victoria and albert museum

Nike Said It Is ‘Deeply Concerned’ By the Allegations Against Tom Sachs + Other Stories


Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know on this March, 17.

NEED-TO-READ

Covid Impact on London Museums – Museums are still trying to get their attendance figures back to what they were in 2019. The British Museum reported 4.1 million visitors in 2022 which, while being more than three times higher than in 2021, is still more than a third down from its 2019 number of 6.2 million. Similarly, Tate Modern reported 3.9 million visitors, down 36 percent from 2019. The Victoria and Albert Museum had 2.4 million visitors, down 40 percent. (The Art Newspaper)

Tribe Weighs Final Home for Restituted Cultural Objects – Members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, of Wounded Knee, are deciding via consensus what to do with 130 objects and human remains that have been restituted from the Founders Museum in Massachusetts. There is consensus that human remains should be buried; when it comes to objects, including funerary items, some think they should be buried or burned according to spiritual practices. Others hope they will go to a tribe-run museum. The institution agreed to the return last fall. (New York Times)

Fallout From Tom Sachs Expose – Nike has responded to allegations made about artist Tom Sachs’s studio workplace environment. The company said it was “deeply concerned by the very serious allegations” and is looking into the matter. An investigation by Curbed cited former employees who alleged that Sachs made comments related to sex and employees’ appearance, called people offensive names, threw objects across the room, and walked around in his underwear. Nike may have already had some hints as to Sachs’s vibe—apparently, the company altered the packaging for a sneaker collaboration with artist Tom Sachs in 2017, which had the phrase “work like a slave” on it. (Complex, ARTnews)

MOVERS & SHAKERS

The Gallery Merry-Go-Round Spins On – Gladstone Gallery has announced it’s bringing the late Robert Rauschenberg’s $1 million work Maybe Market (Night Shade) to the upcoming Art Basel in Hong Kong fair to mark its formal representation of the artist’s estate along with Thaddaeus Ropac and Luisa Strina. Lehmann Maupin is showing newly added artist Sung Neung Kyung’s Venue 2 (1980), available for $150,000-$200,000. Meanwhile, Almine Rech now represents the wildly popular Madagascar-born artist Joël Andrianomearisoa. (Financial Times) (Press release)

Culture & Partners With Sotheby’s Institute of Art – The debut Culture& and Sotheby’s Institute of Art Cultural Leaders Program will launch in September 2023 to “empower and nurture the next generation of diverse leaders.” Three full scholarships for the 2023-24 and 2025-26 school years will be available to students from under-represented communities for the schools’ Masters programs in contemporary art; fine and decorative art and design; and art business. (Press release)

Liste Art Fair Names Exhibitors – The Basel-based contemporary art fair is set to return this June 12–18 with 88 galleries hailing from 35 countries around the world. Returning galleries include the likes of Tehran-based Dastan, Brussels-based Super Dakota, Los Angeles/New York-based François Ghebaly, Berlin-based Sweetwater, and Paris-based Parliament. (Press release)

FOR ART’S SAKE

The Artist Who Survived the Holocaust – Actor Emile Hirsch has joined the cast of the forthcoming film Bau: Artist at War, which tells the story of the artist who was imprisoned at Plaszow camp and used his creative skills to save hundreds of prisoners by forging IDs. The wedding of the artist and his wife Rebecca at the camp was dramatized in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. (Variety)

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The Victoria and Albert Museum Will Cut a Fifth of Its Curatorial Staff as Part of a Sweeping Round of Layoffs


London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is making drastic cuts to its workforce as cultural institutions around the globe struggle amid extended and repeated closures.

Unions learned that the V&A’s “recovery strategy” would involve lay offs and the restructuring of curatorial departments on Thursday, according to the Guardian. The Art Newspaper confirmed news of the layoffs this afternoon.

To combat a “mounting deficit,” director Tristram Hunt told TAN, the museum is cutting 140 of its 980 jobs, including 30 curatorial posts and 110 from a number of departments including visitor experience and retail. The goal is to trim at least £10 million ($14 million) from the budget by 2023.

The pandemic has left the V&A reeling as attendance plummeted in 2020 to just 20 percent of what it was in 2019. Visitor numbers will probably be at 25 percent of pre-pandemic levels in 2021, and may not return to normal until 2024.

The layoffs follow a round of voluntary redundancies first announced in September, when the museum unveiled the first phase of its recovery plan. The curatorial cuts will mean restructuring entire departments, which are currently organized by materials such as woodwork and metalwork.

The European and North and South American collections will now become one department with three subdivisions. The sub-Saharan Africa and African diaspora collections will join with the museum’s Asian collection in a new department, and the V&A’s Archives and National Art Library will become part of the V&A Research Institute.

“The proposed changes will simplify department structures, retaining curatorial expertise and specialisms across all key material types,” a spokesperson told Midnight Publishing Group News in an email. “Our focus remains on consulting openly and meaningfully on the proposals with our staff and trade union colleagues, and to support our staff community through this difficult process.”

“The curators will be more stretched, it’s true, but I hope the chronological approach will lead to more synergies between them,” Hunt told TAN, noting that the museum’s curatorial staff will continue to outnumber that of the Tate and the British Museum and many European institutions.

But insiders are worried about the long-term effects of such a move.

“It’s hollowing out the expertise of the museum,” one person told the Guardian. “Very experienced conservators are leaving or have left. Some conservators and curators have already left on voluntary terms. The next wave is forced redundancies.”

The Tate moved to eliminate some 400 positions last year, prompting an extended strike, while the London Royal Academy shed 150 jobs. Layoffs have been more prevalent in the US, with the most recent round coming earlier this week with 15 cuts at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

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