News

  • Daina Ashbee (Photo: Patrice Mathieu) and Alice Sheppard (Photo: Beverlie Lord). Courtesy of the Bessies.
    July 16, 2019 at 6:26am

    Daina Ashbee and Alice Sheppard Receive 2019 Bessie Awards

    The New York Dance and Performance Awards, known as the Bessies, has announced the recipients of its 2019 Juried Bessie Award and Outstanding Breakout Choreographer Award as well as the nominees for the rest of this year’s awards for categories such as outstanding performer and outstanding production. 

    The Outstanding Breakout Choreographer Award, which recognizes an artist who has made an exceptional leap in visibility and impact in their career this past season, was presented to Daina Ashbee. She was selected “for using the elemental female body itself as a means to excavate and expose layered

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  • Watercolor and gouache on paper by Ithell Colquhoun (1906–1988), from the uncatalogued archive transferred to Tate from the National Trust. Courtesy of Tate.
    July 16, 2019 at 6:17am

    Tate Acquires Archive of British Surrealist Ithell Colquhoun

    A collection of approximately 5,000 sketches, drawings, and paintings by British artist Ithell Colquhoun has been gifted to the Tate by the National Trust. The uncatalogued archive spans the artist’s career from the 1930s to the 1980s and consists of architectural drawings, still lifes, portraits, and abstract and Surrealist work paintings, as well as a complete record of her experiments with Surrealist automatism—a method of art-making in which the artist suppresses conscious control over the making process. The works will join the Tate’s holdings of occult papers that were given to the

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  • Sadie Roberts-Joseph. Photo: James Terry III/NAACP Baton Rouge Chapter.
    July 15, 2019 at 3:32pm

    Community Mourns after African American Museum Founder’s Body Is Found in Car Trunk

    Sadie Roberts-Joseph, a beloved activist and community leader who founded an African American Museum in Baton Rouge, was found dead on Friday, July 12, NPR reports. Police discovered her body in the trunk of a car three miles from her home. While her cause of death has yet to be disclosed, the Facebook page of the Baton Rouge Police Department says that “detectives are working diligently to bring the person or persons responsible for this heinous act to justice.”

    The news of Roberts-Joseph’s death shocked many in her community. The seventy-five-year old was well known for her involvement in

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  • Victoria Cheetham. Courtesy of the Tate.
    July 15, 2019 at 2:33pm

    Tate Names Victoria Cheetham Chief Operating Officer

    The Tate, which comprises four institutions—two in London, one in Liverpool, and one in St. Ives—has appointed Victoria Cheetham as its new chief operating officer. Cheetham currently serves as executive director of Arts at Southbank Centre—the UK’s largest arts center. The seventeen-acre site, located on the south bank of the Thames, includes the Royal Festival Hall and Hayward Gallery.

    “Vicky Cheetham is the ideal choice for this senior and important role,” said Tate director Maria Balshaw. “Her enthusiasm for Tate, combined with her outstanding skills and experience in the arts,

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  • Kellie Honeycutt (Photo: Liz Ligon) and Daniel S. Palmer (Photo: Nicholas Knight). Courtesy of Public Art Fund.
    July 15, 2019 at 12:38pm

    Public Art Fund Appoints Kellie Honeycutt Deputy Director, Daniel S. Palmer Curator

    The Public Art Fund in New York announced today the promotion of Kellie Honeycutt to deputy director and Daniel S. Palmer to curator. Honeycutt joined the Public Art Fund as communications director in 2010 and has also served as director of institutional advancement. In her new role, she will help advance the organization’s strategic vision and will oversee fundraising, communications, marketing, and administration.

    Palmer came to the Public Art Fund in 2016 following a two-year stint at the Jewish Museum in New York. As associate curator, he organized the exhibitions “Carmen Herrera: Estructuras

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  • Haus der Kunst in Munich.
    July 15, 2019 at 11:41am

    Employees at Munich’s Haus der Kunst Fear Mass Dismissal

    As the Haus der Kunst (HdK) in Munich continues to struggle to find secure financial footing, a proposed plan to cut two-thirds of its part-time workforce has employees of the institution fearing a mass dismissal, reports Süddeutsche Zeitung. According to the German daily, as many as forty-eight jobs, including cashiers, supervisors, and gatekeepers, could be eliminated or outsourced to other companies.

