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U. ALLEMANDI & CO. PUBLISHING LTD. EST. 1983, VOL. XXIX, NUMBER 321, MARCH 2020 UK £10.00/US $17.99/RoW £15.00

BEYOND THE MASK MONKEY BUSINESS THIS MONTH How galleries in A rococo What’s happening China and Hong Kong teapot and other in the worlds of are coping with the delights at the Dutch Exhibitions, Books Covid-19 crisis fi n e a r t f a i r and Media

NEWS TEFAF SPECIAL REVIEW PAGE 12 REVIEW, PAGES 19-28 40-PAGE SECTION

Blain Southern: After 48 years, still what went wrong? wants Rhodesian Man back Negotiations are ongoing, but UK government refuses to reveal full details of 1972 claim

By Martin Bailey History Museum. It is one of the museum’s greatest treasures, representing invalua- LONDON. The Zambian government is pursuing ble evidence about evolution. a claim, fi rst made in 1972, for the return of the In July 2019 The Art News- famed Rhodesian Man from the Natural History paper submitted a request Museum in London. However, the UK govern- to the National Archives ment has refused to release key documents for three pages relating relating to the case. The 250,000-year-old to discussions on the fossilised was discovered in a mine in return of Rhodesian what was then Northern Rhodesia in 1921. Man, removed from The skull represents a species that lacks a 1973 file, to be some of the characteristics of extinct Neander- opened up under thals and modern mankind. the Freedom of The fallout continues following Harry Blain’s Rhodesian Man (Homo rhodesiensis) provides Information Act. It announcement on 12 February that Blain further evidence that came out of seems surprising Southern, the gallery he co-founded in 2010 Africa. Instead of linear evolution—one that 47-year-old with Graham Southern, had closed its spaces in species replacing the previous one—Africa papers relating to London, New York and Berlin. was probably a melting pot of interbreeding the 1921 discovery Sean Scully (pictured at the gallery), who human species, where Rhodesian Man may of a 250,000-year- joined Blain Southern in 2018, is in dispute with have lived alongside early Homo sapiens. old skull should be the gallery and is among several artists who After the skull was discovered, the Rhode- quite so sensitive. conf rmed to The Art Newspaper that they have sia Broken Hill Development Company, which These three pages not been paid. In the commercial gallery world, owned the mine, donated it to the Natural took of cials nearly six where bigger is often believed to be better, the months to review, but closure provides a salutary warning: a knowl- the Foreign and Common- edgeable source says it was “a matter of over- wealth Office finally refused stretching”; Scully puts it down to “hubris”. The to release the papers in February, artist says his thoughts are with younger artists Releasing papers concluding that it “would harm UK and staf : “When you crash you take down the little relations with Zambia”—and “would be detrimen- people that depend on you: the people that move relating to discussions tal to the operation of government and not in the the paintings, the people that hang them, the UK’s interest”. people that do the lighting, the people that keep “would harm UK A Natural History Museum spokeswoman told all the records. They are all going down with you relations with Zambia” The Art Newspaper that discussions are ongoing with and they are unprotected.” A.S. The 250,000-year-old Rhodesian Man skull was • For the full report, see p41 Foreign and Commonwealth Office found deep in a mine in what is now Zambia in 1921 CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

Monet for nothing: Musée Marmottan’s ‘self-portrait’ is downgraded

By Martin Bailey self-portrait, the eyes turning away from suggested by scholars include Giron, Wildenstein was also the publisher of the viewer, the dangling cigarette and Berthe Morisot, John Breck and John- the Monet catalogue raisonné. In its 1979 PARIS. One of Monet’s rare self-portraits arms resting on the thighs suggest it is Singer Sargent (to whom the painting had volume the picture was recorded as by has been downgraded. The painting at someone informally posing for a portrait. been “attributed” by the Marmottan in the Sargent, but in a revised 1994 volume, the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris is Behind Monet hangs one of his French past few years). Last month the Marmot- after its acquisition by Wildenstein, it was now attributed to the Swiss artist Charles Riviera landscapes of 1884. tan’s scientifi c director Marianne Mathieu upgraded to a Monet—and proudly repro- Giron. It went on loan to Amsterdam’s In the October 2010 issue of The Art told us: “Recent research, supported by duced as a frontispiece. Van Gogh Museum on 21 February, with Newspaper we published an investigative previously unpublished documentation, • The painting is now on show in the Van its new attribution. report saying that, although exhibited now confi rms the attribution to Giron.” Gogh Museum’s exhibition In the Picture The unsigned painting shows Monet by the Marmottan as a Monet, it was The painting had been donated to (until 24 May). The Monet attribution had been as a French bohemian, complete with “not by him—the hunt is on to identify the Marmottan by the Wildenstein • For the full story on the Marmottan’s Monet

