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The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) has announced that Pam Rorke Levy will be replaced by Lonnie Graham as Chair of the Board of Trustees. The SFAI has been fighting to stay afloat, financially, as attendance had declined, but the exit of Levy comes soon after the Board faced criticism over discussing the potential sale of a Diego Rivera mural.

In 2018, Levy became Chair of the Board after serving on the committee since 2013. Last summer, Levy’s term expired but she remained on the Board to support the school as it navigated the pandemic. “I feel I can step back,” Levy told The New York Times in light of the announcement, “SFAI has the runway to rebuild itself.” Levy will work alongside Graham until the end of January to assist in the transition.

The SFAI has been in an ongoing battle to save the school from foreclosure, which was imminent in the spring of last year. A deal was negotiated with the University of California which allowed the 150-year old art school to skirt closing for good. Ultimately, the University of California purchased more than $19 million of the SFAI’s debt from private banks while the board focused on restructuring to safeguard the school’s future.

To help alleviate financial pressures, board discussions included airing the idea to sell a mural by Rivera, a renowned Mexican artist who heavily influenced the San Francisco area. The mural was created in 1931 and holds and estimated value of $50 million. When it broke that the artwork’s future was uncertain, alumni and faculty were outraged by the motion. Soon after, though, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to give the artwork landmark status, which would make any future sale or relocation of the artwork far more difficult.

The SFAI Board also faced backlash after making the decision to use restricted endowment funds to help cover school spending. However, the decision received criticism from a few Board members, one of which stepped down earlier in January, as well as others outside of the committee. According to Graham, last week the Board revisited this and decided to procure a $7 million loan so that the endowment would remain in tact.

Graham, who graduated from the SFAI in 1984, is an artist, photographer, and cultural activist. In 2002 and 2016, he was an adjunct professor at the art institute and became a part of the Board of Trustees in July of last year. He previously worked as the Acting Associate Director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia and the Director of Photography at Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild in Pittsburg. A Pew Fellow, Graham is currently the Executive Director of The PhotoAlliance in San Francisco and a professor of art in photography at Pennsylvania State University.

Alongside the election of Graham, John Marx has been elected as Vice Chair of the Board and will replace Bonnie Levinson and Jeremy Stone, who have been co-Vice Chairs since 2020 and 2019, respectively.

“As we move forward,” Graham said in a statement released by the SFAI, “I would like to see the San Francisco Art Institute continue to cultivate and sustain experimentation and innovation in the fine arts as we imagine an inclusive and collaborative educational environment.”

In this week’s Art World Roundup we look at the future for Nick Cave’s Truth Be Told and the Robert S. Duncanson artwork gifted to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris by Missouri Republican. Also, the final Nazi-looted artwork of the Gurlitt trove is returned to the heirs of its rightful owner, the Castello di Rivoli’s part in the pandemic, and an art dealer found guilty for trying to sell a fake Albers painting. 

Sign or not, the Brooklyn Museum wants Nick Cave artwork

In Kinderhook, New York an artwork by Nick Cave continues to divide opinions, but the future of the artwork is a little more certain as the Brooklyn Museum has offered to put the artwork on view this spring. Titled Truth Be Told, Cave’s work consists of 25-foot-tall black vinyl letters that currently partially cover the façade of Jack Shainman’s Kinderhook art space. A “pointed antidote to a presidency known for propaganda that disguises truth and history to present racist and nativist ideology as patriotism,” Truth Be Told was co-designed with Bob Faust and installed in October. Almost immediately, though, Kinderhook residents took issue with the artwork. The issue hinges on if the artwork is actually a sign, which would mean it’s violating city ordinances. Mayor of Kinderhook and the town board have all called for the removal of the artwork and threatened Cave with fines. That dispute is ongoing, but no fines have been implemented, yet. Cave responded to the town’s actions with an open letter that referred to the move as censorship. The letter was signed in support by philanthropist Agnes Gund, MoMA director Glenn Lowry, curator Helen Molesworth, and Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak, among others. Following the open letter, Pasternak made moves to have Truth Be Told come to the Brooklyn Museum where it will now go on view at the same time as the museum will be showcasing one of Cave’s well-known soundsuits. “Museums are being called on to tell the truth, from the painful to the celebratory,” Pasternak told The New York Times on the topic of the artwork. “We can invite a constructive conversation.”

Artwork of hope by Black abolitionist painter headed to the Capitol Building

On Wednesday, Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46^th President of the United States and Kamala Harris made history in becoming the first female Vice President. That day, Republican senator Roy Blunt of Missouri presented Biden and Harris with an 1859 painting by Robert S. Duncanson, one of the most acclaimed Black artists in US history, alongside two US flags and a pair of commemorative vases. Called Landscape with Rainbow, Duncanson’s work depicts an idealistic landscape wherein a couple walks through a pasture with a dog beneath the arch of a rainbow. Rainbows are often associated with hope, which was very much Duncanson’s aim with the work, as the painting is described as “a late hope for peace before the onset of Civil War” by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, who is loaning the work. The notions of peace and unity reflect the main theme of Biden’s inaugural address in which he emphasised the need for unity amongst the people of the US. Based in Cincinnati, Duncanson was well-known for his work and his abolitionist political view. However, the artist has gone largely under recognised outside of his home state of Ohio. Blunt call the work “a good sign” and thank Jill Biden, the new First Lady, for her help in selecting the work. “While [Duncanson] faced lots of challenges,” continued Blunt, “he was optimistic, even in 1859, about America.”

