In a world where there tends to be very little theatre news aside from the cancelling of runs and festivals, a positive announcement has come from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has just appointed to the role of president Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a festival veteran and the creator of hit play-turned-series Fleabag. The announcement came this past week and has been met with celebration from Fringes around the world, the irreverent and innovative artists more than deserving of the position.

The vote was unanimous to appoint Waller-Bridge to the honorary position. It is the first role of its kind to exist within the Edinburgh Fringe Society, which is the charity connected to the artists participating in the Edinburg Fringe. Waller-Bridge will serve in a public capacity, representing and voicing the interests of the Society and matters relating to the Fringe when needed. Chief Executive of the Society Shona McCarthy said of the decision:

“The Fringe Society is here to keep advocating for the Fringe and the thousands of amazing creatives who make it happen every year. I am absolutely thrilled to have the fantastic Phoebe in our corner, championing those calls.”

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’ appointment comes at a poignant time when we are almost to the year anniversary of when the world began shutting down amidst the pandemic. The performing arts sectors have been hit exceptionally hard by most measures, and it goes without saying that few Fringes saw the light of day in 2020. 

Her appointment also makes sense in that she has brought art founded in the Edinburgh Fringe to such a lofty height. Fleabag has been a wild success through the BBC and Prime Video, and it’s not too often a one-person show becomes a hit TV series. The clever, soul-searching, raunchy, and beautifully genuine writing and performance that Waller-Bridge has exhibited in her work are proof of her merit alone. With Edinburgh as the mother-of-all Fringes and Waller-Bridge as one of its most impressive alumni, her position as President is an inspiration of success for all in the theatrical arts.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge stated: 

“The Edinburgh Fringe has staged an annual cultural revolution for decades. It’s where thousands of writers, comedians, performers and artists cut their teeth and put their most raw work out into the world. Whether it’s a two hander in a shoebox, a gig in a van, a promenade through the streets or a mammoth musical epic, this festival is a global symbol of artistic freedom and experimentation…this festival is a beating heart of an industry that has been all but crushed by the pandemic, and I’m proud to be a part of the fight with the Fringe Society for its much needed survival and glorious return.”

In this week’s Art World Roundup, England announces measures for ending lockdown meaning museums will remain closed until May, Creative Capital names Christine Kuan as its new President and Executive Director, and a rare landscape by Vincent van Gogh heads to the auction block next month. Also, Frieze announces Precious Okoyomon as the recipient of the Frieze Artist Award, the Architect of the Capitol requests $25,000 in funding to repair damages by the mob that stormed the US Capitol Building in January, and researchers have published their findings on the oldest-known rock art in Australia.

Museums in England to stay closed until May

Since December, the UK has been in its third national lockdown. So, museums across England, along with nearly every other resident of the country, anxiously awaited news this week from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson concerning the “roadmap” out of lockdown. If the administration of vaccinations continues on track and the spread of COVID continues to shrink, it looks as though museum will have the green light to open on May 17^th, along with other organisations considered to be “indoor entertainment,” like cinemas and entertainment venues. Galleries will have a slight edge as they will be allowed to reopen on April 12^th. Part of a four-step proposal for easing lockdown, museums are part of the penultimate phase of restriction easing expected to come before an overall relaxing of lockdown on the 21^st of June. The news has received mixed emotions. Having an indication as to when lockdown will be over is of course helpful and exciting, but many museums would have hoped to welcome guests sooner (pubs, for example, will be allowed to welcome guests outdoors as early as April 12^th). “Obviously we would love to reopen earlier,” Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London, told Artnet News, “but at least now we have clarity and something to work towards, and that is always a great boost to morale.”

Christine Kuan named as new head of Creative Capital

This week, US nonprofit Creative Capital announced that Christine Kuan has been appointed as the organisation’s next President and Executive Director. Currently the CEO and Director of Sotheby’s Institute of Art – New York, Kuan will become the third Executive Director of Creative Capital and will usher in its third decade of supporting artists. “I am honored to join Creative Capital in its mission to support individual artists creating groundbreaking work confronting the most important issues of our time,” Kuan said in a press release. “One of the things that attracts me to Creative Capital is its fierce commitment to risk-taking artists of diverse backgrounds, who make such powerful contributions to our culture. The pandemic and its fallout have been incredibly challenging for artists of all disciplines, and the work Creative Capital does is more important than ever. I look forward to working with the amazing Creative Capital team to help champion and sustain artists and their practices now and for years to come.” Kuan brings over 20 years of experience in arts leadership to Creative Capital, which has supported more than 600 projects and nearly 800 artists with advisory support and more than $50 million in funding since its founding in 1999.

