Enigmatic Klimt Portrait Heads to Auction, Union Protests at Guggenheim, a David Lynch Installation, and More: Morning Links for April 22, 2024

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THE HEADLINES

REQUEST PENDING. The Denver Art Museum in Colorado (DAM) has denied a repatriation request from the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Lingít tribal members have submitted three formal claims to the museum since the early 2000s and, in 2017, delegates traveled to the museum from Alaska in pursuit of five cultural objects, including a 170-year-old painted house partition depicting the Naanya.aayí clan crest. According to Alaska Public Media, the meeting was a bust, with one Tlingit and Haida cultural resource officer describing DAM as “probably the worst museum” they’ve dealt with. DAM’s curator of Native American arts reportedly said that the museum was “not in the business of just giving away our entire collections.” The news comes amid a renewed scrutiny of the origins of cultural objects in museum collections, particularly those with sacred significance to living communities.

PICKET LINE. Unionized art handlers and facility workers at the Guggenheim Museum in New York have been protesting on museum grounds for three weeks. The most recent action was held on April 19 and included some 30 workers rallying to bring attention to their stalled contract negations. The union has been bargaining with museum leadership for six months—its first-ever contract was up in January—and talks have stalled over wages, severance, and transparency in hiring. During the last protest, staff stood outside the building chanting “shut it down” as Dolly Parton’s office-job anthem “9 to 5” blasted on a stereo.

THE DIGEST

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, already undergoing a controversial building project, has partnered with the forthcoming Las Vegas Museum of Art to share its counsel and collection. But just how will this arrangement work? [The Los Angeles Times]

“Twin Peaks” creator and meditation enthusiast David Lynch has unveiled “A Thinking Room” at the Salone del Mobile fair. The installation consists of two mirrors facing one another and is decked in resplendent shades of red, black, blue, and gold. Think of it as as a portal from the fair to a transcendental dimension, he said.[HYPEBEAST]

On Wednesday, im Kinsky, an auction house in Vienna, will offer a portrait by Gustav Klimt for sale with a low estimate of 30 million euros (about $32 million). The painting is already a sensation: Klimts of such quality rarely come to auction, let alone at niche enterprises. Meanwhile its subject, a young woman softly smiling against a fiery backdrop, remains a mystery. [The New York Times]

Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz has listed her 65-acre California farm for $8.995 million, saying that she didn’t spend as much time there as intended: ‘Things don’t always go as planned.” Very true. [The Wall Street Journal]

Following a decades-long investigation, the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia has officially welcomed more than 50 stolen historical rifles to its collection. The guns were stolen from 16 museums during the late 1960s and 1970s, and the case wasn’t cracked until 2009, when local authorities received a false tip about a pistol taken from the Valley Forge Historical Society. The tip launched a national search that even roped in the FBI Art Crimes team. [North Central PA]

THE KICKER

SOUND BITES. Ever wondered where scene-y Soho artists got gumbo in the ’70s? It’s a good story. In 1971, Carol Goodden and her artist boyfriend, Gordon Matta-Clark, with financial backing (in the form of $100) from curator and MoMA PS1 founder Alanna Heiss, opened Food, a restaurant staffed by and feeding fellow artists. It was a “clubhouse,” Heiss told New York Magazine recently, and clientele included John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and the dancer Trisha Brown. It was a place to see or be seen—and some things were certainty seen, like Heiss’ husband having an affair (restaurant staff divulged the details). Filmmaker Paul Mazurksy, who was eating in a nearby booth, overheard everything and made it the inspiration for his 1978 film, An Unmarried Woman. Food, apparently, was too grimy for shooting so the break-up scene was staged at Spring Street Bar.