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  • Jim Cohan. Photo: ADAA.
    December 09, 2021 at 2:36pm

    ADAA Foundation Announces New President, Grant Winners

    The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Foundation today announced James Cohan as its next president. Cohan. The founder and partner of his eponymous New York gallery, Cohan has been an ADAA board member for over five years; he joined the association in 2006. He will succeed Michael Findlay, the director of New York’s Acquavella Galleries, who has held the post since 2019 and steered the organization through the Covid-19 crisis.

    “The ADAA Foundation is an important representation of art dealers' roles in the cultural landscape and their dedication to advancing art historical scholarship

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  • The Temple of Dendur, located within the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Sackler Wing. Photo: Erwin Verbruggen/Wikipedia Commons.
    December 09, 2021 at 1:14pm

    Met to Strip Sackler Name from Galleries

    New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Sackler family today jointly announced that the Met will excise the Sackler name from the seven exhibition spaces bearing it. Perhaps most notable among these is the soaring 1978 glass-and-steel Sackler Wing, which houses the Egyptian Temple of Dendur, a visitor favorite. The news is not unexpected, given the pressure the Met and other large institutions have been under to sever ties with the Sackler family owing to members’ involvement with the Purdue Pharma opioid scandal.

    “Our families have always strongly supported The Met believe this to be in

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  • Kimberly Panicek Trueblood. Photo: Ezra Mechaber.
    December 08, 2021 at 6:36pm

    Brooklyn Museum Announces Kimberly Panicek Trueblood as President, COO

    New York’s Brooklyn Museum has appointed Kimberly Panicek Trueblood as its new president and chief operating officer. Trueblood’s wealth of experience lies not in the art world but in the public-service sector. Most recently chief of staff at the American Civil Liberties Union, Trueblood was previously deputy CFO and budget director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. From 2013 to 215, she served the Obama administration as director of White House operations and prior to that was staff sergeant of the Washington Air National Guard, an air reserve component of the US Air Force.

    “From a

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  • Objects surrendered by Michael Steinhardt. Photo: Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
    December 08, 2021 at 5:11pm

    Billionaire Collector Michael Steinhardt Surrenders $70 Million in Looted Antiquities

    New York philanthropist, collector, and hedge fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt, whose name graces a New York University college as well as galleries and conservatories from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Brooklyn Museum, has surrendered to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office 180 looted items together valued at $70 million. “Wall Street’s greatest trader,” as Bloomberg cast in him in 2014, has additionally been barred for life from acquiring antiquities, in a move the DA’s office described as “unprecedented.”

    The forfeiture and punishment followed a four-year investigation conducted by

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  • Rendering of the Newton Enslaved Burial Ground Memorial. Photo: Adjaye Associates.
    December 07, 2021 at 6:05pm

    Barbados, Free of British Rule, Plans Heritage Site Around Slave-Trade History

    The Caribbean island of Barbados, having a little over a week ago officially cut ties with the British monarchy and announced itself as the world’s newest republic, has revealed plans for a major heritage district devoted to the transatlantic slave trade that shaped the region hundreds of years ago. Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye has been named as the designer of the site, with groundbreaking to take place November 30, 2022, coincident with the first anniversary of the Barbadian republic.

    “Barbados is authentically enshrining our history and preserving the past as we reimagine our world

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  • Greg Tate. Photo: Nisha Sondhe/Duke University Press.
    December 07, 2021 at 3:10pm

    Greg Tate (c. 1958–2021)

    Cultural critic Greg Tate, whose incandescent and incisive writing, particularly on topics surrounding Black American culture, influenced a generation, died today of undisclosed causes at the age of sixty-four. The news was confirmed by his publisher, Duke University Press. A tremendously talented guitarist, he was additionally the founder of improv group Burnt Sugar and a cofounder of the Black Rock coalition. In prose that, as Hua Hsu wrote in the New Yorker in 2016 “throbbed like a party and chattered like a salon,” Tate astutely assessed Black art and music not within the framework of the