Rare van Gogh heads to auction

Paris auction house Mirabaud Mercier and Sotheby’s will come together next month to offer a rare and rarely seen landscape by Vincent van Gogh. Titled Scène de rue à Montmartre (Impasse des deux frères et le Moulin à Poivre), the painting was completed in 1887 while the artist was living with his brother, Theo, on the Rue Lepic in Paris. The painting captures the Montmartre district of Paris at the time, which was a unique blend of rural and urban. According to Sotheby’s, van Gogh was intrigued in how the “mills blended with the cabarets.” The painting has remained in the same private collection in France for more than a century and has never been publicly exhibited. However, it is well-documented and showcases the artist’s transition after encountering avant-garde artists and Impressionists in Paris. “Gone were the dark tones of his early works, replaced with color in all its brilliance,” says Sotheby’s. “It was in Montmartre, during these formative years, that the foundation of his inimitable style were established.” Claudia Mercier and Fabien Mirabaud, owners of Mirabaud Mercier, advised the owners on the sale of the painting and suggested the partnership with Sotheby’s to maximise exposure. The painting holds a pre-sale estimate of €5 million to €8 million (£4.3 million to £6.9 million).

Precious Okoyomon receives Frieze Artist Award

Frieze announces New York-based artist, poet, and chef Precious Okoyomon to be the recipient of its annual Artist Award. Launched in 2018, the prize sets out to highlight emerging artists and honour that artist with a $30,000 commission at Frieze New York. Okoyomon has conceived a site-specific “performance-activated installation” that will include poetry, sculpture, light, and sound to create “a portal for a space of fragilization.” The performance will be streamed online beginning on the 5^th of May and will coincide with Okoyomon’s exhibition at Performance Space New York that wraps up on the 9^th of May. Okoyomon has held solo exhibitions at the Luma Westbau in Zurich and the MMK in Frankfurt, and been commissioned to create performances by the Serpentine Galleries and Institute of Contemporary Art, both in London. This year, Okoyomon’s second book, But Did U Die?, will be published from The Serpentine Galleries and Wonder Press. Previous winners of the commission are Lauren Halsey and Kapwani Kiwanga. This year’s Frieze New York will be held for the first time at The Shed in scaled-back fashion. The Frieze Artist Award is supported by the Luma Foundation.

$25,000 in emergency funding needed repair damages to US Capitol Building

Following the storming of the US Capitol Building on January 6^th, the architect of the Capitol and the curator for the House have finally had the opportunity to tally up damages to the building and the artwork it holds. On February 24^th, a US House of Representatives subcommittee heard testimony concerning the damages and the Office of the Clerk, which oversees the House collection, requested $25,000 in emergency funding to restore damaged artworks. “Statues, murals, historic benches, and original shutters all suffered varying degrees of damage, primarily from pepper spray accretions and residue from chemical irritants and fire extinguishers,” Architect of the Capitol (AOC) J. Brett Blanton said in a prepared testimony. “This damage to our precious artwork and statues will require expert cleaning and conservation.” Farar Elliott, curator of the House of Representatives, told of AOC staff that worked quickly to shelter congressional staff in their shops and help protect the building and artworks while the Capitol was rampaged. One clerk secured the safety of the oldest object in the Chamber, an 1819 silver inkstand, while AOC staff members headed to the roof “to reverse the air flows within the building to help clear the air of chemical irritants,” according to Blanton. Paint from newly installed platforms for the inauguration, residue from fire extinguishers, and chemical sprays were responsible for the majority of damages. Two historic bronze and glass lanterns designed by Frederick Law Olmsted were also “ripped from the ground” and damaged. If restoration work does not require the full $25,000, leftover funds would be put towards ongoing conservation of the House collection.

