The Headlines
AMID REPORTS OF NAZI-LOOTED ART in the holdings of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, its director, Bernhard Maaz, is stepping down, the German press agency dpa reports. An investigation is reportedly being launched into the institution, which oversees masterworks shown by Munich museums such as the Alte Pinakothek and the Museum Brandhorst. Bavaria’s culture minister, Markus Blume, said there had been “indications and allegations of misconduct and organizational failure” at the institution, prompting an internal investigation by a former public prosecutor. Blume didn’t provide details, but a report published yesterday by Deutschlandfunk Kultur states that Maaz was dismissed due to at least 19 claims against top workers at the institution, including ones regarding “sexual harassment of minors and racist harassment by supervisory staff.” Meanwhile, a team led by art historian Meike Hopp will look into the provenance or artworks in the collections, which a Süddeutsche Zeitung report in February revealed may include far more Nazi-looted art than was initially made public.
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WHITE HOUSE SLAMS SMITHSONIAN CHIEF. After the White House ordered a review of the Smithsonian Institution, the Trump administration’s communications director, Steven Cheung, has called Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III a “rabid partisan,” the New York Times reports. Cheung specifically made reference to Bunch’s 2019 book A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump, which describes a museum tour Bunch did with Trump a few years prior. After stopping at a presentation about enslaved people being traded in places like the Netherlands and elsewhere, Trump allegedly responded, “You know, they love me in the Netherlands.” Bunch recalled saying something along the lines of: “let’s continue walking.”
The Digest
The mayor of a village where Vincent van Gogh painted one of his final works has lost a legal bid to seize the land where the artist once worked. That painting, Tree Roots (1890), depicts the trunk of a tree that still stands today in that Auvers-sur-Oise garden. [Independent]
Lisa Long is leaving the Julia Stoschek Foundation, after about seven years as its artistic director and curator. Beginning in May, Long will dedicate her time to founding a curatorial agency, Companion Culture, to help “create new synergies in the art ecosystem and promote sustainable structures for innovative projects.” [Monopol Magazine]
Amid tumult in South Korea, museums and galleries across Seoul shuttered in anticipation of a verdict on whether the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol would be upheld. He has since been removed from his post. [The Art Newspaper]
In other South Korea news, international galleries have relocated their Seoul spaces. Portugal’s Duarte Sequeira unveiled its new space in the Hannam-don neighborhood yesterday, after relocating from Gangnam-gu, while Berlin’s Esther Schipper. Duarte Sequeira unveiled its new space in the Hannam-dong neighborhood yesterday, while Esther Schipper announced plans to move to Hannam-dong in February. [ArtAsiaPacific]
The Kicker
ART THAT’S NOT FOR EVERYBODY. A new documentary, Art for Everybody, attempts, but ultimately fails, to reboot the legacy of popular American painter Thomas Kinkade, “a savvy peddler of kitsch,” according to Washington Post critic Philip Kennicott. Kinkade sold his mass-produced paintings of garden landscapes in shopping malls, making him millions of dollars in the 1990s and early 2000s. He later lost his fortune and died of an overdose at age 54. But, Kennicott notes, “his real talent was to intuit the insecurities of the American public and exploit them, with a toxic fusion of art and religion.” He calls Kinkade a “televangelist” who resented the art world’s rejection and argues that this artist’s work shows how “bad art can destroy democracy.” We’ll let you read more to find out why.
