Ai Weiwei Talks Money, MOCA Detroit Gets Artistic Director, and More: Morning Links for April 4, 2023

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The Headlines

THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR. After almost seven years as director and CEO of the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, Alan Chong is departing, the New Hampshire Union Leader reports. “This is the ideal moment for both me and the museum to start new chapters in our work,” Chong said in a statement. The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit has tapped Jova Lynne, its senior curator, to be its first-ever artistic director, DBusiness reports. In the role, Lynne will run the museum with its chief operating officer, Marie Madison-Patton. (MOCAD hired an executive director last year, but then soon “parted ways” with her, for unexplained reasons.) And Harper Montgomery has been tapped to be director of the Hunter College Art Galleries in New York, per Patch, succeeding Joachim Pissarro, who is retiring.

A BASQUIAT BONANZA. Tomorrow, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris opens an exhibition devoted to the collaborative work of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the traveling Basquiat show “King Pleasure” is now on in L.A., and in the Los Angeles Times, journalist Deborah Vankin had the smart idea of compiling a list (with a handy map) of some of Basquiat’s favorite haunts in the city. (He lived there between 1982 and 1984, and visited regularly.) Those spots include the restaurants Mr. Chow and Spago and the Maxfield fashion store. Meanwhile, the Art Newspaper has a guide to “must-read books” about the famed artist, selected by expert Dieter Buchhart. 

The Digest

Global art sales reached $67.8 billion in 2022, according to an annual survey from Art Basel and UBS, showing “muted growth” of 3 percent over the previous year, Angelica Villa reports. Large galleries saw a juicy 19-percent jump in sales, on average, while smaller firms struggled, according to the study’s author, Clare McAndrew. [ARTnews]

Portuguese artist Grada Kilomba, who works across a range of mediums, has joined the powerhouse Pace gallery but will continue to work with Goodman Gallery, of Johannesburg, Cape Town, and London, Alex Greenberger reports. Kilomba will curate the next Bienal de São Paulo, in September, and have a solo show with Pace in May. [ARTnews]

Elyn Zimmerman’s 225-ton landscape installation Marabar (1984) has been relocated from the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Geographic Society (which decided it was in the way of a planned expansion) to American University in the city. [The New York Times]

The Espoo Museum of Modern Art in that Finnish city has promoted its curator, Ingrid Orman, to chief curator. [Helsinki Times]

Art writer Katy Hessel wrote about sitting for portraits by the painter Chantal Joffe in recent years.“Sometimes, she sees things before I do,” Hessel said. “It’s only when I look at a painting retrospectively that I realize how I was feeling.” [Katy Hessel/Substack]

Cool dad alert! Football superstar Tom Brady took his kids to visit the experiential art center Superblue Miami. [People]

The Kicker

LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE. Artist Ai Weiwei is about to open a major show at the Design Museum in London, and was profiled in the Guardian by writer Steve Rose. Among the topics that Ai covered: TikTok, his life in Portugal, and his approach to his finances. “I have a habit of spending all the money I have,” he said. “Because I have a theory: you are as rich as how much you can spend, not how much you have.” [The Guardian]