A lot went down last week in the weird and wild world of Art. Some things were more scandalous than others, some were just plain wacky—but all of them are worth knowing about. Without further ado:
+ Wes Anderson directed an H&M commercial starring Adrien Brody. [i-D]
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+ Controversial English photographer and film director David Hamilton died amidst unresolved rape allegations, at 83. [The Telegraph]
+ Donald Trump’s charitable foundation admitted to the IRS that it engaged in ‘self dealing’ and may have used charity money to buy paintings. [The Washington Post]
+ Following the death of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro, well-known Cuban graffiti artist and human rights activist Danilo Maldonado Machado, a.k.a., El Sexto, was abducted from his apartment in Arroyo Arenas. [Miami New Times]
+ Chinese artist Chen Shaoxiong, one of the founding members of conceptual artist collective the Big Tail Elephant Group, passed away at the age of 54. [Artforum]
+ The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago announced plans for a $16 million renovation that will include a mural by Turner Prize-winning artist Chris Ofili. [The New York Times]
+ Over the weekend, the son of designer Vivienne Westwood and former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren set fire to $6.2 million – $12.5 million worth of punk rock relics on a river barge in London. [The Huffington Post]
+ In a laudable demonstration of diplomacy, Pope Francis and President Vladimir Putin conceded to a Moscow exhibition of 42 paintings from the Vatican Museums’ Pinacoteca. [The Art Newspaper]
+ Event organizers at the annual Art Basel Miami Beach are pooling money together to sponsor a potential performance by Pussy Riot. [Page Six]
+ Sotheby’s denies any involvement in the controversial $127.5 million sale of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Christ as Salvator Mundi to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev. The painting was originally sold to a consortium of dealers in 2013 for $80 million. The dealers’ group is now going after Sotheby’s claiming they were shortchanged on the deal. [Bloomberg]
+ Madonna is putting on a charity clown concert in Melbourne and selling tickets at $5,000 a pop. [news.com.au]
+ Lawren Harris’ 1926 Mountain Forms oil painting broke a Canadian auction house record this week when it was sold for roughly $7 million at the Heffel Fine Art auction house in Toronto. [The Art Newspaper]
+ Salem State University is facing criticism from minority students over an exhibition of election-inspired artworks that displayed images of the Ku Klux Klan and Jews during the Holocaust. [Inside Higher Ed]
+ Rapper Rhymefest purchased Kanye West’s childhood home in Chicago and is turning it into a “community arts incubator” for at risk youth. [Paper Magazine]
+ The New School University in Manhattan named Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves as the winner of the 2016-2018 Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics. [Artforum]
+ An art show in Berlin of works on loan from Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art has been postponed indefinitely because Iranian authorities are refusing to let the paintings leave the country. [The Guardian]
Did we miss any pressing art world stories? Let us know in the comments below!
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