The Rake’s progress: last week in gossip

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories.

It’s not easy to find supporters of Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge. Apart from in London’s cohort of celebrities, that is. Joanna Lumley is famously pro-bridge, as are Boris Johnson (however fairly) and Evgeny Lebedev.

Their numbers were boosted at last week’s ‘Glitter in the Garden’ party – a fundraiser for the project – which saw a host of media personalities turning out in support of the Garden Bridge. Alan Yentob was there, obviously, as were Bryn Terfel, Terence Conran and  Christian Louboutin. Heatherwick himself turned up wearing a jacket embroidered with leaves and foliage. The Rake wonders: would his horticultural ambitions not be best confined to his wardrobe?

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Outburst of the week: ‘Every bloody artist in the world does computer animation now – this whole thin “post-Internet” genre,’ Ryan Gander told Canadian Art, ‘It’s just f**king dorky. Any art about the Internet or accessibility or the screen or the skin is just dorky. It’s a crap subject to make art about. Really crap.’ But that wasn’t the end of the mud-slinging: ‘The trust-fund generation of artists is the biggest problem in the artworld right now. It’s a massive problem. I think the artworld will split in the next 10 years into two. There’ll be one artworld that’ll just be the way it’s been for the last 60 years, and then there’ll be this other artworld, with, like, retinal, sensational art by rich kids.’

Who could he possibly mean?

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To Italy, where the director of the Royal Palace of Caserta museum has sparked outrage. Mauro Felicori, who was appointed to head the institution five months ago, has angered local unions for working too hard. They have written to Italy’s culture minister, complaining, according to Reuters, that Felicori ‘works late into the evening without the rest of the personnel being informed […] Such behaviour puts the whole structure at risk’. The complaint prompted PM Matteo Renzi to weigh in in Felicori’s defence: ‘The fun’s over,’ he told the unions, ominously.

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Finally, the Rake hears whispers that Douglas Gordon is to design a mural for a station on the London Underground. While he knows not where the artist is planning to sling his hook, or what he plans to do, he will say one thing: let’s hope Gordon has, erm, buried the hatchet with his critics.

Got a story for Rakewell? Get in touch at rakewell@apollomag.com or via @Rakewelltweets.