Chicago nonprofit United States Artists has released its list of 2019 fellows, each receiving an unrestricted $50,000 cash prize, including filmmaker Nuotama Frances Bodomo (who was featured in ARTnews’s “Africa Now” issue), Juliana Huxtable, Wu Tsang and Simone Leigh. (more…)
Following the ongoing controversy involving the Sackler family’s gifts to many American institutions and their ties to the drug OxyContinn, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is re-assessing its gift acceptance policy, the Art Newspaper reports. “The Sackler family has been connected with The Met for more than a half century,” says museum president Daniel Weiss. “The Met is currently engaging in a further review of our detailed gift acceptance policies, and we will have more to report in due course.” (more…)
Munich’s Haus der Kunst has appointed an expert commission to oversee programming and strategy following turbulent months after the departure of Okwui Enwezor. The commission will “support the curatorial team and play an advisory and monitoring role concerning both content and feasibility of planned projects,” according to a statement. (more…)
A group of artists, intellectuals and professionals have published an open letter asking the New Museum to allow its employees to unionize, leading the New Museum to step back and allow the process. “We respect our employees’ right to self-organize and will respect whatever decision they make,” the museum said in a statement. “We will continue to work together to advance the museum’s special mission.” (more…)
Art News has a piece this week on San Francisco’s Saint Joseph’s Arts Society, a newly opened exhibition space in the city that features a range of exhibitions including one curated by Venus Over Manhattan. “Hopefully, collectively, it will be a gift to the city of San Francisco,” says building owner Ken Fulk. (more…)
Mika Rottenberg is now represented by Hauser & Wirth, Art News reports. The artist was previously represented by Andrea Rosen before the gallery closed in 2017. (more…)
A new museum dedicated to the work of Fernand Léger and André Mare is expected to open in Argentan, Normandy this June, Artforum reports. Housed in the childhood home of Léger, at 6 rue de l’Hotel de Ville will undergo a $1.5 million renovation. “[Léger and Mare’s] shared love for painting and drawing was to strengthen a sincere friendship that would nourish their respective creativity,” a statement reads. Musée Fernand Léger–André Mare “traces and tracks their lives from their beginnings in Argentan to international recognition, emphasizing their mutual emulation, the love they shared for their native land, and how their works were influenced by the experiences of their youth.” (more…)
The UK Government is investing £20 million into cultural projects in the areas of Grimsby, Wakefield, Plymouth, Worcester and the Thames Estuary area of Kent. “This is an incredible opportunity that will not only help people build careers in the arts and culture locally but also boost wider investment and diversify the creative economy,” says Jeremy Wright, the culture secretary. (more…)
Artist Ed Fornieles is embarking on a new project, selling a series of works that ensure collectors a stake in future profits from the artist’s work. “It’s another way of sourcing capital for production and then rewarding that upfront cash with a percentage of the profits,” the artist says. “If you look at the current models which exist, they rely on very small groups of collectors and it’s prone to risk. As soon as the chain of sales is broken, it leaves both the artist and the gallery exposed. So this is a way of using larger networks of support to diffuse that risk for both parties.” (more…)
MOCA LA is closing its exhibition space at the Pacific Design Center, the LA Times reports. “We are proud of MOCA’s record of achievement at the PDC,” says board Chairwoman Maria Seferian. “We are grateful for our partnership with the PDC and [owner] Charles Cohen and now look forward to consolidating and growing our exhibition activities, including presentations on architecture and design, at MOCA’s two downtown Los Angeles locations.”
