Week In Review: Ben Enwonwu’s Painting sells for 1.1 Million, Instagram Holds Talks With Artists Over Its Nudity Policy

Over 200 prominent artists, scholars, and critics signed an open letter entreating New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) and its board member Larry Fink to end their investments in private prison companies. Protesters gathered outside the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York to call on its board member Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, to divest themselves from private prison companies.

About 150 protesters managed to disrupt an exclusive preview party hosted by the museum of to celebrate the reopening of its $450 million refurbished galleries.

On Monday Instagram held a closed-door discussion in New York with 20 artists, curators, and activists over its current moderation policies regarding nudity and artworks.

The private discussion, which included both prominent and emerging artists and museum leaders, took place in the wake of protests and petitions from artists who have alleged that their work has been censored by the image-sharing platform, which is owned by Facebook.

Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s)

A painting by the late Nigerian master painter and sculptor Ben Enwonwu this week sold for £1.1m ($1.4m) at an auction in London after the family who owned it googled the signature and realised its importance.

The painting, simply titled “Christine”, is of Christine Davis, an American hairstylist who moved to Lagos with her British husband and struck up a friendship with the painter. “Christine” was completed in 1971.

A priceless 18th-century Ethiopian crown is set to be returned from the Netherlands to Addis Ababa after Sirak Asfaw after a Dutch civil servant who was born in Ethiopia, stumbled upon the crown in a suitcase left behind by one of his visitor and hid it in his apartment for two decades.

“You end up in such a suffocating situation, not knowing who to tell or what to do, or to hand over,” he said. “And of course afraid that the Dutch government might confiscate it.” But with the end of the former regime and the election of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last year, Mr Sirak felt the time was right to have a piece of Ethiopia’s history return to Addis Ababa.


A Paris Artist Colony For Exiled Refugees Forced To Look For A New Home. After being forced by Paris City Hall to leave its Montmartre studio in June L’Atelier des Artistes en Exile moved into a 3,200-square-foot space to support about 200 exiled artists from around the world. Now, it will have to vacate its current location in December. It has no idea where it will go next.

fourth memorial for Emmett Till has been mounted in Mississippi at the bank of the river where the murdered boy’s body was retrieved. Three prior signs had been vandalized — two shot at, and one thrown in the river. But this time, it’s bulletproof. “These markers are part of a moral responsibility that our community owes to the Till family,” said Patrick Weems, co-founder of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. “It’s our sacred oath to keep these markers up, and to continue to tell the truth about what took place in our community.”

With a donation of more than 1,000 works of Nigerian art, Prince Yemisi Shyllon is establishing the country’s first privately funded university museum. The Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA), opened on Saturday at Pan-Atlantic University (PAU) on the Lekki peninsula east of Lagos.

Shyllon, a Yoruba prince of Ake in Abeokuta, south-west Nigeria, says he wanted to give the museum “global impact” by offering the best works from the 7,000-strong collection of his Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation, created in 2007. These range from traditional works of pre-colonial Nigeria to 20th-century paintings by Ben Enwonwu, wood carvings by Lamidi Fakeye and a wall-hanging sculpture by Ghana’s El Anatsui. The collection also includes photographs documenting Nigeria’s disappearing cultural festivals.


Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Elias Sime will be honored at the Smithsonian’s National Museum’s African Art Awards. | via email announcement

Sharon Watson, Artistic Director Of The UK’s Phoenix Dance Theatre was named Arts and Media Leader of the Year, at The Black British Business Awards annual awards ceremony in London. | Black Art & Design

Dawoud Bey, Iconic American Civil Rights History Photographer, Joins Sean Kelly Gallery|Black Art & Design

Adrienne Edwards announced as Co-Curator of Whitney Museum’s next biennial in 2021| Black Art & Design