The week in art news – Art Basel postponed to September

Art Basel has been postponed from June to September. In a statement released yesterday the organisers of the fair stated that their goal is to ‘achieve the broadest possible international attendance for the show’ when it does take place. Last year, Art Basel was postponed from June to September before being cancelled altogether. This year, the hope is that vaccination programmes across the world will have advanced enough to make an event possible.

Earlier this week, a fire at the Bozar (the Centre for Fine Arts) in Brussels was put out by nearly 100 firefighters. The building was closed when the fire broke out on Monday afternoon and its cause is still unknown. The museum has confirmed that no artworks were damaged, but significant structural damage may have occurred.

The City of London Corporation has decided to take down statues of two prominent figures with links to slavery. The statues of William Beckford and Sir John Cass will be moved from the Corporation’s headquarters at the Guildhall. That of Beckford, a fabulously wealthy plantation owner, will be relocated and replaced with an artwork, while the statue of the merchant and MP Sir John Cass will be returned to Sir John Cass’s Foundation. The move was recommended by the City of London Corporation’s Tackling Racism Taskforce and agreed by a vote of the Policy and Resources Committee.