    Bernhard Spies, an experienced crisis manager who was appointed commercial director of the HdK in 2018 to help it curb its deficit, said that after years of financial mismanagement, which nearly

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  • Some 300 activists gathered at the British Museum on Saturday, February 16, to rally against BP’s sponsorship of Iraqi artifacts. Photo: Safa Kadhim.
    July 12, 2019 at 4:53pm

    British Museum to Continue Accepting BP Oil Money

    As the public continues to turn a critical eye toward the sources of art institutions’ funding, London’s British Museum director Hartwig Fischer said that the institution would continue to accept funding from its longtime sponsor BP, reports the Art Newspaper.

    BP has helped the museum “create learning opportunities,” Fischer said at a Monday press briefing, and added, “this sort of support is vital to [the British Museum’s] mission.”

    The oil giant will sponsor the exhibition “Troy, Myth and Reality,” slated to open in November, though the director noted BP will not fund a forthcoming show dedicated

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  • Rendering of the Ronald O. Perelman Center for the Performing Arts at the World Trade Center in New York. Photo: REX Architecture.
    July 12, 2019 at 4:45pm

    Leslie Koch Named President of World Trade Center’s Performing Arts Complex

    The new Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, which is being built as part of a plan for the World Trade Center site in downtown Manhattan, announced today that Leslie Koch has been appointed president. She succeeds Maggie Boepple, who has worked on the project since 2012 and will continue to serve as an adviser. Designed by REX, the building—a 138-foot-tall cube with a glowing marble facade—will host theater, dance, music, and chamber opera.

    Koch is best known for her ten-year tenure as president and CEO of the Trust for Governors Island. Under her leadership, Governors Island,

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  • Agnes Martin, The Tree, 1964.
    July 12, 2019 at 3:05pm

    Lawsuit Against Agnes Martin Authentication Committee Dismissed

    A New York Supreme Court judge has ruled that the committee members of Agnes Martin’s catalogue raisonné—including Pace Gallery founder Arne Glimcher, who represents the late artist’s estate—were within their rights to exclude thirteen paintings owned by London art dealer James Mayor from the official Martin raisonné, which provides a complete record of all the artist’s works, reports Artnews.

    Mayor had argued that the presence of Glimcher and his son, Marc Glimcher, on the catalogue committee was a conflict of interest since they own and trade Martin’s work and that the rejection of

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  • An Olivier Mosset installation at 108, rue Vieille du Temple, the future home of David Zwirner Paris in 2015. Photo: Philippe Servent.
    July 12, 2019 at 1:30pm

    David Zwirner to Open Gallery in Paris, Kayne Griffin Corcoran Hires New Codirector, and More

    David Zwirner is opening its first gallery in Paris. Located at 108 rue Vieille du Temple, the 8,600-square-foot ground-floor space was previously occupied by the storied French gallerist Yvon Lambert and, more recently, by VNH Gallery. The gallery’s inaugural exhibition, featuring new and significant works by American artist Raymond Pettibon, will open October 16.

    “In recent years, Paris has quickly become one of the most vibrant cities for the visual arts in Europe,” Zwirner said in a statement. “It’s a city where history meets the present, and we are endlessly excited to be able to occupy one

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  • Fellow Lindsay Packer’s False Fold, 2019. Courtesy of Lindsay Packer.
    July 12, 2019 at 11:21am

    2019 NYFA Artist Fellowship Program Awardees Announced

    The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has named the ninety-eight recipients of its artist fellowship program, which supports New York–based artists working in the fields of architecture and design, choreography, music and sound, photography, and playwriting and screenwriting. Ranging from the ages of twenty-five to seventy-six, the artists were selected from a pool of 2,542 applicants. Each fellow will receive a $7,000 unrestricted cash grant.

    The organization has been distributing the prizes for thirty-three years with support from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Since it

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  • Police in the Huantie Art District in Beijing. Photo: Canon Duan.
    July 11, 2019 at 2:15pm

    Beijing Arts Districts Targeted for Demolition

    Hundreds of artists have been forcibly evicted from two Beijing arts districts that will be razed as part of China’s alleged crackdown on organized crime, the Art Newspaper reports. Dozens of riot officers arrived in Luoma Hu Art District, near the Beijing International Airport, on Wednesday to escort artists from their homes and studios. On Sunday, July 7, the authorities began the same process in Huantie Art District, located less than two miles from the Caochangdi gallery district, which was partially demoed last year.

    Artists based in the districts were only given seven days to collect their

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