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September 24, 2021 at 5:52pm

Saudi Arabia’s First Biennial Announces Participating Artists

The Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, the first event of its kind to be held in Saudi Arabia, has released a partial list of participating artists,The Art Newspaper reports. Among the international artists named are Saudi installation artist Manal Al Dowayan, Irish digital sculptor John Gerrard, Kuwaiti intermedia artist Monira Al-Qadiri, and Chinese printmaker and installation artist Xu Bing. Saudi talent will be attendant in full force at the biennial as well, with Land artist Zahrah Alghamdi, calligrapher Lulwah Al-Homoud, and tile artist Dana Awartani among those taking part. Also on display

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September 23, 2021 at 1:00pm

Kristy Edmunds Named Director of MASS MoCA

Kristy Edmunds has been appointed director of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Edmunds, who since 2011 has served as executive and artistic director of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA), succeeds museum founder Joseph C. Thompson, who led the institution for more than thirty years before stepping down last August; Tracy Moore served as interim director while the museum’s board searched for a new permanent leader.
A veteran of the art world, Edmunds brings to the institution as many decades of experience as Thompson left with, though of a considerably more diverse

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September 23, 2021 at 12:43pm

NYC Awards Queens Museum $26.4 Million Toward Expansion

The City of New York has awarded the Queens Museum $26.4 million for the institution to complete its expansion project, which includes plans for a children’s museum space devoted to Queens art and culture, more classrooms, secure artwork storage, and improved energy efficiency throughout the museum. The initial phase of the expansion, completed in November 2013, saw the institution add 50,000 square feet of gallery, event, and education space; the museum additionally upgraded its visitor amenities and facilities systems at that time.
The funding is expected to cover the five components of the

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September 23, 2021 at 12:35pm

Jordan Carter Joins Dia Art Foundation as Curator

New York’s Dia Art Foundation has announced that Jordan Carter will be joining the institution as curator. Carter, an associate curator at the Art Institute of Chicago since 2017, will assume his post at Dia in December, following the November opening of “Ray Johnson c/o,” which he co-organized with curator Caitlin Haskell at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Prior to joining the Art Institute, Carter was a curatorial fellow at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and held positions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and at the Centre Pompidou Paris. He specializes in Fluxus and Conceptual art,

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September 22, 2021 at 4:02pm

Cameron Clayborn and Hana Miletić Win 2021 Baloise Art Prize

American sculptor Cameron Clayborn and Croatian textile artist Hana Miletić have been awarded the twenty-second Baloise Art Prize. The CHF 30,000 ($32,500) award is presented annually to artists exhibiting in the Statements section of Art Basel. The Baloise Group, which administers the prize in partnership with the fair, will purchase works by both artists and donate them to the Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, and Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg.
Clayborn, a native of Pine Bluffs, Arkansas, is an MFA candidate at Yale University School of Art in New Haven. His

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September 22, 2021 at 2:22pm

Seena Hodges Named Board President of Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, has announced the election of Seena Hodges as president of its board of trustees. Hodges is the first African American and first person of color to helm the board. With the election of Karen Heithoff and D. Ellen Wilson as vice presidents, Sarah Lynn Oquist as treasurer, and Teresa Rasmussen as secretary, the Walker board for the first time its ninety-four-year history boasts an all-woman slate of officers. The September 13 meeting at which the officers were elected also resulted in the approval of a five-year strategic plan.
Hodges, a veteran of the theater

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September 21, 2021 at 1:05pm

New Opening Date Set for Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

The hotly anticipated and much-delayed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will welcome the public in the fall of 2026, The Art Newspaper reports. Speaking earlier today at a press conference in Basel, Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong acknowledged that the institution, which was first announced in 2006, has had a “bit of a long gestation.” The Frank Gehry–designed outpost of New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was initially slated to open in 2012, but construction was postponed following the 2008 economic recession and the Arab Spring, as well as changes in leadership at the UAE-backed Tourism,

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September 21, 2021 at 10:12am

Hewlett Foundation Awards $17 Million to Bay Area Arts Consortiums

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation on Monday announced that it will award $17 million to more than thirty San Francisco–area nonprofit arts groups. The money is part of the foundation’s Adaptation Grants program, and is aimed at assisting groups with implementing plans in support of future financial and structural stability. The awards respond to a recent study by Northern California Grantmakers showing that 48 percent of Bay Area nonprofits have reduced or ceased operations as the Covid-19 crisis continues to grind on. Additionally, arts organizations in the region must contend with

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September 17, 2021 at 1:42pm

Met to Deaccession $1 Million Worth of Prints and Photos to Make Ends Meet

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is to sell 219 prints and photographs to make up for a $150 million budget shortfall caused by the continuing Covid-19 crisis, according to Artnet News. Auction house Christie’s will handle the sale. The works, all duplicates of those in the Met’s collection, will be made available in three tranches beginning September 24, when a raft of Civil War photographs hit the block. The sale is expected to generate roughly $900,000 to $1.4 million and includes works by Robert Frank, Roy Lichtenstein, and Frank Stella. The museum confirmed that private dealer Tobias

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September 17, 2021 at 1:28pm

Hito Steyerl Rejects Top German Honor, Citing Country’s Pandemic Response

Artist and documentary filmmaker Hito Steyerl on Wednesday said she would decline one of Germany’s most prestigious civilian honors, the Federal Cross of Merit. In a letter published in the German weekly Die Zeit, the Munich-born artist, who is known for her work investigating militarization, surveillance migration, and the global dissemination of images, pointed to the government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis as the reason behind her rejection of the award, considered the equivalent of a British knighthood or the French Legion of Honor. Previous recipients of the award include art historian

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September 16, 2021 at 2:13pm

NFT Sales Platform OpenSea Rocked by Insider Trading Scandal

NFT sales platform OpenSea has revealed that a high-ranking executive within the company profited from trading its crypto digital assets using insider information, as first reported by TechCrunch. The employee, said to be the platform’s head of product, used secret crypto wallets to purchase NFTs before they were made available to buyers online, sold them once they were unveiled on the OpenSea website, and directed the profits to a personal account.
The illicit transactions were allegedly first pointed out by Twitter user @ZuwuTV, who on September 14 approached OpenSea via their Twitter account,

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September 16, 2021 at 12:26pm

Christophe Leribault Appointed Director of Musée d’Orsay

Christophe Leribault was yesterday announced as the new director of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and of its affiliate, the Musée de l’Orangerie. Leribault, who served as a curator at the Louvre and as director of the Musée Delacroix, Paris, before going on to helm the Petit Palais, Paris, in 2012, will replace Laurence des Cars. Des Cars this month assumes leadership of the Louvre, becoming its first female director.
In his new role, which he will step into on October 5, Leribault will be tasked with overseeing the Musée d’Orsay’s large-scale redevelopment, which is expected to take ten years to

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