Activists Spray Painting in Western Australia, Frye Art Museum Names Director, and More: Morning Links for January 20, 2023

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The Headlines

ANOTHER ART ATTACK. On Thursday, protesters at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth spray painted the logo for the oil and gas company Woodside atop a prized Frederick McCubbin painting, the Guardian reports. The piece was covered with clear perspex, apparently preventing it from serious damage. One person was arrested. In a statement, the activists alleged that Woodside is causing the “ongoing desecration of sacred Murujuga rock art” because of its activities on the Burrup peninsula, north of Perth. Woodside, for its part, said that there has not been any impact on the 50,000-year-old rock art in the area, and that it “has a proven, more than 35-year track record of safe, reliable and sustainable operations.” The protest follows a string of protests last year that saw climate activists throw paint (or other substances) on paintings, or glue themselves to them, in efforts to draw attention to their cause.

JOB POSTINGS. The next director of the Seattle gem that is the Frye Art Museum will be Jamilee Lacy. She is coming to the Evergreen State from the Providence College Galleries in Rhode Island, where she is director and chief curator, and spoke with the Seattle Times about her plans. Over in Vermont, the Shelburne Museum has established an associate curator position for Native American art, and named Victoria Sunnergren—a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Delaware—to the post, per ArtDaily. And in case you missed it: Ron Clark, the founding director of the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, is stepping down after an incredible 54 years, and artist Gregg Bordowitz (an ISP alum and faculty member) is taking his place.

The Digest

The FOG Design+Art fair is currently running in San Francisco, with 48 exhibitors (and an appearance from Nancy Pelosi on opening day). Jia Jia Huang has a rundown of the best booths at the festivities, from Night Gallery, Jessica Silverman, David Zwirner, Ratio 3, Nonaka-Hill, and more. [ARTnews]

After 12 years with a Bushwick, Brooklyn branch, Clearing gallery is closing its space there and opening a three-floor venue on the Bowery in Manhattan, near the New Museum. The enterprise, which reps artists like Korakrit Arunanondchai and Meriem Bennani, also has branches in Brussels and Los Angeles. [ARTnews]

UNESCO held workshops this week in Warsaw for officials from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and other nearby countries, with the aim of teaching them how to identify cultural material that has been looted from Ukraine and smuggled abroad. [The Associated Press]

Marcela Guerrero, who organized the acclaimed exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria” at the Whitney, was profiled in the Times. She is the museum’s first Puerto Rican curator, and said, “The goal for me is to demystify this world because it can be so exclusive and so mysterious.” [The New York Times]

In the market for a Frank Lloyd Wright–designed home? His Circular Sun House in Phoenix—one of only 14 circular residences that he designed!—has been listed for a cool $8.95 million. It has three bedrooms, three baths, and 3,095 square feet, and was the last house he designed before his death in 1959. [Architectural Digest]

THE FUTURISTS.CoinDesk reports that Tonic.xyz, an NFT gallery that specializes in generative art, is about to unveil its first collection, from artist Jaime Derringer. The venture was cofounded by Susannah Maybank, formerly of Gagosian. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports, artist Shezad Dawood is releasing work through Zien , a platform whose focus is “expanded NFTs,” meaning tokens that can be exchanged for physical objects, rather than merely displayed on screens.

The Kicker

THE MOON MAN. In New York, the Pace Gallery is restaging Robert Whitman’s seminal 1960 Happening American Moon at its Chelsea location, and the artist spoke with the New York Times about the project . However, in keeping with the piquant mystery that so often radiates from his work, Whitman did not exactly make things clear. “I used to try to explain things to myself—what I was doing,” he told the paper. “Then I suddenly realized my ideas and thoughts and rationalizations were nonsense, and I just decided to go with my intuition.” Artists! [NYT]