Australian rock art found to be at least 17,300 years old

A large painting found in a sandstone shelter in Kimberley, a remote region of Western Australia, has been confirmed as the oldest known rock art in the country. Approximately two-metres long and somewhat faded, the painting depicts a kangaroo. Radiocarbon techniques were used to test wasp nests present underneath and on top of the paint used to make the image. The results of the test were recently published in Nature Human Behaviour and state that the image is at least about 17,300 years old. The study was led by University of Melbourne geochronologist Dr Damien Finch who developed the technique of using wasp nests to date such artworks. The process uses fossilised wasp nests found around the painting that contain charcoal, which allows for the appropriate testing. The findings make for an “exciting story” says Cas Bennetto of Rock Art Australia, a nonprofit organisation that helped fund this research, but “there will be more” she says. Bennetto believes that further research could prove the painting to be more than 30,000 years old. Earlier this year, researchers published research on the oldest-known cave painting on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi that were found to be 45,000 years old.

A Paris court of appeals has upheld a 2018 ruling regarding a 2015 copyright infringement lawsuit brought on by photographer Franck Davidovici. With the Tuesday decision, the Centre Pompidou and artist Jeff Koons have been found guilty of copyright infringement and now jointly owe Davidovici €190,000 (£163,900).

The lawsuit hinges on a 1988 sculpture by Koons called Fait d’hiver depicts the bust of a woman lying on the ground as a pig, wearing a flowered collar with a barrel, and two penguins look on. The amusing sculpture was part of “Benality,” a series by Koons that debuted in 1988. The series raised eyebrows at the time but many of its works would go on to be featured in a 2014 retrospective of Koons’ works that kicked off at the Whitney in New York before traveling to the Centre Pompidou and then the Guggenheim Bilbao.

Meant to be commentary on the imagery of mass media, Fait d’hiver became the centre of the dispute after Davidovici saw Koons’ sculpture in a catalogue for the Centre Pompidou’s exhibition of the 2014 retrospective. The issue was that Davidovici found the sculpture to be incredibly similar to a photograph taken and published by the photographer in 1985.

Davidovici’s black and white photograph was created for the French brand Naf Naf and included a woman, wearing a jacket with fur accents, lying on the ground. A pig, wearing a collar with a barrel gazes at the woman with the words “FAIT D’HIVER” in the top left corner of the two-page spread.

While Koons made a few alterations, like the addition of two penguins and swapping the fur jacket for a mesh top, the sculpture does seem to mimic the photo taken by Davidovici just a few years earlier.

Davidovici first sued Koons and the Parisian museum in 2015 and in 2018, a judge ruled that the artist and museum violated copyright laws and owed Davidovici €135,000. However, the artist and museum appealed the ruling which has now been upheld and their monetary penalty was increased by €55,000. Additionally, if the museum or Koons continue to exhibit Fait d’hiver online, they will be fined €600 per day. Meanwhile, the publishers of the 2014 catalogue that accompanied the retrospective now owes Davidovici €14,000 as well.

In 2007, an artist’s proof of Koons’ Fait d’hiver sold at Christie’s for just under $4.3 million (£3 million).

Koons is no stranger for being taken to court for plagiarism. In 2019, a Paris court upheld a 2017 ruling that found the artist, and again the Centre Pompidou, guilty of copyright infringement. That case concerned Koons’ sculpture from the same series called Naked and a photograph titled Enfants by French photographer Jean-François Bauret. While the sculpture was not shown in the 2014 retrospective, images of it were used to advertise the show. The artist and museum were ordered to pay €20,000 to Bauret’s family. Koons also paid the family an addition €4,000 for use of the image.

The London borough of Camden is known for its music scene, its market, and the canals that run through it, but in just a few years, a new addition to the Camden area will be a highlight that’s quite literally high up in the air. Plans are in the works for what has been dubbed the Camden Highline, which will link Camden to King’s Cross.

The name and concept no doubt bring to mind the New York City Highline, a stretch of park created on disused railway viaducts, but those things won’t be the only commonality between the two elevated parks. The Camden Highline recently announced that James Corner and his firm (James Corner Field Operations), who were behind the design of the NYC High Line, have been selected to be the lead landscape architect for the London project.

