documenta 14 has cancelled Auschwitz on the Beach
documenta is at the center of another controversial debate with a performance by Italian artist and activist Franco “Bifo” Berardi being cancelled. The piece, entitled Auschwitz on the Beach, is centered around the migrant crisis in Europe and the comparison between the two events has been strongly criticized by the Holocaust Memorials of the World Jewish Congress.
Franco Berardi has since replaced the performance with happening entitled Shame on Us: A Reading and Discussion. This is not the first time that the artist has provoked controversy, at the beginning of the summer, having stood down from the board of the movement DIEM25, he published an open letter comparing the situation of migrants in the Mediterranean to concentration camps. More details on PW.
CoBra member Karl Otto Götz has died
Pioneer of German post-war abstract art, Karl Otto Götz has died age 103. Götz was the last surviving member of the avant-garde art movement CoBra which was active between 1948-1951.
A major proponent of Art Informel, Götz, born in Aachen, Germany, taught at the Düsseldorf Academy for 20 years towards the end of his career, while his early practice was defined by Nazi oppression, which banned him from painting and exhibiting. His students included Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke and his work is collected by the Tate, the Folkwang and the Israel museum. More on the artist here.
Karl Otto Götz, The Young One is Coming (1946) © Tate
Moniker Art Fair to launch New York edition
The Moniker International Art Fair, a street art fair which has taken place in London for the last 8 years, is to launch a New York edition next May during Frieze.
Running from May 3 through 6, 2018, the fair will see twenty galleries occupy the 10,000ft2 Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse in Brooklyn. Participants include StolenSpace (London), Curious Duke (London) et Station 16 (Montreal). Director of the fair Tina Ziegler, has explained that the time was ripe, with a growing market and street art becoming a “much more widely accepted as a serious art form.” Details on artnet.
Moniker Art Fair
