arakawa‘s latest show, at the Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg in Switzerland, looks at life for artists who are parents. “There is a sense that the infrastructure is changing and that museums are (hopefully) changing their attitudes toward artist-parents,” he said. [Spike]

The Kicker

A REAL DEAL? On a recent episode of the British television program The Greatest Auction, a dealer specializing in Banksy shelled out £250,000 (about $314,000) for a small artwork attributed to that pseudonymous artist. The Guardian reports that another street artist who goes by the name Silent Billhas come forward to say that he actually created the piece, which shows a rat alongside the words “NEVER LIKED THIS BANKSY.” Not an ideal situation! Silent Bill told the paper, “I think the seller should donate the money to worthwhile charities and the buyer should re-evaluate their art portfolio. P.S. I have a nice Warhol I did for sale.” [The Guardian]