Erotic drawings rediscovered and Frieze Sculpture 2020 opens
Plus: emergency cash for heritage sites, but job losses announced
friday briefing - 9 October 2020
For once there’s some (vaguely) happy Friday news - this morning it’s been announced that emergency cash has been awarded by the government to keep some heritage sites going during the covid crisis. But as usual, this is tempered by a week of job loss announcements. The Museum of London announced a consultation for redundancy yesterday, with more featured in the round up below. It’s still really quite grim.
A reminder: I now send you the friday briefing every week, with all the latest museums news. If you missed the newly-branded maxwell museums magazine that I sent this week, you can catch up here.
Until next time.
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Good news to kick off. The government has (finally) announced the first recipients of its emergency culture recovery fund. Over 400 heritage sites will share £103 million to help them through the covid crisis. But remember: there is a long winter ahead. The Guardian
And yet. The National Trust confirmed that 1,300 jobs will officially be axed as it tries to cope with a £100 million collapse in its income due to COVID. Sky News
And yet II. Up to 100 jobs - 20% of the workforce - are at risk at National Museums Liverpool. BBC News
“So in your face”. 400 erotic drawings by Bloomsbury Group artist Duncan Grant have been rediscovered. Originally thought to have been destroyed, they were instead secretly passed down over the decades between friends and lovers. The Guardian
Arctic exhibition. There’s just two weeks to go until the British Museum’s blockbuster exhibition Arctic: culture and climate opens. The show’s curator has highlighted how the concerns of Arctic communities need to be heard. Yahoo News
7 years in the making. The long (long, LONG!) awaited Humboldt Forum in Berlin - otherwise known as Germany’s most expensive cultural project - will finally begin to open by the end of this year. Deutsche Welle
Masterpiece on the market. The Baltimore Museum of Art is to sell a major Andy Warhol painting to raise $65 million for staff salary raises and more. The curator who originally acquired the Warhol for the Museum, said she was “horrified.” (And a comment piece in the Art Newspaper called it “disturbing.”) The Washington Post
Lubaina Himid, Five Conversations, 2019, Acrylic paint on five reclaimed wooden doors from traditional Georgian townhouses, Hollybush Gardens, Frieze Sculpture 2020. Photo by Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze
Art al-fresco. Sarah Lucas has brought a sandwich, and Lubaina Himid 3 doors: a delayed open-air Frieze Sculpture exhibition in London’s Regent’s Park opens. The Spaces
Museum Mac. A £200 raincoat has been unveiled as the V&A Dundee’s first official fashion wear. I’m a big supporter of commercial activities like this. The Scotsman
Best of Britain. The British Museum has been named by Lonely Planet as the 56th (out of 500) most unmissable travel destination in the ENTIRE WORLD. It was the second highest UK destination on the list, behind the Lake District. The Sun
and a bonus read
Damien Hirst has reopened his wonderful Newport Street Gallery in South London, with an exhibition of his early works. This week he spoke to the Evening Standard about why the end of the last century was the perfect era in his career to re-examine. “I thought museums were for dead people”
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