Speed Art Museum Plans Sculpture Park, Photographer Roland Freeman Dies at 87, and More: Morning Links for August 18, 2023

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The Headlines

PHOTOGRAPHER ROLAND F. FREEMAN, who devoted his practice to chronicling Black culture in the United States, documenting the lives and work of quilt makers, musicians, vendors, woodworkers, and other artists and creators, died on August 7 in Washington, D.C. at the age of 87, Brian Murphy reports in the Washington Post. Freeman, who usually shot in black and white, took up the discipline after seeing photos of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, which he had attended, in his Baltimore neighborhood. He later became a quilt designer, applying his photos to fabric. “I’m interested in traditional folklife practices,” he said in an interview quoted by the Post. “And in a lot of places in the South, a lot of those folklife practices are closer to what they were 50 to 100 years ago than in a lot of other places.”

OWNERSHIP DISPUTES. New York dealer Edward Tyler Nahem has filed suit in New York, seeking a declaration that his gallery owns a $8.7 million Alexander Calder mobile that he acquired from dealer French dealer Elizabeth Royer-Grimblat, the Daily Beast reports. Photographer Lea Lee, the daughter of the Calder’s prior owner, has claimed in legal actions that her sisters sold the piece to Royer-Grimblat without the permission of their mother. Nahem alleges that Lee has harassed him at art fairs and filed a criminal action against him in France. A judge previously dismissed a lawsuit from Lee; she appealed. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that there is a rather more low-stakes duel ongoing between the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Treasury Department over who owns a 143-year-old painting of Hugh McCulloch, who led those entities at different points. For now, Treasury holds it.

The Digest

The Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, is planing to open a three-acre sculpture park on its grounds in 2025. It is running a $22 million capital campaign to fund the project, which will be called Speed Outdoors and feature works by Mark Handforth, Sol LeWitt, and others. Reed Hilderbrand is handling its design. [The Architect’s Newspaper]

In a blow to selfie takers and Anish Kapoor fans, construction work in the Chicago plaza that houses the artist’s much-loved Cloud Gate (2006), aka “the bean,” will limit access to it until some point in 2024. Those seeking an unimpeded (little) bean experience can instead head to Lower Manhattan. [The Art Newspaper]

An 18,000-square-foot, four-year-old home in the Repulse Bay section of Hong Kong is on the market for HK$2.2 billion (about US$281.1 million). It has 11 bedrooms and eight bathrooms, and if it finds a buyer at that price, it will be among the priciest homes ever sold in the city. One expert said the price is high. [Bloomberg]

Photographs that Tria Giovan shot of everyday life on Manhattan’s Lower East Side between 1984 and 1990 are the subject of a new book and show at Crane Kalman Brighton in England, and the Guardian has published a trove of them. They are intimate, casual, and charming. [The Guardian]

Art publicist Kaitlin Phillips got married at New York City Hall to her boyfriend Joe Passmore, whom she described as “international man of mystery.” Artist Sam McKinniss served as the witness. [Page Six]

Speaking of McKinniss, columnist Annie Armstrong reports that he is “(probably) joining the roster of David Kordansky,” which has locations in Los Angeles and New York, following the closure of his Manhattan rep, JTT. Both the Kordansky gallery and the painter declined to confirm that. [Artnet News]

The Kicker

TOP GEAR. If the aforementioned $281.1 million Hong Kong mansion is out of your price range, RM Sotheby’s has a red 1962 Ferrari 250 GTOcoming to the block in New York during the big week of art sales with an estimate above $60 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. The seller bought it in 1985 for a cool $500,000—about $1.4 million in today’s dollars. “After looking over the car and driving it, I knew that this was the one,” that collector, Jim Jaeger, told the Journal. “It was a car that could also be enjoyed around town.” A very cool thing to say about about a car that is valued in the upper eight figures! [WSJ]