HONG KONG: PHILIP FONGAFP / VIA GETTY IMAGES SKULL: COURTESY OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM. © REX SCULLY; SHUTTERSTOCK questioned for some years beard and beret. Although long labelled a the mystery artist”. Other attributions gallery, which had bought it by the 1990s. portrait, visit theartnewspaper.com 26 Number 321, March 2020 I THE ART NEWSPAPER

Museums Heritage United States

Face-off with a founding father: Brooklyn honours African art A bold new exhibition at the New York museum juxtaposes pieces from Ghana and Gabon with works from other cultures to assert Africa’s place in the art historical canon. By Nancy Kenney

t promises to be an unsettling years at Yale University, when the only sight: a Kuba mask crafted from mention of African art in a textbook for rawhide, shells and monkey an introductory art history class was a staring impassively at Gilbert generic footnote in a section about the Stuart’s stately 1796 painting of genius of Picasso. “I’m envisioning this IGeorge Washington. exhibition as a way to fi ll in the blanks Yet as starkly dif erent as they may that are still present in museums and art be, the face-of of these two works of art history books,” says Windmuller-Luna, at the Brooklyn Museum suggests they who is now the curator of African arts share a common purpose, says Kristen at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Windmuller-Luna, the New York institu- The works in the show, all drawn tion’s former curator of African arts and from the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent the organiser of its current show, African collection, range in date from 2300BC to Arts—Global Conversations. Both are ideal- the present day. Indirectly, the exhibition ised depictions of founding fathers, she also casts a lens on the collecting history notes, and chock full of iconography of the museum, which began amassing that would be familiar to people of the African art at the turn of the 20th century culture in which each originated. and has one of the most important collec- For example, the mask depicting a tions in that area in the United States. It one-time Kuba leader, dating from the was also the fi rst museum in the country late 19th or early 20th century, evokes to display African objects as works of A Kuba mask (Mwaash aMbooy) from the late 19th or early wealth and status through its cowrie art—in a 1923 exhibition that bore a title 20th century is placed in dialogue with Gilbert Stuart's 1796 shells, which were a kind of currency in Windmuller-Luna says “we would never portrait of George Washington, evoking the artists' common the Kuba kingdom of what is now use now”, Primitive Negro Art, Chiefl y purpose in depicting idealised leader f gures the Democratic Republic of From the Belgian Congo. the Congo, the curator Each of the 20 African says; the rainbow in works in the current work with art from another culture is non-Western sources to infl uence their juxtaposition drives how artists the Washington por- exhibition is accom- labelled with a theme that invites visitors particular style of abstract art,” she says. in the Harlem Renaissance looked to trait symbolises the panied by a detailed to reflect on the works’ commonality, “Both force you to rethink the linear the African continent for inspiration, peace and pros- label describing the such as “Founding Fathers” in the case of idea of Modernism that only came out resulting in “feedback loops” in which perity ushered in art’s provenance, the George Washington portrait and the of the Euro-American canon.” African American and European Mod- after the American prodding visitors to Kuba mask. One of the bolder groupings con- ernists shared common sources. A book Revolution. consider each object’s An introductory gallery serves as trasts a processional cross fashioned in on display is open at the page on which The goal of this historical purpose and a snapshot of the broader exhibition, 14th-century Italy with contemporane- Delaney discovered the Fang image that juxtaposition, one of the path it took to enter presenting examples of textbooks to ous crosses from . “You see a inspired him. many in the exhibition, the collection. Every jux- demonstrate how sparsely African art time when dif erent kingdoms that are More broadly, the show anticipates is to challenge a tradi- taposition of an African has been represented in the art histori- both Christian are sending embassies an eventual reinstallation of the Brook- tional art historical narrative cal canon. It also features the fi rst juxta- to each other and writing about each lyn Museum’s African art galleries. For that has sidelined African art. By positions, exploring themes like “Femi- other’s religious art,” the curator says. the first time, those galleries will be planting African works in museum nisms” and “Idealised Portraits”. She notes that Ethiopia converted to adjacent to their Egyptian counterparts, galleries devoted to European art, art Visitors are greeted by an abstract Christianity before Rome did, a fact that Windmuller-Luna says, negating the of the Americas, ancient Egyptian arte- I’m envisioning this painting by the Ghanaian artist Atta upends conventional thinking about the traditional barrier between pharaonic facts and the arts of Asia, and inviting Kwami from 2011 and one by the Amer- primacy of Western Christian art. Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa. “I’m viewers to embark on a winding path, as a way to fill in the ican artist Josef Albers from 1959, Wind- Windmuller-Luna particularly hoping there will be an opportunity to Wind muller-Luna proposes to generate muller-Luna says of a pairing labelled savours a 1945 painting by the African mix,” she says, “and reinsert African art discussion about shared themes and to blanks that are still “Multiple Modernisms”. American artist Beauford Delaney depict- into the narrative.” reassert the importance of African art present in museums “Both artists happen to be teachers ing a Fang sculpture, a crow and fruit, • African Arts—Global Conversations, within the museum canon. who were greatly influential to their paired with an 18th- to 19th-century Brooklyn Museum, New York, until 15 The curator recalls her undergraduate Kristen Windmuller-Luna, curator students and are actually looking to Fang reliquary fi gure from Gabon. The November

