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August 04, 2021 at 5:36pm

John Waters Named to Board of Baltimore Museum of Art

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) yesterday announced five new board trustees, only one of whom will have a bathroom named after him at the institution. Cultural icon and Baltimore native John Waters was named to the board alongside Michael Ealy, Nupur Parekh Flynn, Lori N. Johnson, and Anne L. Stone. The five join a thirty-six-member board led by board chair Clair Zamoiski Segal and the BMA’s director, Christopher Bedford. The body is tasked with overseeing the museum’s governance program and in rallying support for its initiatives.
“I am very excited to welcome the five new trustees, whose

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August 04, 2021 at 12:14pm

Pussy Riot Members Flee Russia as Government Intensifies Harassment

Citing a campaign of sustained harassment by the Russian government, three members of Pussy Riot have temporarily departed the country, The Art Newspaper reports. Alexander Sofeyev, Anna Kuzminykh, and Veronika Nikulshina announced via Twitter that they left in order “to take a break from constant arrests for a second.”
In what analysts predict is an effort to clear the field prior to the nation’s upcoming parliamentary elections, to be held September 19, the government of Vladimir Putin has in recent months repeatedly arrested and re-arrested members of the feminist political protest collective,

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August 03, 2021 at 6:00pm

Devastating Blaze Rips Through Cinemateca Brasileira Warehouse

The Cinemateca Brasileira warehouse sustained considerable damage and the condition of its contents is not yet fully known after a fire tore through the structure, located in the Vila Leopoldina district of São Paulo, on the evening of July 29. The blaze, which local fire chief Karina Paula Mareira said “started in one of the historical film collection rooms on the first floor” of the 70,000-square-foot building, led to the total collapse of one-quarter of the roof. Damage to the 250,000 Brazilian films and million related documents housed in the edifice is likely to be significant, as is that

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August 03, 2021 at 12:18pm

Whitney Workers Vote 96–1 to Unionize

Winding up a brief campaign begun in May, employees of New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art on August 2 voted 96–1 to join the Local 2110 branch of the United Auto Workers union (UAW), Artnews reports. The push to unionize came after the Whitney, like other arts institutions around the world, was forced to lay off employees owing to the continuing Covid-19 crisis, reducing staff by roughly 20 percent over the span of a year. Seventy-six employees, most in visitor-services positions, lost their jobs in April 2020 and another fifteen fell under the axe this past February, as the museum sought

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August 02, 2021 at 6:33pm

Timothy Rub to Depart as Director of Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has announced that Timothy Rub will step down as director and chief executive of the institution on January 30, 2022. No successor has yet been named for Rub, who led the museum for thirteen years, but the board of trustees is expected to launch a search shortly. The announcement comes as the museum, like many of its counterparts nationwide, contends with an employee push to unionize, and after Rub was forced to apologize to staff in the wake of the museum’s mishandling of harassment complaints made against Joshua Helmer, who previously worked as assistant director

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August 02, 2021 at 5:38pm

Guggenheim Curators Push to Unionize

Looking for greater wage equity, more transparency, and increased job security following a tumultuous year, staff at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum are seeking to unionize. As first reported by the New York Times, workers including curators, conservators, educators, digital marketing staff, administrative staff, and front-of-house workers including those in visitor services, are petitioning to join Technical, Office and Professional Union Local 2110 of United Auto Workers (UAW).
“The Guggenheim has received notice of a petition from Local 2110 UAW to form a new union at the Museum and

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August 01, 2021 at 12:35pm

Phillip King (1934–2021)

Influential British artist Phillip King, who helped find a new language for postwar sculpture with playful, vividly colored forms that at times evoke Matisse cutouts in their seeming weightlessness, has died at age eighty-seven. Thomas Dane Gallery, which represents the artist, announced his death on Thursday. In the 1960s, King emerged as the most unpredictable member of the New Generation, a group of British sculptors who shed the traditions of their medium, ditching the plinth and experimenting with industrial materials, bright palettes, and abstract shapes.
Born in 1934 to a French mother

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July 29, 2021 at 12:43pm

Marian Goodman Announces Five Partners

New York’s Marian Goodman Gallery today revealed a new partnership structure and leadership plan. Philipp Kaiser, currently the gallery’s chief executive director of artists and programs, has been announced as president and partner, while executive directors Emily-Jane Kirwan, Rose Lord, Leslie Nolen, and Junette Teng have been named partners. An advisory committee has been formed to aid the partners in overseeing the gallery’s continuing stewardship and program development. Comprising the committee are Elaine Budin, the gallery’s managing director; executive directors Aebhric Coleman and Nicolas

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July 29, 2021 at 12:12pm

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Awards $5.1 Million in Climate Grants to Art Institutions

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation on July 28 announced the recipients of its first round of climate-change grants totaling $5.1 million, parceled out among seventy-nine US institutions in amounts ranging from $7,000 to $100,000. The foundation additionally revealed that a further $4.9 million will be awarded in a second round, as the nonprofit steps up its efforts to help museums green their operations. “The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation wants to help galvanize the arts community to reach for a net-zero carbon footprint, starting right now,” said foundation chairman Clifford Ross in a statement.

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July 29, 2021 at 10:23am

MoMA PS1 Unveils Artist List for 2021 Greater New York Exhibition

Having been forced last year by the Covid-19 crisis to delay the fifth edition of its regional quinquennial survey Greater New York, MoMA PS1 has announced that the exhibition will open October 7 and run through April 18, 2022. Featuring forty-seven artists and collectives, the show will take as its theme artistic networks in New York, and will feature works belonging to two seemingly very different categories: documentary and Surrealism. Those taking part in this iteration represent a wide swath of intergenerational New York, ranging from up-and-comers to established, well-known artists, their

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July 28, 2021 at 8:09pm

Christie’s Details New Asia Pacific Headquarters in Hong Kong

Christie’s has announced that a curvy, glass-clad Zaha Hadid Architects–designed skyscraper scheduled to be completed in 2023 in Hong Kong will house its new Asia Pacific headquarters. The blue-chip auction house has signed a ten-year lease for four floors of the thirty-six-story tower, known as “the Henderson,” becoming its first anchor tenant, and plans to open there in 2024.
The auction house’s new digs comprise 50,000 square feet, 30,000 square feet of which will be devoted to gallery and salesroom space, which is limited to just 7,000 square feet at its current Hong Kong outpost. Previously

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July 28, 2021 at 6:30pm

25 Artists Sever Ties with Zabludowicz Collection over Pro-Israel Connection

Twenty-five artists and art workers have announced that they are disaffiliating from London’s Zabludowicz Collection, citing the contemporary art museum’s connections to the Israeli military. On July 26, the twenty-five, all of whom have either exhibited at or collaborated with the institution, sent letters to the Zabludowicz Collection and to its affiliates, including Daata Editions, Daata Fair, and Times Square Space, detailing their plan to “deauthor” all “conceptual content” they had created for the collection. This was limned as including not just artworks but screenings, talks, workshops,

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