In all, 76 bids were made to lead the design team, but James Corner Field Operations, who were also behind the South Park of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, was chosen by a jury. Corner’s firm will lead an international team that will include vPPR Architects (a firm based in nearby Kentish Town) and London artist Hew Locke, to create plans for the stretch of Camden.

The Camden Highline is a unique, grassroots charity that has been in the works for a few years and is largely community-led. It started with a University College London geography researcher, Oliver O’Brien, who was scouring London for places that would work for a new linear park. O’Brien found such a location on a three-quarters of a mile stretch of railway viaducts that runs from Camden Gardens and to York Way. The idea was eventually picked up by Camden Town Unlimited and over the subsequent years, work has progressed on the idea.

The original intent behind the project was to rejuvenate the London borough, offer new green space to the area, stimulate businesses, and help mitigate the amount of footfall that travels along the narrow footpaths of Regent’s Canal, which already connect King’s Cross and Camden. However, between the tolls of the pandemic and Brexit, the Camden Highline will offer a “positive feelgood investment to help London come out of all the negative vibes of the past couple of years,” according to Corner.

While similar in approach to the High Line in New York City, the overall feel of the Camden Highline will be quite different. The viaduct will be shared with railways still used for the Northern Line, one of the Underground lines, and the cityscape around the viaducts consists of relatively low buildings in comparison to NYC.

“Camden has its own dishevelled, edgy, eclectic feel,” Corner continued. “It has its own vibe and own context that we want to leverage and play on. It’s not New York, so this elevated walk should be unique to Camden.”

It is estimated that the project will cost around £35 million and take roughly three years to complete. First designs will take a number of months to complete and in the meantime, locals will have the opportunity to give their input. To offer more information on the project, on March 11^th, the Camden Highline charity will be hosting an online Q&A with James Corner Field Operations, vPPR Architects, Camden Highline Chair and Jury member Richard Terry, CEO Simon Pitkeathley and Caroline Cole from Colander Associates.

A year ago, you might not have been aware of a man by the name of Mwazulu Diyabanza. But that all changed last summer when Diyabanza made a name for himself as a repatriation activist with one singular protest.

By now, you’re probably familiar with the story. On June 12th, 2020, Diyabanza and four friends bought tickets and entered the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. Soon after entering the museum, Diyabanza was making an impassioned speech on repatriation and the need to return the thousands of cultural objects held in European institutions. He then pried a funerary post free from its mount and headed for the door. The entire event was filmed by his friend and when the police arrived, Diyabanza said “well that’s good, I want to report a theft.”

This story has been widely circulated by news outlets, but Resistance, a Gimlet podcast, recently released an interview Diyabanza, giving him the opportunity to tell the story in his own words.

Hosted by Sierra Leonean poet, producer, and storyteller Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr, Resistance “is a show about refusing to accept things as they are.” Diyabanza, without a doubt, is someone who fits that brief.

Diyabanza spoke with reporter Bethel Habte for a new episode of the podcast, fittingly titled “I Want To Report A Theft,” and it’s a must-listen, even if podcasts aren’t your usual thing.

Habte’s story on Diyabanza allows the activist to add context to his protests, which he’s now carried out a number of museums including the Louvre, and why he’s doing what he’s doing.

“We are not waiting for Emmanuel Macron’s ‘good faith,’” Diyabanza said in the interview, referencing the French president’s commitment to return stolen cultural objects to their homes in Africa. Macron’s promises, and the lack of fulfilling those promises, became a catalyst for Diyabanza’s actions.

During the interview, listeners gain insight into Diyabanza’s family and the bloody colonialist history of King Leopold II of Belgium. Diyabanza recounts the June day that catapulted him into the headlines with details that, until now, haven’t made their way into the press. Although a translator speaks over much of his words, Diyabanza’s passion comes through. He is direct with his words and leaves no room for interpretation.

The podcast, itself, is an excellently produced show. Through a perfect blend of narrative, information, and music, Diyabanza’s story is well accentuated, making it accessible to listeners everywhere.

Diyabanza’s work is undeniably changing the game for repatriation. However, it’s not the work of one man to single-handedly change the landscape of repatriation, but a fight that will require everyone in all parts of the world. Resistance’s episode is rooted in Diyabanza’s efforts, but it’s a call to join him, in any way you can, to recognise and fight the lingering issues of colonialism.