Artelligence for August 7, 2018

His Whereabouts Unknown, Jho Low’s $250m Yacht Is Returned to Malaysia: Jho Low’s 300-ft yacht, Equanimity, has been seized earlier this Summer and now been returned to Malaysia, according to Bloomberg:

• The yacht, which was seized by Indonesian police in February, is among the $1.7 billion of assets that U.S. investigators said were illegally bought using money diverted from state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd. Mahathir thanked Indonesian President Joko Widodo for his cooperation in transferring the vessel and “resolving the problem faced by Malaysia,” he said in a Monday statement.

In May, Low was reported to be waiting out the Malaysian elections in the Andaman Sea off of Thailand’s Phuket. If he was, it was on a borrowed boat. …

Toby Kamps Joins White Cube: ARTNews reports that the recently appointed Director of the University of Houston’s Blaffer Museum of Art has taken a new role at White Cube where he will be the Director of External Projects:

• “Kamps has been well-known in the Texas museum world for the past decade. Prior to becoming the Blaffer’s director, Kamps was the Menil Collection’s curator of modern and contemporary art for seven years. He has also held positions at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and the Maine College of Art’s Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland. But he is not entirely new to the art market sphere—he has, since 2016, overseen the Frieze art fair’s “Spotlight” sector, at both its New York and London editions, which features curated solo presentations put on by participating galleries.” …

Gagosian Appoints Han-I Wang in Hong Kong: The Christie’s specialist behind the private-selling exhibition, The Loaded Brush, has joined Gagosian. Han-I Wang will work with Gagosian’s Nick Simunovic on “the gallery’s exhibition program and participation in Asian and global art fairs. She will further develop Gagosian’s extensive network of private and public clients across Asia.” Wang was born in Taiwan and educated in New York where she earned a doctorate in piano before joining Christie’s. …

MCH Chief Takes Direct Hit from Baselworld Controversy: Art fairs aren’t the only trade fairs seeing tumultuous change. The CEO of Art Basel’s parent firm, MCH, has resigned after a conflict with the CEO of Swatch over MCH’s Baselworld watch fair, according to the FT:

• The departure of René Kamm, boss of the listed MCH Group, follows severe criticism of Baselworld this week by Nick Hayek, Swatch’s chief executive, who warned traditional trade fairs were rapidly losing relevance. […] Mr Hayek argued that annual trade fairs could not keep up with the pace of innovation. “You cannot just launch newness once a year. You must do it all the time,” he told the Financial Times earlier this week. …

New Mexico Couple Seem to Have Pulled Off the Perfect Art Crime, a $160m de Kooning: Most stories about stolen works of art vastly inflate the value of the paintings purloined. But last year a Willem de Kooning painting from his sought-after Woman series, potentially a nine-figure work on the market, was returned to the University of Arizona. The painting had been stolen 30 years earlier in broad daylight by a couple acting alone. The dealer who returned it had bought the work from a deceased couple’s estate. Now, The Washington Post pieces together an unbelievable story about an unassuming pair who seem to have lived quietly with their stolen treasure:

• “the painting was discovered in the Alters’ bedroom, where it had been positioned in such a way that you couldn’t see it unless you were inside with the door shut.” …