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  • Christian Rosa in 2013. Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images.
    December 06, 2021 at 5:25pm

    Accused Pettibon Forger Christian Rosa Said to Be Arrested in Portugal

    Brazil-born painter Christian Rosa, once a darling of the international art scene, has been arrested in Portugal in connection with allegations that he peddled forged works falsely attributed to California artist Raymond Pettibon, according to Vanity Fair. Said to have been snared after his girlfriend posted to Instagram a photo of a water bottle bearing the label of a well-known Portuguese brand, Rosa is reportedly being extradited back to the United States. There he will face charges of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, and aggravated identity theft in relation to the sale of four forgeries

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  • Emily Ballew Neff.
    December 06, 2021 at 2:34pm

    San Antonio Museum of Art Names Emily Ballew Neff Director

    The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) today announced Emily Ballew Neff as its next director. Neff earlier this year resigned from the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, where she had served as executive director since 2015. She will assume her new role at SAMA on January 18, 2022.

    “As a native Texan, with deep roots across the state, Emily brings a keen understanding of the region and a vast range of relationships that will support the museum’s vision and work in sustainable ways well into the future,” said SAMA board chair Ed Hart. “Over the course of her career, Emily has proven to be an exceptional

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  • Array Collective, The Druithaib’s Ball, 2021. Photo: David Levene.
    December 02, 2021 at 5:00pm

    Belfast’s Activist Array Collective Wins Britain’s Turner Prize

    Belfast’s eleven-member Array Collective, whose work centers around issues such as abortion rights, queer liberation, and social welfare, was named the winner of Britain’s Turner Prize at a December 1 ceremony taking place at London’s Coventry Cathedral and administered by Tate museums. The prize, awarded annually to a UK visual and considered one of the world’s most prestigious, includes a $33,000 stipend.

    This year marked the first time since the prize’s 1984 founding that all shortlisted nominees were collectives. The other four groups elected—all with a social-activist bent—were London’s

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  • Lawrence Weiner, 1985. Photo: Chris Felver/Getty Images.
    December 02, 2021 at 3:45pm

    Lawrence Weiner (1942–2021)

    Lawrence Weiner, a towering figure in the Conceptual art movement arising in the 1960s and who profoundly altered the landscape of American art, died December 2 at the age of seventy-nine. Known for his text-based installations incorporating evocative or descriptive phrases and sentence fragments, typically presented in bold capital letters accompanied by graphic accents and occupying unusual sites and surfaces, Weiner rose to prominence among a cohort that included Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, and Sol LeWitt. A firm believer that an idea alone could constitute an artwork, he

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  • Sur, Oman. Photo: Mangostar/Wikipedia Commons.
    December 02, 2021 at 1:03pm

    Oman National Pavilion to Debut at Venice Biennale

    Oman will present its first-ever Venice Biennale national pavilion this spring at the event’s fifty-ninth iteration, taking place April 23–November 27, 2022. Curated by art historian Aisha Stoby, whose area of expertise is the modern art of Oman and the Middle East, the multimedia exhibition will feature the work of five artists spanning three generations: painter Anwar Sonya, known as the godfather of Oman’s contemporary art scene; photographer and abstract artist Hassan Meer, founder of experimental collective the Circle; photographer and videographer Budoor Al Riyami; sculptor and textile

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  • New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Carlos Delgado/Wikipedia Commons.
    December 01, 2021 at 12:09pm

    Metropolitan Museum of Art to Renovate Modern Wing with $125 Million Gift

    New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced yesterday that it had received a pledge of $125 million from activist collectors Oscar Tang and Agnes Hsu-Tang. The promised gift is the largest monetary donation in the history of the institution, and is earmarked for the renovation of the museum’s Modern Wing, which will expand to include 80,000 square feet of exhibition and public space and will be rechristened the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing.

    The Met has sought for more than a decade to renovate its Modern Wing. “The reimagining of these galleries will allow the Museum to approach

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