Art Student Eats Maurizio Cattelan Banana, Hong Kong’s Para Site Space Expands, and More: Morning Links for May 1, 2023

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The Headlines

STUDENT LIFE. A college art student visiting Maurizio Cattelan’s survey at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul last week ate the Italian artist’s infamous Comedian (2019) piece (the banana taped to a wall), the Korea Herald reports. The student described the action as an artwork. Leeum, which has been replacing the banana every two to three days, said that it would not pursue any damages. (All publicity is good publicity!) The exhibition, titled “WE,” runs through July 16. Meanwhile, on Saturday, an Oregon high school student made a striking entrance to his prom, which was being held at the Portland Museum of Art, by rolling up in an M3A1 Stuart tank, KOIN reports. The price of the ride was $1,000, which he partially raised on GoFundMe. He did not describe his performance as an artwork, but it looks like he had a nice time.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS. Landscape architect Charles Jencks’s enormous earth sculpture of a reclining woman in northern England, Northumberlandia (aka Lady of the North), “is looking tired and worn with unsightly patches of damage,” Mark Brown reports in the Guardian. The issue: Visitors are straying from the designated paths, and trampling over the piece. Signs are being installed to encourage them not to do that. Over in Norway, artist Astri Tonoian has installed a life-size bronze sculpture of a walrus in Oslo, the Associated Press reports. The roughly $25,000 piece was crowdfunded, and pays tribute to Freya, the walrus who hung out in the city last summer, delighting onlookers before she was euthanized by authorities out of concerns for public safety.

The Digest

Italy returned an ancient funerary stele to Turkey that police determined had been dug up illegally. The stone piece is carved with a woman’s head and bears the words, in ancient Greek, “Satornila, the wife who loves her husband, farewell!” [The Associated Press]

The Chinese auction firms Poly Auction and China Guardian said that they plan to compete aggressively with their American and European peers for contemporary art consignments. Poly will open offices in London and South Korea this year, and its biz-dev head said, “We are not really afraid of other auction houses. [Financial Times]

A 1977 Andy Warhol painting of O.J. Simpson, then the running back for the Buffalo Bills, will be offered at auction at Phillips in New York later this month with an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000. The piece was deaccessioned by Canton, Ohio’s Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011 and sold to a collector. [Bloomberg]

The closely watched Hong Kong nonprofit art space Para Site is expanding to another floor of the building that it calls home in the city’s Quarry Bay area. The additional venue will open May 12 with a show by local artist Kong Chun Hei. [ArtAsiaPacific]

Speaking of high-rise art venues: The Midtown Manhattan building once known as Beaux Arts Studios has had a wild history, with artists like Florine Stettheimer and Fernand Léger working there over the years. Its penthouse is now a place called Luxuny, where “commerce meets culture and community,” its founder say. [The New York Times]

In the Atlampa neighborhood in Mexico City, the architect Alberto Kalach has designed for artist Bosco Sodi a studio and exhibition spaces that will present his own art and shows by emerging artists, via his Casa Wabi nonprofit. [Architectural Digest]

The Kicker

THE BIG DAY. The Met Gala takes place tonight, with the rich, and powerful, and famous descending on the museum to raise money for its Costume Institute, party, and take in its latest exhibition, which is devoted to the late designer Karl Lagerfeld. One big question about the festivities, the Wall Street Journal reports, is whether Lagerfeld’s beloved cat, Choupette, will be in attendance. No one is saying, including Birman’s agent. (This is a seriously busy cat: she has done modeling work for years, most recently for a Vogue shoot with Naomi Campbell.) The cat’s caretaker offered this: “Knowing how Karl spoke of the influence of Choupette, I know Karl would have been proud to have her at the event.” [WSJ]