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The Headlines
BANKSY’S EARLY GRAFFITI ART CLASSES REVEALED. The ever-illusive Banksy, whose real identity remains a mystery, was not always so secretive, reveals the BBC. In fact, in the late 1990s, when Banksy was just beginning to gain attention, he taught graffiti art to teens at a youth club in a low-income neighborhood of Bristol. The artist, whose works have sold for millions, was only paid about £50 (about $61) to lead each class, but that didn’t seem to matter much. He painted the center’s walls alongside the children and regularly returned to work with them on new murals. What happened to those artistic collaborations? They were painted over many times. “I personally painted over a Banksy. I threw a Banksy stencil away when I was clearing up,” said Peter de Boer, who first hired Banksy to come teach workshops at the center in the Lawrence Weston neighborhood. He only agreed to speak to reporters and show them photos of the classes, if the artist’s identity was kept secret. Published images show Banksy’s face blurred out. “I have no regrets at all. Back then, it was much more about working with and engaging young people,” he said of painting over the artworks. In fact, the kids, now grown up, didn’t know anything about Banksy at the time. “Nobody thought twice about who he was,” said de Boer.
MUSEUMS LAUNCH EMERGENCY LA FUND. Los Angeles museums, including the J. Paul Getty Trust, LACMA, MOCA, and the Hammer Museum have launched an emergency fund, currently at $12-million, for artists impacted by the wildfires, reports The Los Angeles Times. The LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund aims to give immediate help to artists and art workers affected and is administered by the nonprofit Center for Cultural Innovation. “I think it’s the first time, really, that the L.A. arts community has gotten together so quickly, across so many institutions,” said LACMA director Michael Govan. “The fires are still burning. We’re not out of the woods, and yet the Los Angeles arts network is not only connected within itself, but connected globally.” Other organizations which have donated include East West Bank, the Mellon and Helen Frankenthaler foundations, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Qatar Museums, and the Ford Foundation. Plus, cultural figures such as the family foundation of Mellody Hobson and George Lucas, Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg and their Heartland Foundation. The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Broad Art Foundation, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, Gagosian, and Hauser & Wirth, and Frieze have also chipped in.
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The Digest
Eighteen percent of US Museum directors said they were likely to receive complaints over exhibiting work by Palestinian artists, reports a new survey by PEN America, the Association of Art Museum Directors, and the Artists at Risk Connection. Thirteen percent said similar things about showing art by Israelis, while 30 percent said they feared an outcry over showing art critical of Christianity. Also, 28 percent said they were worried about featuring art criticizing Donald Trump. [ARTnews]
After years of searching, a royal treasure trove hidden away as World War II broke out has been found in the underground vault of a Lithuanian Cathedral in Vilnius. It includes crowns, rings, and scepters from Poland and Lithuanian rulers, including Alexander Jagiellon, King of Poland from 1501-06, and Elizabeth of Habsburg and Barbara Radziwill, from the 16th century. The priceless treasure was found wrapped in a newspaper dated September, 1939, the last time they were seen. [Artnet News and Medievalists.net]
This year’s World Monuments Fund (WMF) has listed the Moon as a threatened site, marking the first time it has included a location in outer space. The 25 sites in this year’s Watch list range from historic structures in Gaza, to places spanning multiple countries, like the Quapaq Nan, a pre-Hispanci Andean road system. [The Art Newspaper]
The first exhibit of paintings by Frank Auerbach since his death at 93 in November will be held in Berlin, the city he fled as a child Jewish refugee. Galerie Michael Werner will feature between 25 and 30 works, including self-portraits and portraits of his wife, Julia, along with pieces from the 1960s, opening in May. [The Guardian]
The Trellis Art Fund, a New York-based nonprofit has announced a new, annual $420,000 initiative called the Stepping Stone grants, for which 21 artists will each receive an unrestricted award of $20,000. This is in addition to the fund’s Feb.-launched $15.8 million endowment for individual artists, now renamed the Milestone grants. [Artforum]
The Kicker
LA FIRE BUNKER SAVES HISTORIC ARTWORKS HEADED TO EXHIBIT. A trove of paintings by French painter Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), meant to be loaned to a March exhibit about the artist at the Château de Chantilly, northeast of Paris, must have “felt hot,” comments the daily Le Parisien. They were among artworks stored away for protection in a cement, underground bunker by their owner, LA-based collector and Watteau aficionado, Lionel Sauvage. Sauvage’s house burned in the L.A. fires, but not his bunker full of artwork, which he created to store his collection in case of fire. He will now be shipping over the Watteau paintings to France a bit earlier than planned, where they will be out of harm’s way, and will eventually join others on loan from the Louvre museum.
