Jeff Koons Sends Sculptures to Space, Modigliani Restituted Thanks to AI-backed Research, 341 Ukrainian Heritage Sites Damaged, and More: Morning Links for February 15, 2024

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HEADLINES

SLIPPERY SLOPE. The Arts Council England (ACE) is facing criticism over a new, hot-button policy warning UK arts organization it funds, against making “political statements.” On January 28, the government agency updated its policies with a section on “reputational risk,” urging cultural institutions not to voice “activist” opinions that might be “overtly political,” or “conflict with the purpose of public funding of culture.” Artists and authors have criticized the new policy on social media, prompting the ACE to clarify that they meant to offer steps to “mitigate” potentially controversial activity amid a polarizing political context, and warned that voiced opinions of directors might be “taken to be those of the wider organization.”

ARTIST + AI RESTITUTION COLLAB. Hannover’s Sprengel Museum has restituted a Modigliani painting Tete de Femme (1917), following AI-aided research by French artist Raphaël Denis, whose practice centers on Nazi-looted art. He sourced the Modigliani portrait of a woman to an art collection belonging to the Paris-based journalist and artist, Michel Georges-Michel, whose collection Nazi officials confiscated in 1941. In light of the new findings, the city of Hannover decided to return the work to Georges-Michel’s heirs on Jan. 26.

THE DIGEST

341 Ukrainian cultural heritage sites have been damaged by Russian strikes since their invasion of Ukraine began two years ago, according to a new report by UNESCO. The cost of damage is estimated at 3.3 million euros ($3.54 million), and UNESCO used satellite imagery to help complete their assessment. [Le Monde]

Artist Jeff Koons is sending 125, one-inch, miniature Moon sculptures to the moon today. The works are traveling on a rocket made by SpaceX, the company owned by Elon Musk, aboard a lunar lander developed by the private US firm, Intuitive Machines. The Jeff Koons: Moon Phases Project was first announced in 2022 and experienced some delays. The sculptures represent phases of the Moon and are linked to notable individuals throughout human history, such as Mozart, Galileo, and Cleopatra. If successful, the pieces will be the “first authorized artworks placed on the Moon,” said a project statement. Who did the authorizing was not immediately clear. [The Art Newspaper]

Also today, stolen and recovered glass gems go on public view for the first time at the British Museum. They were among the roughly 2000 objects recently found to be missing, stolen or damaged from the museum’s collection, in a scandal that led to a shake-up of museum staff and leadership. [BBC]

A stolen bronze bust of the scientist Nikola Tesla, by sculptor Matthew Rebrovic, has surfaced in an auction by LiveAuctioneers.com, with the listed seller: Permiere Auction Gallery in Chesterland. The sculpture was discovered missing from Cleveland’s Serbian Cultural Garden in 2014. [The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com]

The Italian media is blasting as “embarrassing” the reconstruction of an over 75-foot-tall portion of the ancient Basilica Ulpia in Rome, because it was funded by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. The basilica was once the largest in Ancient Rome, but it collapsed in the Middle Ages. In 2015 the Russian Alisher Usmanov, considered close to Putin, donated 1.5 million euros ($1.6 million) to the construction project. [The Art Newspaper]

Nina Moleva, known as ‘Putin’s art critic,’ has died and left her art collection including works by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt, to the Russian president, according to Nexta. However, some researchers, and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, have questioned whether the collection includes copies. [ArtReview and Nexta]

THE KICKER

SAUDI PRINCE AND DEPP BROMANCE. Vanity Fair’s Bradley Hope reports on the “stranger-than-fiction” new friendship, make that “bromance,” blossoming between a seemingly unlikely pair: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Johnny Depp. But their reportedly easy entente can be partly explained. For one, the Saudi prince known as MBS is trying to refashion his authoritarian kingdom, which still allows executions by public beheading, into a global cultural hub. For that, he needs the clout of influential stars like Depp, who is reportedly in talks with the Saudi government about an “annual seven-figure deal for him to attend events and shoot films in the country.” In the meantime, Depp has been spending time in MBS’s royal camp in the mountains, and flown by helicopter to MBS’s massive yacht. “The trips to Saudi are actually healthy for [Depp],” a friend told the magazine. We can only imagine.