Report Clears Indigenous Paintings of Interference in Australia, Trailblazing Tailor Edward Sexton Dies at 80, and More: Morning Links for August 2, 2023

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The Headlines

DOWN UNDER. A report commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia did not find evidence that paintings slated for a show of work by Aboriginal artists from Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) had been interfered with by white assistants, the Australian Associated Press reports. “Without exception, the artists to whom we spoke, unequivocally told us that the works under review in each case were made by them and expressly denied that there had been any improper interference in the making of their work,” a section of the report quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald reads. In April, claims surfaced in the Australian newspaper that assistants with the APY Art Centre Collective (APYACC) had been interfering in the creation of works, leading the National Gallery to postpone the planned exhibition. Responding to the report, the collective told ABC News, “ ‘White hands on black art’ is a false story and it always was.” A separate government probe is underway into the operations of the APYACC, and the report noted that its findings addressed only the 28 artworks selected for the show.

FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHY. Photos that Anton Corbijn shot of artists are currently the subject of a show at Château La Coste in Provence, France, and the Guardian has published a selection, including portraits of Jeff Koons, Lucian Freud, a cigarette-smoking Marlene Dumas, and Ai Weiwei (right before he had to leave to visit a police station in 2012, which gave the image a sense of what Corbijn termed “zen and unease”). Meanwhile, musician Bryan Adams is in the New Yorker discussing his exhibition of photos of celebs (Amy Winehouse, Kate Moss) at the Atlas Gallery in London. Of being photographed himself, the “Summer of ’69” singer apparently had little to say, M. Z. Adnan reports. “How many pictures of a toad can you put up with?” Adams said.

The Digest

Edward Sexton, the British tailor who outfitted luminaries like John Lennon (for his wedding with Yoko Ono), David Hockney, Mick Jagger, and many more from 1969 on, died on July 23 at 80. The writer Lance Richardson termed Sexton’s designs “continental, American, queer, and camp,” Penelope Green reports. [The New York Times]

Art historian Kavita Singh, an expert on Mughal painting and other fields who served as dean of the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, died on Sunday at the age of 58, of cancer. [ArtAsiaPacific]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has linked up with telecom conglomerate Verizon on a new augmented-reality app called Replica that “allows visitors at the Met to scan artwork and bring elements of the works digitally into the global immersive platform Roblox,” it said. [Press Release/The Met]

In other tech news: Later this month, RR Auction in Boston will auction an Apple-1 computer signed by cofounder Steve Wozniak with an estimate of $200,000. The firm made only around 200 of them, in 1976 and 1977; an RR exec termed it “the legendary computer that launched Apple.” [The Associated Press]

The Beverly Hills home of musician John Legend and model Chrissy Teigen features a light sculpture by Nacho Carbonell, a painting by Flora Hauser, and a sofa by Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier. [Architectural Digest]

The Kicker

CHEF D’OEUVRE. The luxe, in-demand Manhattan restaurant Eleven Madison Park just opened its reservation book for September, and shared details about its “final savory course,” rich with squash, in an email blast. “Before they are plated, both the squash and the poblano pepper are grilled and smoked tableside in a clay piece designed by the artist Rashid Johnson,” the resto shared. “The smoke and char from the grill complement the subtle flavors of the squash, which is finished with a sprinkling of coriander blooms.” Two orders, please. [Eleven Madison Park]