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THE HEADLINES
LIST OF DEMANDS. In a dramatic twist many had feared, a group of cyber-extortionists called RansomHub claimed responsibility Monday for hacking Christie’s earlier this month, and threatened to release “sensitive personal information” on about 500,000 clients, reports Daniel Cassady for ARTnews. Exactly what kind of personal information, and whether it includes financial data, remains unclear. According to the New York Times, RansomHub said it would release the data by the end of May if a ransom is not paid, and posted a countdown timer. The group also claimed they “attempted to come to a reasonable resolution with [Christie’s] but they ceased communication midway through.” However, Christie’s spokesperson Edward Lewine said only “some limited amount of personal data” for certain clients had been compromised, and that the auction house has no evidence the hackers have “financial or transactional records.” The auction house had earlier publicly downplayed the shutting down of its website during its marquee May sales as a “technology security incident,” though the NYT reported there was in-house “panic.”
Related Articles
CANINE OUTCRY. A Nina Beier performance using live dogs at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City has sparked an outcry from animal rights activists and dog lovers. Footage of the piece featuring a group of dogs playing dead, titled Tragedy (2011), has gone viral, leading many social media users and Mexican politicians to denounce the museum and the event. Mexico City governor Martí Batres Guadarrama called for an animal rights investigation, which the country’s PAOT organization has since launched. The museum has also issued two statements over the weekend condemning animal abuse and insisting dogs “are treated with dignity and respect.” No dogs were harmed or in distress, it’s important to note, as the trainer was blended into the crowd during the performance.
THE DIGEST
Artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz has died at age 77, announced contemporary art center Wiels, in Brussels, last week. The Paris-born artist was known for his large and richly chaotic installations that contended with Minimalism. [Artforum]
A lost and belatedly authenticated Caravaggio titled Ecce Homo, has gone on display following its renovation at the Prado Museum in Madrid, and after it was almost accidentally sold for just €1,500. The museum has called the work “one of the greatest discoveries in the history of art,” and will display it until October. [The Guardian]
The Wing Luke Museum in Seattle has remained temporarily closed following a reported 26 staff members walked out last week to protest the museum’s exhibit featuring “Zionist language” and “Zionist perspectives,” according to a social media post by demonstrators. “The Confronting Hate Together exhibit shares perspectives from the Washington State Jewish Historical Society (WSJHS) that conflate anti-Zionism as antisemitism,” argues the group in their post. [The Seattle Times]
Artists and legal heirs to artists’ estates have published a letter in Le Monde demanding a halt to the June 6 Christie’s auction of a portion of the modern art collection amassed by French automaker Renault. The collection was part of Renault’s former cultural program designed to introduce the arts to industrial workers. [Le Monde]
The Native Lenape people who lived in what is now Manhattan before emigrants from the Netherlands founded New Amsterdam in 1664 are demanding that the Dutch state formally apologize for ousting their people and offer compensation. Their request comes in time for the exhibition “Manahahtáanung or New Amerstardam? The Indigenous Story Behind New York,” at the Amsterdam Museum. [El Pais]
A pastel newly attributed to Edgar Degas has surfaced in Spain, first acquired by the Spanish artist Julián Bastinos (1852–1918). The work depicts two red-headed women in a brothel, as one powders her face; it corresponds to scenes the artist painted between 1875 and 1885. [Le Quotidien de l’Art]
The Eiffel Tower will benefit from an additional €15 million in public capital to help shore up expenses incurred by the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, which manages the monument. The financial lifeline follows losses from Covid-related closures, additional maintenance and renovation costs, and strikes earlier this year by workers, protesting the monument’s alleged mismanagement. [BFM TV]
The Italian government has seized the villa where composer Giuseppe Verdi lived and composed La Traviata, and will turn it into a museum dedicated to him. Four Verdi heirs and owners of the decaying 19th-century property near Piacenza, had planned to sell it at auction for a reported €20 million, according to Corriere di Bologna, but are instead set to receive between €8 million and €9 million from the state. They have the right to oppose the seizure in court. [The Art Newspaper]
THE KICKER
IF YOU BUILD IT. Artist Heidi Schwegler was worried that she and her musician partner, Derek Monypeny, would be isolated out in the Mojave desert, where they moved to live and make art as close as they could afford to Los Angeles, while remaining accessible to art centers, the Los Angeles Times reports. It turns out she needn’t have feared. Heidi founded the Yucca Valley Material Lab, which has become a “landing place for out-of-town artists and people looking for a way to plug into the desert,” writes Angella d’Avignon. Every workshop at the Lab sells out, and it has become part of the region’s pull, as artists priced out of Los Angeles head east. “I built this program because I was really afraid I would become a total recluse out here, because I didn’t think anybody was out here,” Schwegler said. “Come to find out, it’s just like that saying: ‘If you build it, they will come.’”