California Community Foundation Awards $260,000 in Fellowships
07.03.09
The California Community Foundation has awarded $260,000 in one-year fellowships to fourteen outstanding emerging and midcareer artists working in painting, sculpture, performance art, experimental film/video, and multimedia. Four emerging artists each received $15,000 fellowships and ten midcareer artists each received $20,000 fellowships. “In these challenging times, we need art more than ever,” said Antonia Hernández, president and CEO at the foundation. “At CCF, we value creativity and the role of artistic expression as a source of great inspiration to the community. We are pleased to help these gifted artists move forward in their careers through these highly competitive fellowships.” View a complete list of fellows here.
Fellows were selected by a ten-member panel of local artists, curators, and arts experts from a pool of 549 applicants, a 27 percent increase from 2008. The panel included Marshall Astor, visual arts director, Angels Gate Cultural Center; Lisa Anne Auerbach, 2007 Fellowships for Visual Artists recipient; Amada Cruz, program director, United States Artists; Karin Higa, adjunct senior curator of art, Japanese American National Museum; Asuka Hisa, director of education, Santa Monica Museum of Art; Charmaine Jefferson, executive director, California African American Museum; Otoño Luján, artist; Karen Mack, executive director, LA Commons; Connie Samaras, 2006 Fellowships for Visual Artists recipient and professor of studio art, University of California, Irvine; and Pilar Tompkins, curator, Claremont Museum of Art. Leslie Ito, CCF program officer for the arts, staffed the panel.
Emerging artists are those who have less than seven years of professional experience. Midcareer artists are those who have seven or more years of active, professional experience. The fellowships draw together the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, the Brody Arts Fund, the Atlass Fund, the Joan Palevsky Endowment for the Future of Los Angeles, and other CCF funds.
Cleveland Museum Returns Works to Italy
07.03.09
Fourteen works from the antiquities collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art were officially presented to the Italian public in Rome on yesterday, reports Elisabetta Povoledo for the New York Times. This act underscored “the excellent collaboration between the United States institution and the Italian culture ministry,” the attorney general, Oscar Fiumara, said. The return follows two years of negotiations over their rightful ownership: The Italians maintained that they had been looted from sites in Sicily, Sardinia, Apulia, and Campania. An accord between the museum and the culture ministry was signed in November, and the artifacts––which date from the ninth century BCE to the fourteenth century CE––will now be returned to museums in their regions of provenance. The museum will receive long-term loans of similar works in exchange. The returned works include a rare fourth-century BCE Apulian Volute Krater by the artist known as the Darius Painter.
Fishers Withdraw Plan for Presidio Art Museum
07.02.09
Gap founder Donald Fisher and his family have decided to abandon their efforts to build a contemporary art museum at the Main Post of San Francisco’s Presidio, reports John King for the San Francisco Chronicle. In calling off an effort that began with acclaim but turned into the city’s fiercest development battle in a decade, the family holds open the possibility it might still try to build a home in the Presidio for its collection of work by such artists as Andy Warhol and Alexander Calder. But the Fishers also say they are open to looking outside the city––and the Bay Area––before deciding what to try and do next. “Doris and I will take some time to consider the future of our collection and other possible locations for a museum, which could include other sites within the Presidio and elsewhere,” Don Fisher said, referring to his wife in a statement released to the Chronicle late Wednesday that also said the decision was made “with disappointment and sadness.”
The move comes one month after the close of public comment on the environmental studies that would allow Fisher’s proposed museum––and several other projects––near the original Spanish El Presidio settlement from 1776. The studies are part of an overall planning effort by the Presidio Trust, which manages most of the 1,491-acre national park. The scale of changes proposed for the Main Post brought extensive criticism from nearby residents and agencies such as the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, because the Presidio is a National Historic Landmark. The criticism continued even after the Fishers significantly modified the museum’s design last winter, reducing it in height and sliding much of it underground.
Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, noted in a statement today that “Don Fisher's decision to abandon the Main Post site for his proposed contemporary art museum is the correct one. As a former board member of the Presidio Trust, Fisher obviously knows the place well and has great affection for it. I sincerely hope he will consider alternative sites at the Presidio.”
Baumann Appointed Acting Director of Cooper-Hewitt; Steven Holl Architects Wins “Best Tall Building” Award
07.02.09
Caroline Baumann has been named acting director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Since joining Cooper-Hewitt in 2001, Baumann has served as director of development, director of external affairs, and deputy director. As director of external affairs from 2003 to 2006, Baumann oversaw development, membership, special events, operations, finance, and retail. In 2006, Baumann was appointed deputy director, focusing on the museum’s Re:Design capital campaign, the most ambitious in the museum’s history, which will result in a dramatic reconfiguration of Cooper-Hewitt, a major increase in the museum’s endowment, and secure support for the museum’s many programs. In her role as deputy director, she also supervised development, membership, special events, and retail.
