Mike Kelley (1954-2012)

The Mike Kelley Foundation has expressed its intention to be more flexible in the distribution of its usually project-related grants, which will be announced on Wednesday. “Grantmaking in the arts has a heightened sense of urgency" said its executive director. The total of $400,000 grants go to L.A. arts organizations.

The Bay Area collector, famed for her joint collection with husband Norman, died of cancer on September 6, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported. The Stones’ progressive attitude to art created an eclectic collection of approximately 1,000 works of contemporary art, featuring names like Donald Judd and Mike Kelley.

Amid the heated debate over monuments to controversial figures, unions representing cultural staff fear the UK government is seeking to launch a false “war on woke” by interfering in museums. Union leader Mike Clancy warned Culture Minister Oliver Dowden to listen to “expertise” over “fringe clamor.” (The Guardian)

In a move described as “dismissive, condescending and misguided” by one advocacy group, Republican state senator Mike Lee dealt a major blow to the project, several decades in the making, to build a National Museum of the American Latino in Washington D.C. Lee also blocked plans for a women’s history museum. (NPR)

Beeple’s Human One, a generative digital sculpture, makes its Asian premiere in Focus Gallery at the Hong Kong contemporary art museum. Work is a digital-and-physical hybrid depicting the first human born inside the metaverse. Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, is best known for his sought-after NFTs.

The owner of Georgian Antiques (Scotland) replaces Mike Golding - who will remain a member of the board after 27 years in this position - at the head of the most important British association of art and antique dealers. Dixon was its financial director since 2007.

In many states across America, laws allow mourners to remove and then preserve tattoos of loved ones as memorial works of art. The movement is being pioneered by Ohio-based company, Save My Ink Forever, which was started in 2016 by father-son duo, Kyle and Mike Sherwood. Kyle is a third-generation mortician. (NYT)

Ben Quilty’s 'For Afghanistan' fundraising campaign for UNHCR, the UN agency for refugees, was launched a week ago, with an initial target of $30,000. Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, co-founders of the software company Atlassian, each offered to match public donations up to $1 million AUS. (Ocula)

NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are taking the art market by storm. The artist Mike Winkelman, who is also known as Beeple, has broken records by selling his purely digital work for ten times what they previously fetched as the market booms.

In response to the relative absence of Latin American artists in the canon, Nicole Calderón and Mike Ruiz opened their eponymous space in Manhattan last month. Their inaugural exhibition, “Eagle and Serpent” will feature works from Esteban Ramón Pérez and Jaime Munoz in the minimalist 1,800 sq-ft gallery. (HA)