Artworks Attacked at Dallas Museum of Art, Shanghai Arts Venues Remain Closed, and More: Morning Links for June 3, 2022

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The Headlines

ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, a 21-year-old man was arrested for allegedly breaking into the Dallas Museum of Art and seriously damaging at least four pieces on display, including a Greek amphora from the 6th century B.C.E., the Dallas Morning News reports. Initial reports had placed the value of the damaged works at $5 million, but the museum’s director, Agustín Arteaga , said that the actual figure may be “a fraction” of that. The man was charged with criminal mischief of $300,000 or more, which carries a possible sentence of five years to life in prison, according to the Guardian. Dallas police said that the suspect told the guard who apprehended him that “he got mad at his girl so he broke in and started destroying property.”

CHINA DISPATCH. The exact date has not been announced, but Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam said that the Hong Kong Palace Museum will be inaugurated this summer amid celebrations tied to the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, the South China Morning Post reports. Over in Shanghai, an intense Covid lockdown has ended, but cultural venues institutions remain shuttered, and there has been no word about when they will be allowed to reopen, the Art Newspaper reports. A rep for UCCA Edge, branch of the Beijing-based museum in the city, said that it will soon be able to install shows, which will ease reopening when that is allowed.

The Digest

Paul Gunther, a revered expert in arts administration who held posts at the Municipal Art Society, the New-York Historical Society, and the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, has died at the age of 65. [The New York Times]

The Dulwich Picture Gallery in London has quietly stopped billing its director as the “Sackler Director.” The move comes as many museums have removed the Sackler name from projects supported by the family, some of whose members have been accused of fueling the opioid crisis through the sale of OxyContin via their company Purdue Pharma. [The Art Newspaper]

Rich Aste, who has been at the helm of the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, for almost six years, said that he will step down in January to become an executive coach at the University of California, Irvine, and start his own practice in that field. [San Antonio]

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has acquired its first painting by the pioneering African American painter Archibald Motley, who was the subject of an acclaimed touring survey in the mid-2010s. Tongues (Holy Rollers), 1929, is now on view on MoMA’s fifth floor. [MoMA Magazine]

ANOTHER STRONG DAY FOR INTERVIEWS WITH ARTISTS: Judith Baca is in the New York Times, Wangechi Mutu is in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Christopher Wool—making his second Breakfast appearance this week—is in the Guardian.

The Kicker

GOOD ARTISTS COPY. An artist in the Czech Republic who was hired to create a reproduction of a 19th-century painting as part of a refurbishment of Prague’s famed Orloj clock, is being accused of deviating from the original, by Josef Mánes, the Guardian reports. The reproduction was unveiled in 2018, but a recent complaint alleges that the painter, Stanislav Jirčík , altered the clothing of figures and may even have inserted the faces of his friends. Jirčík has not commented. Adam Scheinherr, a local politician, told the paper, “I want to have a serious discussion with him and ask him about the quality of the painting, what was his inspiration, did he study Josef Manes.” [The Guardian]