From 1995 to 2001, Baumann worked at the Museum of Modern Art, where she raised funds for the museum’s Yoshio Taniguchi building project among other accomplishments. Before that, she served as director of development at the Calhoun School in Manhattan. Prior to that, she worked at the Museum of Modern Art within the International Council program. She received a master’s degree in medieval art from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and a bachelor’s degree in the history of art and French literature from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
In other news, Steven Holl Architects’ recently completed building Linked Hybrid has won the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) Award for the Best Tall Building in Asia and Australia. This annual award recognizes one outstanding building from each of four worldwide regions: Americas, Asia and Australia, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. At an event to be held on October 23 during the CTBUH 2009 Chicago conference, the Best Tall Building Overall will be selected from among the four categorical recipients.
Work to Begin on Long-Delayed Louis Kahn Park
07.02.09
After decades of false starts, one of architect Louis Kahn’s final works, a 4.5-acre park in New York City to honor President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is scheduled to break ground in mid-August on the synergistically named Roosevelt Island, reports C. J. Hughes for the Architectural Record. This week, the nine-member board of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, which is the public authority that runs the island, voted seven to one in favor of the proposal, with one member not present. The $45 million project, to be called Four Freedoms Park, after a well-known Roosevelt speech, has secured the entire $14.7 million in public and private money it needs for the first phase of construction, says Gina Pollara, who is supervising the project on behalf of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the sponsor. The park, which will be located on the island’s southern tip, across from the United Nations, has secured two dozen necessary approvals from eighteen city, state, and federal agencies. “I’m thrilled,” says Pollara, who trained as an architect. “We’re definitely moving forward.”
ABC No Rio Receives Funding for New Building
07.02.09
The New York–based community and cultural center ABC No Rio has endured numerous eviction attempts since it opened in 1980 after its landmark exhibition “The Real Estate Show,” which focused on gentrification. But much of the uncertainty regarding the space vanished last week when the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, and city councilman Alan J. Gerson allocated $1.65 million for a new building, reports Colin Moynihan for the New York Times. Stringer arranged for a capital grant of $750,000, citing ABC No Rio’s resilience and cultural value. The rest of the money came in the form of a grant of $450,000 from Gerson’s discretionary budget, which was matched with another $450,000 by the City Council. The money will be controlled by the Department of Cultural Affairs. “Practically and psychologically, it’s a game changer,” Steven Englander, the group’s coordinator, said. “We’ll be able to make our vision into reality.”
ABC No Rio board members said that they hoped to demolish the four-story tenement next spring and had designs for a one-story building with a basement that will extend farther back than the current structure and provide roughly the same amount of space. Gerson, who represents the Lower East Side, said that ABC No Rio provided a unique outlet for art forms that might not otherwise have a home. He added that it was essential for the grants to be provided this year. “It was now or never,” Gerson said. “It was a critical moment in their existence.”
New Director for Singapore Art Museum
07.01.09
Tan Boon Hui will become the new director of the Singapore Art Museum, according to the Straits Times. Hui, forty-one, holds a BA and an MA in geography from the National University of Singapore.
On August 1, he takes over from established museum hand Kwok Kian Chow. On April 1, Kwok was appointed director of the National Art Gallery, Singapore, where he is leading the museological team.
Tan will oversee the development of the contemporary art tract, which will be presented at SAM, as well as at its new galleries at 8Q SAM. Currently the deputy director of programs at the National Museum of Singapore, Tan brings with him thirteen years of experience in the arts and heritage industry.
Kennedy Center Expands Arts Aid; Detroit Institute of Arts to Stage Auction
07.01.09
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced plans yesterday to expand its crisis consulting for arts organizations that are struggling to survive the recession, an effort championed by First Lady Michelle Obama and congressional leaders.
Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser will meet with arts leaders in all fifty states and Puerto Rico over the next year, he said. Since February, the center's "Arts in Crisis" initiative has offered emergency-planning advice for fund-raising, budgeting, marketing, and other strategies as box-office revenues decline, along with donations and endowment income. Groups that cut their programming budgets won't be able to compete for funding that remains, Kaiser said.
"Right now, the truth is with so much less being given to the arts . . . it means arts organizations have to compete harder for the money that is out there," Kaiser said.
Michelle Obama noted in a statement yesterday that arts and cultural activities employ about six million people and contribute more than $160 billion to the US economy each year.
"Our future as an innovative country depends on ensuring that everyone has access to the arts and to cultural opportunities," she said.
In other news, in an unprecedented move to cope with a bad economy, the Detroit Institute of Arts is sponsoring an art auction to raise money for its operations, reports the Detroit News.
The museum isn't deaccessioning its works. Instead, it's inviting the public to contribute pieces of art valued at more than $250 that DuMouchelle Art Galleries can auction in early October. The museum is accepting paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, ceramics, jewelry, tapestries, carpets, small furniture, sports memorabilia, and the like.
According to the museum, works by Max Ernst and Alexander Calder already have been donated.
"What we like about the sale that it gets the public involved," says DIA spokeswoman Pam Marcil. "And it's a good way for people to add to their own personal collection—and do good for the museum as well." Donations are being accepted through July 17.
