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 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…)
Rodney Graham, Tattooed Man on Balcony (2018), via 303 Gallery
Artist Rodney Graham returns to 303 Gallery this month, bringing with him a new series of works that blend together his ongoing investigations of the iconography of various social spheres with a body of works that simultaneously seem to blend his constructed worlds with the space of the viewer. The show, which opened this past week, includes both lightbox works and paintings, each informing a shared space that Graham allows to float in a certain degree of indeterminacy.
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…)
A forthcoming talk at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas between the directors of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and St Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum may be the first step in the easing of relations between US and Russian Museums, which have long been on either side of a loan freeze. “The idea for this public conversation emerged from ongoing conversations with my American colleagues, since all of us share a frustration about the lack of art exchange with some of our Russian colleagues,” says MoMA’s Glenn Lowry. (more…)
Skarstedt Gallery is opening a new New York space this March at 19 East 64th Street, a 25,000-square-foot townhouse space formerly owned by dealer David Wildenstein. It will open with a show of “classic works by the artists with whom Skarstedt has been working for over 20 years,” according to the gallery. (more…)
The Dutch prime minister has stated that he will not intervene in the Dutch royal family’s controversial decision to sell a chalk drawing by Peter Paul Rubens at Sotheby’s. The decision is being appealed by the nation’s liberal D66 party. “They could determine whether any Dutch museums might be interested in buying these works of art before they are auctioned off abroad. Then the Dutch public could still have a chance to enjoy these drawings. If the works go abroad, we will not see them again,” says party member Salima Belhaj. (more…)
The Andy Warhol Foundation has given the Pérez Art Museum Miami a $100,000 grant to assist in the presentation of a solo show of the work of Teresita Fernández this fall. “In addition to being one of the most dynamic artists working today,” director Franklin Sirmans said in a statement, “Teresita’s work has been integral to the development of Miami’s art scene and has played a significant role in the exhibition history of our museum.” (more…)
Painter Jock McFadyen will be the co-ordinator of this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), Art Newspaper reports. “The focus this year will be on artwork in all media which responds to the contemporary world,” he said in a statement. “I hope to welcome back many of the artists who have been exhibiting at the Royal Academy over the past few years and look forward to presenting new artists in the exhibition.” (more…)
A French court has found the Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky guilty of setting fire to the facade of a state bank building in 2017, carrying a three-year sentence with two years suspended, that saw him released for time served. “The Bank de France at the site of the Bastille is a precedent of monstrous mockery of the political history of France,” Pavlensky says. “From this it follows that either the court should restore justice and rule to remove the Bank of France in place of the Bastille, drop all charges against me and recognize political art as permitted on the territory of France.” (more…)
European art dealers Renos Xippas and Albert Baronian are teaming up to open a new gallery in Brussels, Art News reports. “Renos and I have been friends for over 30 years, we have collaborated on many artistic projects and we represent several artists in common,” Baronian said in a statement. “We share the same values and the same vision of running an art gallery. We believe in the power of friendship, collaboration and vision, and want to encourage new interactions, new partnerships and new ways of thinking.” (more…)
New York’s Creative Capital has announced the recipients of its 2019 awards, funding 50 projects by 58 artists with grants up to $50,000 as well as career development resources. “The 2019 class of Creative Capital Awardees is a window into some of the most innovative, exciting, and powerful work being undertaken today,” says Suzy Delvalle, Creative Capital’s executive director and president. “We cannot wait to see how these projects develop, and how this incredible community of artists grows together and evolves.” (more…)
Federal prosecutors have recommended a prison sentence of up to three years for dealer Mary Boone over her tax evasion chargers, saying she deliberately defrauded the government with false tax returns that had her withholding up to $3 million. “Boone was the sole architect and beneficiary of this tax fraud scheme and, contrary to her assertions now, engaged in it out of pure greed — to line her own pockets by cheating the system,” the prosecutors wrote. (more…)
Kanye West has reportedly donated $10 million to James Turrell’s Roden Crater project, the Wall Street Journal reports. West said he wanted the project to be “experienced and enjoyed for eternity.” (more…)
Pace Gallery will represent Lynda Benglis, Art News reports. “She experiments, innovates, and stretches the limits of materials—often challenging how they’ve previously been used or understood,” says Marc Glimcher, Pace’s president and CEO. “And these innovations didn’t stop in the ’60s and ’70s, she’s continued to push materials further throughout her career; recently with her fountain works, she has even found a way to create form with water, an inherently formless material.”
Maria Magdalena Ludewig the cocurator and director of Germany’s Wiesbaden Biennale, has died after a fatal injury in the Canary Islands, Artforum reports. “She has . . . pushed us beyond borders and has always been the good spirit of all her artists,” says Uwe Eric Laufenberg, director of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden. “It has left traces in all of us that are indelible.” (more…)
The New York Times has a piece on the divorce between mega-collectors David and Libbie Mugrabi, and the ripples it has left across the art world. “We were a team,” Ms. Mugrabi says. “We were partners at home and in business, with kids, everything. So whatever is the right thing, if that’s a little amount or a big amount, that’s what I want.” (more…)
Germany will launch a 100th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Bauhaus this year, featuring museum openings, exhibitions and parties across the country, Art Newspaper reports. (more…)
Josef Albers, Study for Homage to the Square (1964), via David Zwirner
Delving into the varied psychological and ephemeral aspects of Josef Albers’s practice, and his strong affinity for music, David Zwirner’s current exhibition at its 20th Street location, Sonic Albers, is a flowing, fluid affair. Taking a far-reaching look at often overlooked prominence of music in both the artist’s sites of personal inspiration, and on the material aspects of his practice, Sonic Albers features a selection of paintings, glassworks, drawings, and ephemera from throughout Albers’s career, including a number of the album covers he designed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. (more…)