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- Cindy Sherman is the cover star of the second volume of Chanel’s Arts & Culture magazine.
- Austrian presidential candidate Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn says that if elected, he’ll return a 16th-century Aztec headdress to Mexico, currently located in Vienna’s Weltmuseum.
- A descendant of the 19th-century artist Jules-Eugène Lenepveu is taking legal action to demand the removal of Marc Chagall’s painting on the ceiling of the Palais Garnier opera house.
The Headlines
SHERMAN IN CHANEL TWEED. On October 23, Chanel is dropping the second volume of Arts & Culture, its free 300-page magazine, graced with new photographs by Cindy Sherman, wearing — you might have guessed— Chanel. More like raw, unsewn Chanel, in the form of their archival fabrics that Sherman draped and wrapped around herself. As Vanity Fair reported, the brand sent Sherman rolls of vintage fabric to do with what she pleased. “I said, ‘Well, is it okay if I cut things up, cut holes into them and whatnot?’” Sherman told Vanity Fair. Yes, Chanel was very much ok with it, and just like that, the fashion brand had direct, exclusive access to Sherman’s latest series of photographs, titled “Fabric Matrons,” which will also be shown at Hauser & Wirth’s Mayfair gallery during Frieze London. From the looks of a few photos published in Vanity Fair, it does seem like Sherman effectively played dress-up, cutting poncho-style holes in a whole lot of Chanel tweeds, and not to an unflattering or ridiculous effect. Sherman’s characters appear thoughtful, if solemn, as though weighed down by experience, draped in glamorous, bejeweled get-ups. “At one point I remember writing in my journal, ‘Who the fuck wants to look at pictures of old ladies anyway?’” Sherman said. I guess we’re about to find out.
RUFFLED FEATHERS. Austrian presidential candidate Gunther Fehlinger-Jahnsays that if elected, he’ll return a 16th-century feathered Aztec headdress to Mexico, currently in Vienna’s Weltmuseum, reports The Art Newspaper. For decades, the Mexican government has been requesting the return of the 4½ -foot-high and 5¾ -foot-wide, ornate Quetzal headdress, or quetzalapanecayotl, that once belonged to Aztec ruler Moctezuma, though it is believed he never wore it. It’s unclear how the artifact left Mexico in the first place. “Austria and Mexico should negotiate a bilateral solution based on friendship rather than confrontation,” Fehlinger-Jahn said. In 2020, Mexico requested to borrow the headdress for an exhibition, but Austrian officials refused to do so, citing the object’s fragility as the reason.
The Digest
A descendant of the 19th-century classical artist Jules-Eugène Lenepveu is taking legal action to demand the removal of Marc Chagall’s iconic painting on the ceiling of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris, because it covers an original oil on copper fresco by Lenepveu. [The Guardian]
In March 2027, French Galerie Christophe Gaillard is opening a new space in Bangkok, inside the Bangkok Kunsthalle. [The Art Newspaper, France]
A decade and a half after Amy Winehouse’s death, her life is still being explored — even excavated — in a new exhibition full of simulacra of the singer’s personal items by artist Alex Margo Arden, titled “Nothing Personal,” on view through January 23. [ARTnews]
Two stolen Auguste Renoir paintings were recovered in “record time,” and are currently being examined for any damage by conservation experts, before their planned return to the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, according to France’s ministry of culture. [press release]
A Welsh medieval myth claiming that the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus set up a military camp near Frenni Fawr in Wales has just been backed by archeological evidence. [The Guardian]
The Kicker
A RADICAL WELCOME. Zoë Ryan, director of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, recently discussed how she plans to steer the museum into the next era and make it an anchoring focal point of the Westside Los Angeles arts district, reports the Los Angeles Times. For one, she is working to raise the profile of educational projects, including professional training for teachers who bring arts curricula to classrooms. Overlooked women artists are also a top priority, as shown with two major fall surveys of artists Huguette Caland and Mavis Pusey. Among other “bold projects,” Ryan wants to host a ground-floor room for artmaking, reading, and study, called the Nook, which she views as a “radical welcome.”