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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need To Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists - Artnet News
'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need To Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists - Artnet News
Opinion (https://news.artnet.com/opinion)
https://news.artnet.com/opinion/anish-kapoor-op-ed-1893997 Page 1 of 11
'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
SHARE Ever since the start of my public career in London in the late ‘70s–
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day. early ‘80s, I have had to suffer what I consider to be the indignity of
! being described as an “Indian” artist. Considered thus not just The best of artnet
because of my name, but also for what I did with my work?
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" This was an enigma to me, but I understood it to come from some
half-understood or misguided notion of my Indian origin and its Enter your email
+ relation to the work I made. I will tr y to explain—my actual origins
are more complex than this, but that is another story. When, in 1998,
I did my first show at the Hayward Gallery, Mr. Waldemar
$ SUBSCRIBE
Januszczak, an art critic for a prominent British newspaper,
described the work I had on show in a mean-spirited review as “the
% Indian rope trick.”
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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
James Murdoch, then-CEO of 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch, at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in
2015. (Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
SHARE Ever y Monday morning, Artnet News brings you The Gray Market
(http://www.thegray-market.com/). The column decodes important
! stories from the previous week—and offers unparalleled insight into
the inner workings of the art industr y in the process.
+
FAMILY BUSINESS
$ On Friday, Art Basel’s parent company, the MCH Group, issued a
statement (https://www.mch-group.com/en/news/2020/finanzielle-
und-strukturelle-starkung-zur-uberwindung-der-coronakrise-und-
% umsetzung-der-langfristigen-strategie/) announcing a
“comprehensive set of measures” intended to stabilize the
struggling company in the short term and position it for success in
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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
The new trio would be there for a while. The MCH Group defined
Lupa Systems’s offer as a 15-year relationship agreement with a five-
year lockup, meaning that Murdoch’s team would consent to hold its
entire stake in the company for at least half a decade.
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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
Ruper t Murdoch attends the 2015 Time 100 Gala at Frederick P. Rose Hall,
Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 21, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew
Toth/FilmMagic)
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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
But did Lachlan win the succession war, or did James forfeit? A
profile of James in the Hollywood Reporter
(https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/whats-next-james-
murdoch-1200454) last year cited anonymous “insiders” who alleged
he “was never interested in joining his father and brother… at Fox
Corporation.” Notably, the anchor holding in Fox Corp’s portfolio is
the divisive right-wing conspiracy cauldron Fox News.
Instead, THR reported that James began angling with CEO Bob Iger
for a post at Disney shortly after news of the 21st Century Fox
negotiations leaked in 2017. But the talks soon halted, allegedly for
a reason that now becomes urgent to the MCH Group:
In 2017, he denounced
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2017/08/18/foxs-james-murdoch-blasts-trump-on-
charlottesville-there-are-no-good-nazis/) President Trump for his
infamous statement that there were “some very fine people on both
sides (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/08/very-
fine-people-charlottesville-who-were-they-2/)” of an alt-right rally in
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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
The Washington Post spoke to departed News Corp and Fox officials
who confirmed that James had “chafed for years against the
direction of his father’s empire,” with its dismissal of climate change
as only a single problem within a larger set of fundamental
disagreements. Another one: James “was long at odds” with Fox
News founder Roger Ailes and “pushed to have Ailes fired after he
was accused of sexually harassing and assaulting women who
worked for him.”
‘SYSTEMS’ SHOCK
Most relevant of all to James’s pending partnership with MCH Group,
though, is that the ideological chasm between him and the Fox News
mindset bears out in his investment portfolio.
James and his siblings each received a payout of roughly $2.2 billion
from 21st Century Fox’s sale to Disney. A month after the deal
closed, James launched Lupa Systems—an invocation of the Roman
mythological wolf-goddess that nurtured twin brothers Romulus and
Remus after they were cast out of their kingdom (and, according to
the Washington Post, “exactly the kind of historical reference that
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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
used to draw eye rolls from Rupert Murdoch’s executives, when they
were forced to work alongside their boss’s sons”). At the time,
sources close to James told the Wall Street Journal
(https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-murdoch-is-investing-his-
fortune-one-bet-comic-books-11555424725) he intended to use the
holding company to invest as much as $1 billion of his fortune.
Its tech assets are even more diverse. According to CB Insights, the
premium branch of business-intelligence platform Crunchbase, Lupa
Systems has invested more than $86 million in startups specializing
in everything from mixed reality technology, to data analytics
powered by machine learning, to online education. Two of its known
tech holdings are based in India: DailyHunt, a mobile-reading app
and news-aggregation service designed to support content in
English and Indian languages; and Harappa Education, an online
learning platform geared toward career skills.
At a time when the entire world, not just the art and live-events
world, is under pressure to adapt in transformative ways, he rides
onto the scene with a massive amount of capital, an international
focus, decades of experience in technology, an arsenal of potentially
synergistic ventures, high-grade art-world credentials, and a track
record of sensible political positions backed up by action.
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'No More Tokens': Why Museums Need to Stop Pigeonholing Non-Western Artists | artnet News 2020/10/05 10'48 AM
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