Last week sculptor Ray Boudreau told a
Times Colonist that “it’s absolutely 110% my carving” and supporting his claim he provided photos of a sculpture he executed in 2017 which the
Times Colonist writer called “a strikingly similar sculpture.” Boudreau said he used a simple hammer and chisel to shape the distinctive face before the stone vanished from the beach. What happened next is the controversial bit.
After Boudreau’s comments became public, according
The Guardian , “the museum quietly deleted the blogpost and any other references to the discovery.” This “apparently” sly act sparked a fierce debate over the museum’s methods of identifying the initial findings. Now, their entire approach to such discoveries is being brought into question.
Plus, the Museum of African American Music opens in Nashville, and watch out for Florine Stettheimer fakes.
February 8, 2021
Thomas Campbell at the Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age Of Technology press conference in May 2016. (Photo by Randy Brooke/Getty Images)
Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know on this Monday, February 8.
NEED-TO-READ
Mwazulu Diyabanza Eyes the British Museum as His Next Target – While museums are closed, the Congolese activist, who made headlines last year for his actions at museums across Europe, has been planning his next move. He tells the
Artist Ray Boudreau says he is 100% positive that an object, left, which recently washed up on a Canadian beach, is a sandstone carving he was working on in 2017 that disappeared overnight Photos: Royal BC Museum, Grant Keddie and Ray Boudreau
A Canadian artist says that a totemic stone pillar discovered on the beach in Victoria, British Columbia, which archaeologists of the Royal British Columbia Museum thought was a ritual Lekwungen object, is actually a work-in-progress of his made just a few years ago, which went missing and might have been swept into the ocean.
Last week, the museum announced that research based on consultations with Indigenous leaders and writings by the anthropologist Franz Boas confirmed their hunch that the 100kg sandstone pillar was a significant artefact of the Lekwungen culture. The object was discovered last summer by a local resident at Beacon Hill Park, who tipped off Grant Keddie, the museum’s curator of archeology.
A local artist says he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a photo of his rock carving being heralded as an Indigenous artifact by the Royal British Columbia Museum.“I was totally surprised,” Ray . . .