Julie Mehretu Donates Millions to Whitney so Under 25s Go Free, Libbie Mugrabi Claims Art Lender Stole Her Warhol Painting: Morning Links for October 23, 2024

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The Headlines

JULIE MEHRETU HELPS WHITNEY WAIVE ENTRY FEES. Artist Julie Mehretu has donated $2.25 million to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York so that visitors aged 25 and younger can visit the museum for free, reports The Wall Street Journal. Her contribution joins Susan Hess’  for a total of $5 million for the “Free 25 and Under” program beginning mid-December and set to last three years. The entrance fee is currently $24 for students and $30 for adults. Mehretu’s abstract paintings sell for upwards of $10 million at auction – though she doesn’t see those profits. Still, the 53-year-old artist seems to be doing well. That wasn’t always the case, however, particularly in the 1990s, when she was struggling to make her way as an artist in New York. “If you’re waiting tables like I was, you can’t afford to go to museums all the time,” she said, “but young artists need access to art.” For the last few years, Mehretu has been actively advocating for more free entry to the Whitney, and joined its board, where she’s continued to push for it. 

WARHOL WANTED. Fashion designer and art collector Libbie Mugrabi says her Andy Warhol painting was stollen in New York by the lending company Art Capital Group (ACG) and its exec’s Ian Peck and Terence Doran, reports Artnet News . But, in what is unfolding into a dramatic legal battle, ACG alleges it’s the other way around. The lenders argue they are entitled to all or part of the Warhol portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, worth an estimated $1.5 million, which they took about a year ago, as well as a 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting worth $30 million, because Mugrabi didn’t pay fees for a failed loan application, and used the artwork as collateral to cover the costs, which grew to $97,000, according to ACG. ACG also says Mugrabi defamed it, by reporting the Warhol as stolen to NY police, and plastering NYC’s Upper East Side and the Hamptons with “Wanted” posters of Peck and Doran, along with a $10,000 reward for finding the Warhol. In compensation for the “financial loss, professional stain, and emotional distress,” ACG is asking for $30 million. Meanwhile, Mugrabi completely rejects that the lenders have any claim on the Basquiat and is seeking up to $20 million in damages.

The Digest

Thanks to high-tech scanners, William Blake’s earliest engravings, described as recurring doodle motifs, were discovered on the backs of copperplates he made while an apprentice some 250 years ago. “What we’re looking at is a sort of personal-private art,” said Mark Crosby, associate professor of literature at Kansas State University, whose research led to the discovery. [The Times]

The non-profit Fukutake Foundation is building a new, Tadao Ando-designed museum set to open in early 2025 in Japan’s Benesse Art Site Naoshima. The institution, called Naoshima New Museum, will be directed by Miki Akiko, former chief curator of at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. [ArtAsiaPacific]

Cultured Magazine in collaboration with the brand MZ Wallace, is offering a $30,000 prize to support an emerging artist. The artist will be selected from the magazine’s annual Young Artists List and will be announced in February. [Cultured Magazine]

The union representing security staff at the Seattle Art Museum has voted to go on strike in November over the museum’s alleged refusal to meet with workers and dragging their feet on a deal to bow to union demands, such as a higher starting wage and health care expansion. If a contract has not been agreed upon between staff and the museum by November 29, the SAM VSO Union said they will strike. [The Seattle Times]

The Kicker

LORNA SIMPSON’S GREATNESS. For its 2024 The Greats issue, The New York Times Magazine is profiling four artists, one of whom is Lorna Simpson , 64. “It might be best to understand Lorna Simpson — a chameleonic artist whose work bridges various media and genres, from photography to video, sculpture to painting — as an archivist, cataloging the lives and images of generations of African Americans,” writes Dean Baquet. The piece includes a Q&A with the artist and a video clip of Simpson discussing an influential artwork. “When I think of a singular work that I feel is meaningful, it would be filmmaker Chantal Akerman,” she tells the camera. Specifically, she discusses Akerman’s film she only saw once, but never forgot, titled Jeanne Dielman . “It chronicles the life of a woman – the minutia of her life. She shops. She goes to the grocery store. She prepares meals before her son comes home from school. She is also a prostitute,” Simpson recalls. “The relationship between duration of time and the viewer is exploded. I think I saw this film in 1983. I’ve never seen the film again. But it has made such an impression on me…”