News

  • J Tomilson Hill. Photo: The Financial Times.
    March 20, 2019 at 4:06pm

    J. Tomilson Hill Joins Board of Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

    Collector and private investor J. Tomilson Hill, who spent more than twenty-five years working at the Blackstone Group, was elected the newest member of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s board of trustees. Earlier this year, Hill opened the Hill Art Foundation, a public exhibition and education space that is housed in the twelve-story Peter Marino–designed Getty building in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

    A Harvard College and Harvard Business School graduate, Hill was copresident and a CEO of Lehman Brothers from 1990 to 1993, before he joined the Blackstone Group. From 2007 to 2018,

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  • Yto Barrada. Photo: Benoît Peverelli.
    March 20, 2019 at 1:44pm

    Yto Barrada Wins $25,000 Roy R. Neuberger Prize

    The Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York, announced that French-Moroccan multimedia artist Yto Barrada, who is currently based in New York, has been awarded the 2019 Roy R. Neuberger Prize. The artist will receive a cash prize of $25,000 and her first solo show in the United States will be staged at the museum. Titled “Yto Barrada: The Dye Garden,” the exhibition will run from September 25 to December 22, 2019.

    Born in Paris and raised in Tangier, Barrada was nominated for the prize by an advisory panel comprising the Neuberger Museum director Tracy Fitzpatrick and members of its curatorial

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  • Kehinde Wiley. Photo: Still from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Artist Project.
    March 20, 2019 at 12:49pm

    Kehinde Wiley Launches Artist Residency Program

    The Los Angeles–born and New York–based painter Kehinde Wiley has established an artist residency in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, Artnews reports. Called Black Rock Senegal, after the volcanic rocks commonly found along the city’s shoreline, the program was born out of the artist’s need to engage with Africa “in a much more personal way.”

    “As an artist who works in the west I desired a space of renewal to explore new ideas and to create work outside of a western context—to create work within the context of my own lineage,” the artist said in a statement. In an interview with Artnews, dealer

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  • Anna Katherine Brodbeck.
    March 20, 2019 at 12:10pm

    Dallas Museum of Art Appoints Anna Katherine Brodbeck Senior Curator

    The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) announced today that Anna Katherine Brodbeck has been named senior curator of contemporary art. Brodbeck will oversee the institution’s contemporary art collection, programming, exhibitions, and scholarship.

    Brodbeck first joined the museum as assistant curator of contemporary art in January 2017. In August 2018, she was promoted to associate curator. During her tenure at the DMA, she curated several exhibitions including a forthcoming Jonas Wood exhibition—the first major museum survey of his work—opening on March 24 and a thematic group exhibition, titled

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  • Monika Szewczyk. Photo: Jennifer Tee.
    March 20, 2019 at 11:31am

    De Appel in Amsterdam Names Monika Szewczyk Director

    Amsterdam’s De Appel announced today that Monika Szewczyk will become its next director. The Polish curator most recently served on the curatorial team of Documenta 14 and will take up her new post at the contemporary arts center on May 1. Commenting on her role, Szewczyk said: “It’s a time of institutional renewal at De Appel and I am excited to work with the team and board to make the most of this opportunity.”

    Prior to her move to Athens, where she worked on the quinquennial since 2014, Szewczyk developed the inaugural exhibitions program of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the

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  • The 2019 Nomura Art Award Jury: Max Hollein, Yuko Hasegawa, Doryun Chong, Kathy Halbreich, Allan Schwartzman, and Nicholas Serota. Photo: Nomura Holdings, Inc.
    March 20, 2019 at 6:30am

    Japanese Financial Services Group Establishes $1 Million Award for Contemporary Art

    Nomura Holdings, Inc., a Japanese financial services group, announced today that it has established a $1 million prize for contemporary art, making it the largest monetary award in the industry. The annual Nomura Art Award will recognize an artist who has “created a body of work of major cultural significance.” The inaugural prize winner will be announced in October.

