New Jersey Pulls Funding for Centre Pompidou Satellite, Stonewall Monument Unveiled, Teddy Roosevelt’s Stolen Pocket Watch Returned, and More: Morning Links for July 1, 2024

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THE HEADLINES

SCRAPPED POMPIDOU X JERSEY MUSEUM. On Saturday New Jersey politicians pulled funding for the Centre Pompidou’s planned Jersey City museum, reports Alex Greenberger for ARTnews. The institution formally dubbed Centre Pompidou x Jersey City would have been the first North American satellite run by the Paris-based modern art museum. Others are already open in China and Belgium. Earlier this year, state entities began raising concerns about costs of running the center, in addition to the $50 million in taxpayer’s funds to open it, out of a total $200 million. “We have decided to pause this project indefinitely,” wrote Tim Sullivan, chief executive of the state’s Economic Development Authority, in a letter obtained by the New Jersey Monitor. His reasons included, “the ongoing impact of COVID and multiple global conflicts on the supply chain, rising costs, an irreconcilable operating gap, and the corresponding financial burdens it will create for New Jersey’s taxpayers.” The Jersey City Redevelopment Agency also said the Centre Pompidou must return $6 million in funding it already received.

GUERRILA ADS COMPETE AT WIMBLEDON. Artwork mimicking Barclay’s ads for the Wimbledon tennis tournament, which it sponsors, have been appearing around the club in a protest against the bank’s ties to fossil fuels and Israeli arms manufacturers, reports The Guardian. The group Brandalism has led the guerrilla action, displaying hundreds of spoof ads over commercial billboards, and posters in subways and bus stops. One piece by Anarcha Art shows two hands meeting, one of a tennis player and the other of a banker, with the caption: “Partners in climate crime and genocide.” Another one puns: “Balls deep in climate chaos.”

THE DIGEST

Theodore Roosevelt’s stolen, prized silver pocket watch has been returned to his former home, the national historic site, Sagamore Hill, in Long Island, New York. The watch given to Roosevelt by his sister and her husband was stolen in 1987 from an unlocked case at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site in Buffalo, where it was on loan. The Park Service and FBI did not release information on who stole the keepsake, and how. [Associated Press]

An unnamed, “mystery tax defaulter” in Spain’s Basque Country has settled a large chunk of their debt by forking over some 200 Francisco de Goya engravings, and 87 other art pieces, included Aurelio Arteta’s Triptych of War, all of which are estimated to be worth over $4.3 million. The art reportedly came from the private Juan Celaya Letamendia Foundation. [El Pais]

French auteur filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon were taken into police custody today, following accusations of sexual violence made against them by French actresses, including Judith Godrèche. [Le Monde and AFP]  

Praz-Delavallade gallery will shutter. The French gallery opened in 2010  in Paris, and opened spaces in Los Angeles, and briefly in Berlin and Brussels. Gallery owners René Julien Praz and Bruno Delavallade cited health reasons but also the challenges which “intermediary, independent” galleries face today. [Le Quotidien de l’Art]

Artists are among the 83 people Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon has named to the Order of Canada, one of the country’s top honors. They include artist and Aids activist Joe Average; artist and activist Christi Marlen Belcourt, and the poet, painter and musician Bill Bissett. [CBC and The Art Newspaper]

Qatar Museums and the city of Venice have signed a five-year agreement, which includes developing projects to restore monuments and structures around the water-bound city. Experts have warned that Venice must urgently address the problem of rising sea levels, which the city’s leading conservation architect says threatens its structural integrity. [The Art Newspaper]

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of an intricately decorated, 1,500-year-old ivory box known as a “pyx,” in an ancient settlement in an early Christian church located on the Burgbichl hill in southern Austria. The rare pyx, which depicts Biblical figures, is believed to have been used to hold the remains of saints. [Artnet News]

THE KICKER

MONUMENT SCRUTINY. The newly opened Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center in Greenwich Village, in time for Pride Week, attempts to commemorate the 1969 L.G.B.T. uprising against decades of police persecution. However, The New York Times’  Holland Cotter is left disappointed by the initiative and its reportedly mostly bland design, which he says fails to illustrate how fragile gay rights are today, giving the impression “the Stonewall rebellion and what it stood for is old history.” However, writes Cotter, “we can’t afford such softness in the present malignantly transphobic ‘Don’t Say Gay’ moment, when rightward politics is dragging us back, bill by legislative bill to the pre-Stonewall 1950’s.”