Russian Artist Joins Ukrainian Army, Satellite Fairs During Paris +, Rodin Sculpture ‘Unlocated’, and More: Morning Links from October 18, 2023

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The Headlines

JEFF KOONS: YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT HE IS GOING TO DO NEXT. The much-loved, much-reviled artist has left David Zwirner and Gagosian to be represented by another mega-dealer, the Pace Gallery . Currently the record holder for the most expensive living artist at auction, Koons will present a show of a single work at Pace’s branch in Palo Alto, California, in 2022, and he will have a solo outing in New York with the firm in 2023. “I always liked the idea of having more of a home gallery, that if people were interested in work they would know directly where to go,” the “Made in Heaven” provocateur told the New York Times. Gagosian had his to say about the new matchup, in a text message to the Times: “It seems like a good fit.”

PARIS ROUNDUP. Paris + by Basel may be the big draw this week, Le Quotidien de l’art has listed all the other fairs that are happening simultaneously in the French capital. At the Monnaie de Paris, the 9th edition of Asia Now is focusing on Central Asia. Paris Internationale is also returning for the 9th time in a row with 66 galleries from 25 countries. The 8th iteration of AKAA centers on the African continent and its diaspora. The fair has just announced it would be traveling to Los Angeles in May 2024. Design Miami , which has existed for 15 years in Basel and Miami, is making its debut with 27 participants in Karl Lagerfeld’s former home, after being cancelled last year for security reasons. With 77 falls under its belt, Salon des réalités nouvelles is the oldest event on. There is also Private Choice featuring 30 talents, including three graduates from the Beaux-Arts de Paris, in a private apartment in Paris’s 8th arrondissement. Enjoy! 

The Digest

Today the Children’s Museum of the Arts (CMA) is hosting its fall gala “An Utterly Ambitious Evening” at the David Zwirner gallery. Timed with a benefit auction hosted by Artsy, the event will serve as the museum’s key fundraiser supporting the Emergency Arts Education Fund. New York State proposed a 56% cut to arts funding in 2024, putting unprecedented strain on the city’s art education. [Artsy]

A statue by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, part of his famous Les Bourgeois de Calais group, is currently “unlocated” in Glasgow’s art collections, museum officials have said. The plaster sculpture, bought by Glasgow Museums from the artist in 1901 and estimated at £3m today, was exhibited in Kelvingrove Park from 25 June to 30 September 1949, but is now missing. [The Guardian]

Steve Bell, the long-serving satirical cartoonist who has worked 40 years for The Guardian newspaper, has had his contract terminated after an accusation of antisemitism. His unpublished drawing of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows him performing surgery on his own stomach, and a flesh wound that matches the outline of the Gaza Strip. [The Art Newspaper]

Roberto Gil de Montes gets the profile treatment from The New York Times. The Mexican artist has painted for decades, but it wasn’t until 2020 that the global spotlight found him. How has the art world caught up with him? His work will be shown by husband and wife duo Mónica Manzutto and José Kuri — the founders of the gallery kurimanzutto — who are taking part in Paris+ by Basel for the first time. [The New York Times]

Alexandre Arrechea, 53, is currently the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. The Cuban visual artist has long been intrigued by architecture and its meanings. A formative experience for him was watching protesters target colonial buildings during the turmoil of the Mariel boatlift, a massive migration of Cubans to Florida in 1980. “Those stories hidden in those buildings,” he says, “have been a way for me to understand architecture.” [LA Times]

The Kicker

FROM ACTING TO PAINTING. American actress Sharon Stone has been painting for the past three years. Since the Academy Award-nominated actor picked up a paintbrush in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, she hasn’t put it down. “I just get in this kind of trance,” Stone said of her daily pictorial practice during an interview with CNN. This week, she presented the fruits of that new labor at her first East Coast exhibition, “Welcome to My Garden,” which runs through December 3 at C. Parker Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut. [CNN]

Correction: The 10/17/2023 Breakfast with ARTnews incorrectly stated that in reaction to an email from Noah Horowitz, Art Basel’s chief executive, sent to VIPs of the Paris + art fair, anti-ram barrier were be placed around the venue. The barriers were not placed in reaction to an email from Horowitz.