The Hayward Gallery has tapped Zoé Whitley as its new senior curator. “The mix of world-class and risk-taking programming consistently draws me to the Southbank Centre as a member of the public,” Whitley said in a statement. “I am so excited to now join the team when the organization is innovating interdisciplinary leadership and collaboration.” (more…)
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis has launched an open call for a new Indigenous public art commission to be installed in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden or on the Walker campus in the fall of 2020. “This project builds on the commitments the Walker has made to the Native community and I am excited to see the proposals and further the conversation,” new director Mary Ceruti said in a statement. (more…)
Antony Gormley has unveiled a series of new sculptures atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “This exhibition is incomplete without the subjective witness of the citizen: Each work in its different way calls on him/her to simultaneously project and recognize internal affinities,” he says. (more…)
Victoria Miro Gallery now represents artist Howardena Pindell, the gallery has announced. ‘It is a pleasure to be working with Howardena Pindell,’ Miro said in a statment. “Deeply principled, daringly innovative and boldly incisive, Pindell truly embodies the dictum ‘the personal is political.'” (more…)
Sebastian Cwilich, the co-founder of Artsy, will leave his position as president and chief operating officer after nine years, and will take on an advisory role, Art Newspaper reports. “Sebastian really guided us on this fundamental strategy of partnership versus disruption. The reason why such an obvious idea like ours hasn’t succeeded in the past is because previous companies tried to challenge or replace the industry,” says Artsy co-founder Carter Cleveland. (more…)
Los Angeles dealer Sarah Watson has left Sprüth Magers, where she has been senior director since 2015, to become president of Kayne Griffin Corcoran gallery, Art News reports. “I saw that the gallery has come so far in such a short period of time,” Watson says. “I have been friends with Maggie, Bill, and James for years, and I thought it would be an interesting time to join the program.” (more…)
Hauser & Wirth now represents the Max Bill Georges Vantongerloo Stiftung, a foundation based in Zumikon, Switzerland, partially responsible for overseeing the estates of the artists. “Max Bill and Georges Vantongerloo were key figures in the narrative of European art of the past century, whose aesthetic breakthroughs continue to exert palpable influence today across cultures and disciplines—from graphic design and typography, to industrial design and architecture, to, of course, the visual arts,” Iwan Wirth says.
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has named the recipients of its Fall 2018 grants, giving $3.65 million to 42 nonprofit arts organizations for exhibitions, publications, and visual arts programming. Recipients include a show at Arts Nova Workshop in Philadelphia for a show on drummer Milford Graves, and a grant to the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California for a show on Ron Nagle. (more…)
The Bronx Museum of the Arts will honor art journalist, curator, and playwright Carey Lovelace, as well as the For Freedoms project, at its 2019 Gala, Art News reports. “Carey Lovelace has been a vital influence to the Bronx Museum over the years, and we are thrilled to be honoring her alongside For Freedoms and the Stan Lee Foundation,” says Deborah Cullen, the executive director of the Bronx Museum. “Each of our honorees shares the Bronx Museum’s commitment to championing underrepresented voices in the art world and building community engagement and collaboration.” (more…)
Jeff Koons is moving his New York to 475 Tenth Avenue in Hudson Yards, and downsizing his operations with a series of layoffs, Art News reports. “It’s an end of an era,” one employee wrote on social media. (more…)
Tulsa, Oklahoma has been named a winner of the Bloomberg Philanthropies 2018 Public Art Challenge, receiving $1 million towards a show commemorating Black Wall Street, an area in the city’s Greenwood neighborhood that was home to many African-American-owned businesses in the early 20th century. (more…)
The opening of Dakar’s Museum of Black Civilizations has sparked renewed debate over the restitution of African artifacts and treasures to their native countries, as a new show features a range of works on loan from European Museums. “We cannot go to France and take them by force as they did in the days when they took them from our people,” says Abdu Latif Coulibaly said. “France, on the other hand, should help us identify artworks that originated in Senegal. We will then work together in bringing all of them back here.” (more…)
The Art Newspaper has a piece today surveying the responses of UK artists following the rejection over Theresa May’s plan for Brexit last night. “Brexit is a further sign of our broken society. It is our duty as citizens to find ways to come together and overcome the deeply sad and disorienting effects of Brexit,” says Anish Kapoor. (more…)
The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston has acquired Yayoi Kusama’s LOVE IS CALLING (2013) making it the largest “Infinity Mirror Room” piece by the artist to be owned by a North American museum. It will go on view this fall. (more…)