News

July 21, 2019 at 4:38pm

Marisa Merz (1926–2019)

Marisa Merz, whose intimate art defies category but consistently challenges ideas of femininity in its fragile evocations of the body, has died at age ninety-three. The sculptor was the only woman artist associated with what critic-curator Germano Celant dubbed Arte Povera, or “poor art”—a radical association of avant-gardists in postwar Italy who made meaning from mundane materials and questioned the role of art itself. “Merz condenses forms and meanings and at the same time makes them seem to float free and evaporate,” wrote Ida Panicelli in a review for Artforum’s summer 2007 issue.
Born

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July 20, 2019 at 4:30pm

Forensic Architecture Becomes Eighth Exhibitor to Withdraw from Whitney Biennial

Forensic Architecture is the latest participant to pull their work from the Whitney Biennial over Warren B. Kanders, the vice chair of the Whitney Museum’s board who is the CEO of Safariland—a global weapons manufacturer whose munitions have been used to suppress protest in at least thirteen countries. Forensic Architecture’s move follows the decision by four artists—Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicole Eisenman, and Nicholas Galanin—to withdraw on Friday morning and three artist’s decision to withdraw since then: Eddie Arroyo, Christine Sun Kim, and Agustina Woodgate.

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July 19, 2019 at 4:30pm

British Museum Staffers Express Solidarity with Trustee Who Resigned over BP Sponsorship

Following novelist Ahdaf Soueif‘s decision to step down from the board of the British Museum in London over its controversial sponsorship agreement with British Petroleum and its silence on issues such as repatriation, museum workers have issued a public statement of support praising the author for speaking out. Soueif announced her exit days after the institution’s director, Hartwig Fischer, revealed that the museum will continue to partner with BP until 2023.
“Ahdaf’s actions highlight, once again, the troubling nature of the relationship between BP and the arts,” the statement reads. “Through

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July 19, 2019 at 11:55am

Artists Withdraw from Whitney Biennial as Backlash Builds Against Warren Kanders [UPDATED]

Four artists—Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicole Eisenman, and Nicholas Galanin—have withdrawn from the 2019 Whitney Biennial. The reason given is the museum’s failure to address the concerns of staff, artists, and activists over the role of the Whitney’s vice chair, Warren Kanders, as CEO of Safariland, a global defense manufacturer that sells tear gas. The participants in the exhibition, which runs until September 22, signed a letter addressed to the biennial’s curators, Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta, and shared for public release with Artforum, asking for their works

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July 18, 2019 at 6:20pm

Katharine Mulherin (1964–2019)

Gallerist Katharine Mulherin, a champion of Canadian artists for more than two decades, has died. The fifty-four-year-old took her own life on Sunday, July 14. As one of the first to launch an arts space on Queen Street, a major thoroughfare in Toronto, Mulherin is credited with helping to define the city’s arts scene.
For eighteen years, Mulherin ran her eponymous gallery out of multiple storefronts in Toronto, showcasing emerging Canadian artists including Dean Baldwin, Sojourner Truth Parsons, and Kris Knight alongside international artists. Mulherin was also the proprietor of the now-defunct

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July 18, 2019 at 3:45pm

Turkish Artist Zehra Doğan Detained in Berlin

Artist and activist Zehra Doğan, who was recently incarcerated in Turkey for painting the destruction of a Kurdish city by the military, was detained in Berlin along with several collaborators on Saturday, July 13 for participating in an unauthorized public performance-art piece at the city’s Pergamon Museum.
Doğan, and the artists Juan Golan Eliberg, Aurélie Gerardin, and Thomas Lamouroux, staged the performance in protest of the imminent flooding and loss of Hasankeyf, an ancient Mesopotamian citadel and settlement in southeastern Turkey, due to the construction of the controversial Ilisu Dam.

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July 18, 2019 at 2:00pm

Art-World Salary Spreadsheet Creators Launch Internship Survey

Michelle Millar Fisher, the Philadelphia Museum of art curator who made a crowdsourced spreadsheet of museum workers’ salaries in order to promote pay transparency in the cultural sector, has created a survey that aims to gather more data on internships in the field.
In an essay published by Artnews, Fisher and the group Art + Museum Transparency said that shifting their focus to internships was a natural next step, especially since summer is high season for interns. After reviewing the information entered on the Arts + All Museums Salary Transparency spreadsheet, which has almost three thousand

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July 18, 2019 at 11:45am

Pérez Art Museum Miami’s Chief Curator Steps Down

Tobias Ostrander, who has been chief curator at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) since 2011, has resigned. Over the years, Ostrander curated numerous exhibitions, including “Beatriz González: A Retrospective” (2019), with Mari Carmen Ramírez; “Ebony G. Patterson: . . . while the dew is still on the roses . . .” (2018–19); and “Meiro Koizumi: Battlelands” (2018); and oversaw the museum’s public programming and other initiatives. “I’m proud of all I did at PAMM,” Ostrander told the Miami Herald. “I’m leaving with a great sense of accomplishment.”
Prior to joining the museum, Ostrander served as

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July 18, 2019 at 11:18am

Recipients of $20,000 Grants from Mid-America Arts Alliance Announced

The Mid-America Arts Alliance in Kansas City, Missouri, has named the inaugural artists recognized by its new Interchange program, which supports artist-led projects designed to have a social impact. Hailing from Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, the grantees will each receive $20,000.
A pilot program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Interchange was created to help regional artists realize projects that address issues reaching rural and urban communities. The recipients will also have access to the alliance’s network of creative professionals, who may mentor or

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July 17, 2019 at 5:14pm

Warhol Foundation Awards Grants Totaling $3.81 Million

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts announced today the recipients of its 2019 spring grants. It will award $3.81 million to forty-one arts organizations that focus on supporting experimental and underrecognized artists. The funds will help realize scholarly exhibitions, including five monographic shows of work by women artists; publications; and visual arts programming.
“The grantees in this round range from small arts organizations with one staff member to major museums, yet they all provide essential resources for artists as well as innovative platforms for critical cultural dialogue,”

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July 17, 2019 at 3:04pm

Bart van der Heide Appointed Director of Italy’s Museion

Bart van der Heide, the former chief curator and head of research at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, is heading to Italy to lead the Museion, the modern and contemporary art museum in Bolzano, in the northeast province of South Tyrol. He will succeed Letizia Ragaglia, whose contract will expire in June 2020, and will begin preparing for his first season at the institution in the fall.
Marion Piffer Damiani, the president of the Museion, said: “Bart van der Heide won over the board due to his successful experiences in other renowned art institutions but also because of his vision for the future

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July 17, 2019 at 2:49pm

Venice Architecture Biennale Announces Theme of 2020 Edition

The Venice Architecture Biennale revealed that the theme of its seventeenth edition, taking place from May 23, 2020 to November 29, 2020, will be “How will we live together?” Curated by Hashim Sarkis, the exhibition will focus on the role of the architect as both “cordial convener and custodian of the spatial contract.” Those participating in the presentation of the national pavilions are being asked to address the need for more inclusive social housing and urban connectivity.
“In the context of widening political divides and growing economic inequalities, we call on architects to imagine spaces

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