Hong Kong Makes 2024 Venice Biennale Pick, Phillips Readies Sales Platform, and More: Morning Links for August 8, 2023

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The Headlines

THE FLOATING CITY. With the opening of the 2024 Venice Biennale only about eight months away, the action is shaping up. Last month, the United States said that it was going with Jeffrey Gibson for the big show, and now Hong Kong said that it has tapped the freewheeling Trevor Yeung for its display (typically billed as a collateral event rather than a national pavilion). The presentation by Yeung, whose work addresses ecosystems, non-human life, and history in all sorts of intriguing ways, will be curated by M+ assistant curator Olivia Chow; it is being organized by M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. The selection is a kind of repeat win for Hong Kong’s Blindspot gallery, which reps Yeung, as well as the city’s 2022 contribution to the biennale, Angela Su.

A CONCLUSION. The British Museum has reached a settlement with poet Yilin Wang over its unauthorized use of translations by Wang in its exhibition “China’s Hidden Century,” ARTnews reports. As part of the agreement, the London institution apologized for using Wang’s texts in a video, signage, and a catalogue “without permission, compensation, or credit,” Karen K. Ho writes. Wang had noted the museum’s use of their work on Twitter (now X) in June, and crowdsourced funds to bring legal action. Last week, the museum said it was “reviewing the permissions process it has in place for temporary exhibitions, particularly with regard to translations, to ensure that there is a timely and robust methodology underpinning our clearance work and our crediting of contributors going forward.” Wang told ARTnews, “It’s very surprising to me that such a large institution does not have such a policy.”

The Digest

Phillips is creating an online platform called Dropshop that will allow selected artists to sell their work directly to customers, with the auction house taking a fee. A new release is planned for each month; a Phillips exec explained, “When that month is over, the works are gone.” [Bloomberg]

Some architects are beginning to use AI for various aspects of projects, while others raise AI’s potential intellectual property and data privacy issues. Architect Neil Leach said that, for many aspects of design jobs, “AI is already way beyond what human architects are capable of.” [The Guardian]

The Art Busan art fair in South Korea plans to launch a new fair for art and design in Seoul in November. Define Seoul, as the event is being named, will have designer Teo Yang as its artistic director. [The Korea Herald]

Glass half full! NFT sales have been declining, but thefts have been, too. Thefts reportedly totaled $1.73 million in July, a 31 percent decrease from June. [BeInCrypto]

Collector and Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his wife, Hilary Geary Ross, held a dinner for Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and his wife, Suzanne S. Youngkin, in the Hamptons on Friday. Attendees included collector Ronald Lauder, chicken piccata was on the menu, and Wilbur Ross wore red slippers. [Page Six]

Designer Andre Mellone’s Manhattan home in a Shigeru Ban–designed building features art by Jonas Wood, Tom Burr, Matt Connors, Alex Da Corte, Elaine Cameron-Weir, and Reena Spaulings, as well as furniture by Gio Ponti, Donald Judd, Green River Project, and more. [Architectural Digest]

The Kicker

THE STREISAND EFFECT. The Trebah Garden Trust in Cornwall, England, removed four works by artist Andrew Swan from a show on its grounds, following complaints from visitors, BBC News reports. The pieces, which depict the tombs of fictional billionaires, aim to critique wealth inequality. The trust’s director, Jon Cummins, told the outlet that people told him things like “It’s too political” and so he “thought that perhaps I need to take some action.” Swan, for his part, said that he is a “little bewildered” by the complaints. On the plus side, many more people are now aware of his work. [BBC]