News

June 04, 2020 at 2:40pm

Action Steps Against Police Brutality

In the days since Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, mass protests have spread throughout the United States as people demand immediate action to end police brutality and the carceral state.
Below is a list of organizations that you can donate to, petitions you can sign, and US lawmakers you can call to support movements for racial justice and the thousands of protesters who have been arrested while participating in actions nationwide.

DONATE TO:
Bail Funds
National Bail Fund Network
The Bail Project
ActBlue

National Organizations
Black Lives Matter
Campaign Zero
American Civil

Read more
June 05, 2020 at 11:06am

Pamela Hugdahl Named Executive Director of Rochester Art Center

The Rochester Art Center (RAC) in Rochester, Minnesota, has appointed Pamela Hugdahl as its new executive director. Hugdahl comes to the institution from Wisconsin’s Port Washington Saukville Arts Council, where she served as the administrative director overseeing Gallery 224 and Studio 224. Previously, Hugdahl served as the director of the Cedarburg Art Museum in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and worked in the advancement department at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
“Pam’s leadership qualities, enthusiasm, and vision for the Rochester Art Center make her an ideal fit for

Read more
June 05, 2020 at 10:25am

Blaze Tears Through Manila’s Artist-led Nonprofit Green Papaya

Green Papaya Art Projects, the oldest artist-run nonprofit in Manila, has been ravaged by a fire that broke out in a neighboring building on June 3. No injuries were reported, but much of the space’s archives were destroyed and its ground-floor ceiling collapsed. The firemen who extinguished the blaze, which also damaged at least three businesses, determined that the cause was electrical.
Established by Norberto Roldan and Donna Miranda in 2000 as an initiative that “supports and organizes actions and propositions that explore alternative approached to the production, dissemination, research,

Read more
June 04, 2020 at 1:22pm

Confederate Monuments Removed Across America

As protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police continue to take place across America, several states have committed to removing or have already taken down Confederate-era statues, condemned by activists as symbols of institutional racism. Many controversial public monuments served as rallying points for supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and people demonstrating against police brutality, and were defaced or toppled in the ongoing nationwide demonstrations following Floyd’s death on May 25.
Randall Woodfin, the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, ordered the removal of

Read more
June 04, 2020 at 10:55am

Struggling Cultural Institutions Begin Dipping into Endowments

The coronavirus pandemic is challenging the United States’ cultural industry’s core belief that endowments—assets generally made up of donations that are invested in order to generate income—should not be touched. Only the earnings from such funds are meant to be spent by institutions. The economic hardship caused by Covid-19, however, has led some arts groups to draw from their endowments’ principal funds.
“When your entire business model is being compromised by a pandemic, we have to reconsider everything,” George Suttles, a senior executive of the education and research arm of Commonfund, an

Read more
June 03, 2020 at 7:15pm

“We Can Do Better,” Claim US Museums Criticized for Hollow Signs of BLM Solidarity

As the ongoing protests over George Floyd’s death, police brutality, and racism roil the United States, museums across the country are being called out for not doing more to condemn racist policing and to show their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Many art institutions have issued statements about racial injustice that have been criticized as “vague” or “throwaway” comments, and have been slow to directly confront the May 25 killing of Floyd by white Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin. Among the museums that faced backlash was the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which apologized for

Read more
June 03, 2020 at 3:39pm

As Protests Against Police Brutality Continue, Walker Art Center Suspends MPD Contracts

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis announced that it will no longer contract the services of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) for events until the law enforcement agency “implements meaningful change by demilitarizing training programs, holding officers accountable for the use of excessive force, and treating communities of color with dignity and respect.” In a statement posted on Instagram, the institution said: “Enough is enough. George Floyd should still be alive. Black Lives Matter.”
The move makes it the first institution to break from the police amid the ongoing protests, calls

Read more
June 02, 2020 at 12:37pm

Critical Minded Launches Relief Fund for Cultural Critics

Critical Minded, a grantmaking and educational initiative that was founded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Ford Foundation to support cultural critics of color in the United States, has set up a new Covid-19 relief fund that aims to provide financial assistance to critics during the pandemic.
Sponsored by Allied Media Projects, the initiative will accept applications for funding up until the end of the day on Monday, June 8. To be eligible for the program, critics must self-identify as belonging to an underrepresented group in the US or US territories and must submit three work samples

Read more
June 02, 2020 at 11:57am

San José Institute of Contemporary Art Names Alison Gass Director

Alison Gass, a Bay Area native, contemporary art curator, and museum administrator, is returning to California to head the San José Institute of Contemporary Art (SJICA). She joins the institution amid preparations to celebrate its fortieth anniversary this fall and during a period of temporary closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Gass most recently served as head of the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, which she helmed from May 2017 to September 2019. She also previously served as chief curator and associate director for exhibitions and collections at the Cantor Arts Center at

Read more
June 02, 2020 at 10:24am

Tate Appoints Roland Rudd Board Chair

The Tate’s board of trustees has appointed Roland Rudd as the institution’s new board chairman. He will succeed Lionel Barber at the end of his term on January 30, 2021. Roland has served as a trustee of the Tate since November 2017. He was elected through a private ballot overseen by senior independent trustee Moya Greene, the former CEO of the Royal Mail Group.
“Tate is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions,” Barber said in a statement. “It will have a significant role to play as the United Kingdom recovers from the impact of coronavirus. I am delighted that when I step down in

Read more
June 01, 2020 at 3:50pm

Jane Moss, Artistic Director of Lincoln Center, to Depart

After nearly three decades as head of artistic programming at New York’s Lincoln Center, Jane Moss has announced that she will step down on August 1. The center, which comprises the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center Theater, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, has been temporarily shuttered because of the Covid-19 pandemic since mid-March. In addition to housing the constituent organizations, the center hosts around two hundred events each year.
“I think that live performance is going to be the most avant-garde aspect of our lives if these devices

Read more
June 01, 2020 at 2:05pm

Smithsonian Responds to US Protests, Urges Collective Action to Demand Racial Justice

Smithsonian secretary Lonnie G. Bunch has issued a statement on behalf of the federally funded institution in response to the ongoing unrest over racial injustice in the United States. Cities in every state across the country have erupted in protests over the last six days as people expressed anger and anguish over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who was killed by a white police officer while he was being placed under arrest for allegedly trying to use a counterfeit bill in Minneapolis last week.
While Derek Chauvin, the officer who held his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than

Read more

1 2 3 4 5 > >>