News

  • April 23, 2018 at 10:27am

    Tai Kwun Center for Heritage and Arts to Open in May

    The Tai Kwun Center for Heritage and Arts, a new cultural site that was formerly the Hong Kong Central Police Station—a cluster of low-rise buildings located in the heart of the territory—will open to the public with a soft launch on May 25.

    An opening ceremony and inaugural programming at the cultural hub will serve as a kind of test run for the center. It will only welcome a limited number of visitors until it makes the final adjustments to its operations.

    The converted complex, operated by the nonprofit Jockey Club Limited, comprises sixteen historic buildings, including the Central

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  • April 23, 2018 at 7:01am

    Marko Peljhan to Represent Slovenia at 2019 Venice Biennale

    The Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana has announced that artist Marko Peljhan will represent Slovenia at the Fifty-Eighth Venice Biennale, which runs from May 11 to November 24, 2019.

    Peljhan is best known for creating works that explore the intersection of art and science such as his ten-year project Makrolab—a research and living space, capable of withstanding extreme weather, that the artist eventually wanted to install in Antarctica. First realized at Documenta in Kassel in 1997, the lab is a workstation for artists and scientists exploring telecommunications, migrations, and climate

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  • April 22, 2018 at 12:27pm

    Following Allegations of Fraud, CB1 Gallery in Los Angeles Will Close

    Days after several artists penned an open letter accusing CB1 Gallery in Los Angeles of “systematic” abuse, owners Clyde Beswick and Jason Chang have announced that the arts space will permanently close. Signed by Georganne Deen, Michael Mancari, Brett Reichman, and Amy Yoes, among others, the artists claim that the gallery is guilty of failing to pay artists, consistently writing checks that bounce, breaching contracts, and selling works without informing their creators.

    In a statement provided to the Los Angeles Times, Beswick alleges that the gallery’s recent expansion—it moved from a

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  • April 22, 2018 at 11:00am

    Ethiopia Calls for Restitution of Artifacts from British Museums

    Following the opening of an exhibition of Ethiopian artifacts at the Victoria and Albert Museum earlier this month, director Tristram Hunt pledged to return cultural heritage objects to Ethiopia in a longterm loan agreement. At the time, the Ethiopian ambassador Hailemichael Afework Aberra’s favorable remarks as well as his praise for the institution’s decision to put these items on display was perceived as his acceptance of longterm loans as an adequate compromise. In a recent interview with the Art Newspaper, Hailemichael clarified his position: The items must be fully restituted.

    “My government

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  • April 22, 2018 at 8:00am

    James Yood (1952–2018)

    Chicago-based arts writer and educator James Yood, who once distilled the role of the critic as one that fulfills a responsibility “to look and think as hard as possible,” has died. A committed and eloquent assesser of Chicago artists, Yood was a professor of art history, theory, and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he also directed its New Arts Journalism program.

    In addition to being a regional correspondent for art ltd magazine, Yood was a regular contributor to Artforum, Aperture, GLASS quarterly, and visualartsource.com, among other publications. Yood also taught

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  • April 21, 2018 at 10:04am

    Alys Tomlinson Wins $25,000 Sony World Photography Award

    London-based artist Alys Tomlinson has won the top prize of this year’s Sony World Photography Awards. Recognized for “Ex-Votos”—an intimate series of black-and-white portraits, landscapes, and still-life images of pilgrimage sites in France, Ireland, and Poland—Tomlinson was named photographer of the year and will receive $25,000.

    This was the first time that Tomlinson entered the prize competition. She is also the first woman to win what is considered the Oscars of the photography world, since 2014 when the prize went to US photojournalist, Sara Naomi Lewkowicz.

    “Alys Tomlinson is a

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  • April 21, 2018 at 9:35am

    Sam Francis Foundation Releases Catalogue Raisonné Online

    The Sam Francis foundation has announced that the first installment of the artist’s catalogue raisonné is now available online. It contains 201 known entires on the abstract expressionist’s works from 1945 to 1949. The foundation will update the digital historical record as it continues its research into Francis’s oeuvre.

    The catalog, titled Sam Francis: Online Catalogue Raisonné Project—The Compilation of Unique Works on Paper and Expanded Version of Canvas and Panel Painting, is an interactive platform that was developed with panOpticon software. It includes the foundation’s archives as

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  • April 20, 2018 at 3:42pm

    MoMA Sues Lower East Side Café and Arts Space over Trademark Infringement

    The Museum of Modern Art in New York has filed a lawsuit against a newly opened green tea café called MoMACha, which also serves as an exhibition space, accusing the business of infringing on its trademark. MoMaCha opened on 314 Bowery earlier this month with a show by the Dallas-based artist Dan Lam.

    According to the complaint, the “defendants’ willful intent here is clear as there is no possibility that they were not aware of MoMA or its famous MoMA mark . . . They are blatantly attempting to take advantage of the MoMA marks, which are unquestionably famous within the modern and contemporary

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  • April 20, 2018 at 3:33pm

    Rome’s Frutta Gallery Opens Second Outpost in Glasgow

    Scottish-born dealer James Gardner, who founded Frutta in Rome in 2012, has opened a second location in Glasgow, Andrew Russeth of Artnews reports. Located on 9 Duke Street, the gallery launched with an exhibition of works by Santo Tolone. Titled “The Distance Between the Fridge and My Belly, or Rather Between Your Eyes and This Title,” the show will run until May 26.

    “Both Roma and Glasgow are somewhat on the geographical edge of Europe—that is, they parenthesize Central Europe and in that sense their independence makes [it] interesting,” Gardner said. “Yet they are linked via the openness

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  • April 20, 2018 at 3:04pm

    Fearless Girl Statue Moves to New York Stock Exchange

    New York’s Fearless Girl—the fifty-inch-tall bronze girl who, arms akimbo, has stared down Arturo Di Modica’s Charging Bull sculpture for a little over a year—will soon be permanently relocated to stand outside the New York Stock Exchange, the original location of her bovine rival. Mayor Bill de Blasio and State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), the financial firm that installed the statue, had been in talks to find the sculptures new homes since February, though the bull is, as of now, to remain at the Bowling Green location in the financial district.

    Fearless Girl, designed by Kristen

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  • April 20, 2018 at 1:12pm

    ICA London Launches Independent Film Council

    London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts has established an independent film council, which will advise and advocate for cinema dedicated to independent film and artists’ moving image works.

    The council includes performer and filmmaker Tilda Swinton; producer Stanley Buchthal; academics Erika Balsom and Laura Mulvey; film editor Walter Murch; Sundance Institute’s documentary program director, Tabitha Jackson; the National Film and Television School’s head of screen arts, Sandra Hebron; and artists and filmmakers Gerald Fox, Laura Poitras, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Naeem Mohaiemen, James Richards,

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  • April 20, 2018 at 11:30am

    Copenhagen Contemporary Appoints Marie Nipper Director and Announces New Location

    The Danish arts center Copenhagen Contemporary has revealed that it will move to a new permanent home on Refshale Island in June. The approximately 75,000-square-foot space was a former industrial welding hall. It also announced that Marie Nipper was named the institution’s new director.

    Nipper has worked as a curator at the ARoS Art Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, since April 2014. Previously, she was an interim artistic director at Tate Liverpool. Commenting on the institution’s new program, Nipper said that it will continue showing “big and technically demanding installation art” and presenting a

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