Final Nazi-looted artwork returned from Gurlitt trove

The 14^th and potentially final Nazi-looted artwork held in the Gurlitt trove has been returned to the heirs of its rightful owner. The artwork, an 1840s drawing by Carl Spitzweg titled Das Klavierspiel (Piano Playing) was among the nearly 1,600 artworks discovered to belong to Cornelius Gurlitt who had inherited the trove from his father, notorious Nazi art collector Hildebrand Gurlitt. The Spitzweg was belonged to Henri Hinrichsen, a Jewish music publisher, until 1939 when, according to the German Lost Art Foundation, the Gestapo seized the artwork “due to Nazi persecution.” In the following year, the artwork was purchased by Hildebrand and while the money was transferred into Hinrichsen’s account, he was unable to access the money. In September of 1942, Hinrichsen was murdered at Auschwitz. “Behind every one of these pictures stands a human, tragic fate such as that of Auschwitz victim Dr. Henri Hinrichsen,” Monika Grütters, culture minister of Germany, said in a statement. “We cannot make up for this severe suffering, but we are trying with the appraisal of Nazi art looting to make a contribution to historical justice and fulfill our moral responsibility.”

Castello di Rivoli to help distribute vaccines

As vaccines are rolled out around the world, the Castello di Rivoli in Turn will be the first cultural centre to be transformed into a vaccination facility. Working alongside the Rivoli heath authority, the museum’s third floor will be transformed into a vaccination site in the spring. The museum’s climate controlled, security, and current COVID-related protocols make the museum a “well-equipped” and ideal place to transition into such a facility. “Art has always helped, healed and cured—indeed some of the first museums in the world were hospitals,” said Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of the museum, in a statement. “Our buildings can continue to serve this purpose and fulfil our mission: arte cura—art helps.” The bottom two floors of the museum will remain exhibition and gallery space while the vaccination facilities operate upstairs. Italy was among the first hardest-hit European countries in the pandemic. At the end of last year, Italy also announced pop-up vaccination pavilions designed by Stefano Boeri that will move around Italy’s public squares.

Art dealer found guilty in case involving fake Albers painting

Gabriele Seno was convicted this week after attempting to sell a fake Josef Albers painting for €320,000. In September of last year, the Court of Milan found the art dealer to be guilty for his action although he upholds that he was unaware that the artwork was a forgery. The court handed Seno a suspended prison sentence of one year and eight months and a fine of €4,000. Seno is appealing the sentencing. The artwork in question was a yellow and orange variation of Study for Homage to the Square purportedly by Albers. Seno maintains that the artwork was handed down to him by his father, who acquired the work in 1986, and that he believed it to be authenticate. The artwork was viewed by Nicholas Fox Weber, executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, who ultimately found it to be a fake. Weber’s opinion of the work weighed heavy in the trial and the judge noted that Weber was “immediately” aware that the artwork was not authentic. The “technique of application of color” and the fact that “the artist’s signature on the painting, apparently referable to Albers, but unquestionably apocryphal to [Weber’s] expert eye” were cited in the judge’s ruling. Albers’ paintings are deceptive in nature and to an untrained eye would appear to be easy to recreate. “People think they are easy to forge as essentially they are three squares,” Weber told the Financial Times, “but in fact [forgeries] are quite recognizable,”

For the director of the Prado, Miguel Falomir, the pandemic has led to at least one positive: a re-evaluation of their collection. With that, the Madrid museum has announced that their permanent collection will be reorganised to better represent and showcase works by foreign and female artists.

While the rehang hasn’t come about by “the whims of curators or the director,” nor has it been the result of the pandemic, per se, Falomir said that the museum’s forced closures had given staff the unique opportunity to revisit and reimagine the collection. Instead the decision was based on the want to make the museum “far more inclusive” and better portray different time periods and schools.

Rejigging the collection will take time, but it is possible that by the summer, some of the changes will already be noticeable. It also seems that some galleries will remain as they are.

An exhibition currently on view at the Prado, called “Uninvited Guests” was noted by Falomir as part of the learning curve to move forward with the reconfiguring of the museum. The exhibition opened at the museum in October and was the first show after the museum reopened following initial COVID-19 lockdowns in Spain. Javier Solana, president of the Prado board of trustees, said the show reflected the “Prado’s determination to continue being a reference point for culture, even in difficult times.” He continued stating that the exhibition aimed “to offer a reflection on the way in which the structures of power defended and disseminated the role of women in society through the visual arts, from the reign of Isabel II to that of her grandson Alfonso XIII.”

However, the exhibition was the recipient of criticism from some art critics and artists who believed the exhibition clung to misogynistic narratives. Early on in the run of “Uninvited Guests,” an art historian even proved that one of the paintings initially included in the exhibition and attributed to Concepción Mejía de Salvador was actually created by a male artist, Adolfo Sánchez Megías.

In recognition of these faults, Falomir said the Prado was taking onboard feedback and “some of the lessons” learned from the exhibition in rethinking the collection.

“There are artistic phenomena and artists who have been totally excluded until now – not just women but aspects as important as social painting, which hadn’t found a place in the 19th-century collection … or painting from different parts of the world, such as the Philippines, whose art is finding itself more and more appreciated,” Falomir said. “It’s not just a question of gender – although women have certainly been excluded from the museum’s permanent collection and its exhibitions,” he continued. “There are also whole periods in the history of art and whole regions that have been excluded. Bit by bit, we’re going to have a more inclusive Prado when it comes to this.”

In addition to the rehang, the Prado has committed to continuing their work to better represent women within the institution. Falomir said the museum will continue to highlight female artists with exhibitions and acquire works by women for their permanent collection. The museum also hopes to increase visibility for female artists through a new research grant that will work through issues of gender in relation to the arts.