    The accolade, which far surpasses the contemporary art world’s most prestigious prizes—including the Turner Prize, which is only $33,000; the Hugo Boss and Future Generation Prizes, which both award $100,000; and ArtPrize, which

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  • Artist Beau Stanton’s mural of Ava Gardner in Los Angeles’s Koreatown.
    March 19, 2019 at 2:33pm

    Mural in Los Angeles’s Koreatown Reignites Debate Over Censorship, Japanese Colonialism

    The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has postponed its controversial decision to paint over a mural—which depicts American actress Ava Gardner’s profile against a backdrop of blue and orange stripes emanating from her like sunbeams—in Los Angeles’s Koreatown after it sparked a contentious debate over censorship, the Los Angeles Times reports.

    Critics and protestors of the mural—which was painted by Brooklyn artist Beau Stanton on the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex two years ago—have petitioned for its removal because of the sun motif’s likeness to the

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  • Island of Giudecca in Venice.
    March 19, 2019 at 12:23pm

    Launch of Giudecca Art District, Featuring Three National Pavilions, to Coincide with Fifty-Eighth Venice Biennale

    Eleven galleries—including Studiolacitta, Chiesa delle Zitelle, Starak Foundation, Spazio Bullo, Spazio Raunich, and Spazio Silos—and the national pavilions of Estonia, Iceland, and Nigeria will inaugurate Venice’s Giudecca Art District in May. Five more galleries that will open on Giudecca island will be announced next month. Giudecca Art District is being promoted as the city’s first permanent art quarter and will host more than twenty exhibitions with work by sixty international artists—including Aleksandra Karpowicz and October! Collective—during the Biennale. It will

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  • Naima J. Keith and Diana Nawi. Photo: HRDWRKER / Prospect New Orleans.
    March 19, 2019 at 10:54am

    Prospect New Orleans Appoints Eight Curators to Artistic Director’s Council

    Prospect New Orleans, the city’s contemporary arts triennial, which will open on October 24, 2020 and run through January 24, 2021, has announced a team to advise cocurators Naima J. Keith, newly appointed vice president of education and public programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and former deputy director and chief curator of the California African American Museum, and Los Angeles–based independent curator Diana Nawi for its fifth edition. 

    The council will advise on artist selections, public programing, and publication projects for Prospect.5 and will comprise Rita Gonzalez,

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  • The National Portrait Gallery, London.
    March 19, 2019 at 10:31am

    Following Pushback, Sackler Trust and London’s National Portrait Gallery Drop $1.3 Million Grant

    London’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has decided not to accept a $1.3 million grant from the Sackler Trust, one of the charitable organizations founded by the Sackler family, which owns the pharmaceutical company that manufactures OxyContin. The much-anticipated announcement comes at a time when arts institutions across the globe are facing mounting pressure to reject funding from controversial donors.

    The Sackler Trust pledged to award the gift to the museum in June 2016 to support its “Inspiring People” project, a $47 million initiative to revamp the gallery by constructing a new entrance

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  • March 18, 2019 at 5:30pm

    The Met’s Entry Fees Will Provide $2.8M to Nearly 200 Cultural Organizations

    New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced today that $2.8 million in additional funding will be given to more than 175 cultural organizations across all five boroughs thanks to an agreement the city made with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When the institution sought permission to start charging non–New Yorkers mandatory admission fees, the city approved the policy change. However, it had one condition: The museum has to share a portion of its new revenue stream with the city.

    While the terms only apply to the Met’s first year implementing the policy, the Department of Cultural Affairs (DLCA)

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  • The White House.
    March 18, 2019 at 3:48pm

    Trump Tries to Eliminate the NEA and NEH, Again

    On Monday, March 11, President Trump released a $4.75 trillion budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year—the largest in federal history. Titled “A Promise for a Better America: Promises Kept. Taxpayers First,” the budget includes a 5 percent increase in military funding and $8.6 billion for Trump’s US–Mexico border wall—about $3 billion more than the amount that led to the government shutdown. It also proposes drastic cuts to domestic programs—such as Medicare and Medicaid, education, and environmental protections—and once again targets the National Endowment for the Arts (

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