New arts space finds its muse in the atmospheric Oklahoma sky

By Nancy Kenney park and a renovated 9,800 sq. ft ware- Titled Bright Golden Haze (13 March-10 house that will house studios for ceram- August), the show borrows its title from OKLAHOMA CITY. Oklahoma Con- ics, photography, fi bre art, and sculpting the fi rst line in the opening song of the temporary Arts Center, the state’s in metal and wood. Rodgers and Hammerstein musical leading exhibition space for the art The institution, devoted to art edu- Oklahoma. A smaller exhibition on a of today, will reopen on 12 March in a cation and performances as well as exhi- similar theme, Shadow on the Glare (13 54,000 sq. ft building with a luminous bitions, raised $22.1m through a capital March-6 July), will feature photography facade consisting of aluminium fins campaign to fi nance the new building. and video works. that capitalise on the city’s atmospheric Admission to exhibitions will be free, as “Rand Elliott designed the new light and skies. it was at the museum’s previous building, building, nicknamed ‘Folding Light’, to Designed by the Oklahoma City fi rm which closed last May at State Fair Park. respond to the expansive and ever-chang- Rand Elliott Architects, the building Its inaugural show will also be ing Oklahoma sky,” says Jennifer Scanlan, devotes 8,000 sq. ft to gallery space and keyed to the theme of illumination, the arts centre’s curatorial and exhibi- includes a theatre seating 200, a dance exploring the ways in which artists tions director. “We’ll use the building as studio, nine classroom studios, a café including James Turrell, Robert Irwin, the first piece [in Bright Golden Haze] to and shops. The 4.6-acre downtown site Olafur Eliasson, Leo Villareal and Vija get visitors to think about the way light

Catching the light: Rand Elliott Architects designed a luminous facade of aluminium f ns also features a sculpture garden, an art Celmins explore light in their work. defi nes and changes environments.” MASK COURTESY AND OFSTUART: BROOKLYN MUSEUM. WINDMULLER - LUNA: PHOTO: JONATHAN DORADO/ BROOKLYN MUSEUM. OKLAHOMA: PHOTO: © BRANDON SEEKINS; COURTESY OF OKLAHOMA CONTEMPORARY