Architect Eugene Kohn Dies at 92, Band to Sell Banksy Painting, and More: Morning Links for March 10, 2023

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The Headlines

ARCHITECT EUGENE KOHN, a cofounder of the firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, which designed some of today’s most celebrated skyscrapers, has died at 92, the New York Times reports. Four of the world’s ten tallest buildings were conceived by KPF, as the 650-staffer company is known, according to the Washington Post, including the Chow Tai Fook Finance Centre in Guangzhou and Lotte World Tower in Seoul, where it also built a now-closed Rodin museum. “KPF has been known for being at the forefront of design and for giving its buildings a whiff of the cutting edge, but never so much of one as to alienate its corporate clients,” critic Paul Goldberger writes in the Times. Kohn was a devoted watercolorist, a passion that came from his mother, Hannah Kohn, who was famously given a one-night show at the Guggenheim Museum by its then director, Thomas Krens, in 2002, in honor of her 100th birthday.

THE AWARDS CIRCUIT. The Kyiv-based PinchukArtCentre has begun accepting applications from artists for the latest edition of its Future Generation Art Prize, which annually gives $100,000 to one winner, Ocula reports. Applications can come from anywhere in the world, except Russia and Belarus. Trương Công Tùng won the Han Nefkens Foundation’s first Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant, which comes with $15,000, ArtAsiaPacific reports. And, ArtReview reports, Sara Sejin Chang (who also goes by Sara van der Heide), has won the €100,000 ($106,000) Theodora Niemeijer Prize, which is given to a midcareer woman artist working in the Netherlands. Last but not least: The Academy Awards are this weekend, and Laura Poitras‘s film about artist and activist Nan Goldin is in the running for best documentary feature.

The Digest

The Denver Art Museum removed the name of the late art historian Emma C. Bunker from a gallery named in her honor and returned money she gave, after an investigation produced evidence that she helped the late dealer Douglas Latchford sell looted Cambodian relics. Bunker’s heirs declined to comment. [The Denver Post]

Kathryn Haigh—the chief operating officer of Newfields, which encompasses the Indianapolis Museum of Art—has been hired to be CEO of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indy. She replaces John Vanausdall, who is retiring after a quarter-century on the job. [The Indianapolis Star]

Back in 2010, Banksy gave the band now known as Brace Yourself! a painting in exchange for their dropping the name Exit Through the Gift Shop, due to a copyright issue. (The artist’s 2010 documentary had the same name.) Now the group is selling the work at Julien’s with a $800,000 high estimate. [The Guardian]

Sheep are being used to conserve portions of the doomed city of Pompeii. By grazing in areas that have not yet been excavated, officials say, they manage grass and other plants that could grow and damage ancient structures. [Reuters/CNN]

Terence Nance, who is about to have a solo show at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, talked art, Texas, and spirituality with multi-hyphenate artist Solange Knowles, who is a longtime friend, in the pages of Interview.  [Interview]

ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS IN PROFILE. Santiago Calatrava chatted with the Wall Street Journal about the new St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church he has designed at Ground Zero in New York. Chris Cornelius, who had work in an architecture show at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art last year, spoke with the New York Times about how his Oneida heritage has shaped his practice. Ceramicist Janny Baek, soon to have a solo show at Culture Object in Manhattan, was interviewed by the Times. And Claudette Johnson, who’s about do an exhibition at Ortuzar Projects in New York, answered questions from T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

The Kicker

TIME TO TAKE OFF THE GLOVES. While there is a common perception that one should wear white cotton gloves when handling rare books, professionals in the field say that clean, bare hands are actually better, the New York Times reports. Curiously, the glove myth seems to have taken hold in the 1990s, and been propagated by popular culture. Nicolas Cage wears them when handling the Declaration of Independence in National Treasure (2004), for one. The bottom line: Don’t copy what actors do in movies! In The Ninth Gate (1999), Johnny Depp stuffs an important text in a refrigerator, the Times notes. The incredibly named Barbara Heritage, of the Rare Book School, told the paper that that thriller is “basically about how not to treat books.” [NYT]