News

  • July 22, 2018 at 8:38pm

    Anne Olivier Bell (1916–2018)

    Anne Olivier Bell, who helped rescue European art from the Nazis alongside archaeologists and other art historians as part of the “Monuments Men” effort during World War II, died last week at age one hundred and two. While her wartime efforts led to millions of historic artworks being saved, Olivier was especially interested in contemporary art, and became a maven of the Bloomsbury Group after marrying Quentin Bell in 1952. With her exhaustive knowledge of the group and her editorial insight, Olivier helped her husband write the first authorized biography of his aunt, Virginia Woolf, and Olivier’s

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  • July 20, 2018 at 12:41pm

    Following Sculpture Garden Controversy, Walker Art Center Forms Indigenous Art Committee

    The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is establishing the Indigenous Public Art Selection Committee in cooperation with a group of Native curators, artists, and cultural professionals. Its members, who requested that their names and affiliations not be disclosed at this time, are currently working with the Walker to commission a Native artist to create a site-specific work for its sculpture garden.

    The Walker formed the selection committee in the wake of controversy surrounding an artwork it was planning to unveil in its newly opened sculpture garden last year. The piece, Scaffold, 2012, by the

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  • July 20, 2018 at 10:19am

    Seattle Art Fair Launches Acquisition Fund for Frye Art Museum

    The Seattle Art Fair has announced that it is entering into a new partnership with the city’s Frye Art Museum. The upcoming edition of the fair will give the institution $25,000 to acquire works from its more than one hundred exhibitors.

    Commenting on the gift, Joseph Rosa, director and CEO of the Frye Art Museum, said: “We are thrilled with this opportunity to expand and diversify the Frye’s contemporary holdings. In keeping with our goals to support the local artistic community as well as to bring global perspectives to the region, we will acquire works that add new important voices to our

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  • July 19, 2018 at 3:35pm

    The Box, Plymouth, Appoints Nigel Hurst Head of Contemporary Arts

    The Box, Plymouth—the new exhibition space in Plymouth, England, slated to open in 2020—announced that Nigel Hurst has been named its new head of contemporary arts. Hurst comes to the Box from the Saatchi Gallery in London, where he has worked in various roles for the past twenty-three years. Most recently, he served as gallery director and CEO. Hurst will assume his new responsibilities in early September.

    “Nigel’s appointment is a very welcome development for the Box and the city,” Plymouth City Council leader Tudor Evans said in a statement. “We’re working to create a step-change in

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  • July 19, 2018 at 1:30pm

    House of Representatives Rejects Proposal to Cut NEA and NEH Funding by 15 Percent

    In a 297–114 vote in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, the House of Representatives shot down a proposal to slash funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities by 15 percent, or about $23 million, in 2019. The rejection of the budget cuts was a victory for arts advocates across the United States.

    First proposed by Republican Glenn Grothman, a representative from Wisconsin’s sixth congressional district, the amendment to the federal government spending bill was meant to make a “small dent” in the United States’ spending. During a House Rules Committee

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  • July 19, 2018 at 1:09pm

    Nationalmuseum Sweden to Reopen in October

    The Nationalmuseum, Sweden’s largest fine arts and design institution, has announced that it will reopen to the public on October 13, following a major renovation. Led by the Swedish architecture firms Wingårdhs and Wikerstål Arkitekter, the project increased the amount of exhibition space—the museum will now be able to showcase more than five thousand artworks from its collection—created a sculpture courtyard, and added a restaurant. Two existing courtyards have also been reopened for public use.

    The revamp aims to improve accessibility by building a new elevator tower and expanding

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  • July 19, 2018 at 10:00am

    Amid Rising Nationalism, Germany’s Green Party Politicians Call for Artistic Freedom

    Two members of Germany’s Green Party have created an online petition that warns of the rise of right-wing national governments and calls for artistic freedom in the country and throughout Europe.

    Titled “The Brussels Declaration,” the petition points to recent developments in Austria, Hungary, and Poland and charges the countries’ governments with “trying to direct the creative scene toward their own ends with a policy of national isolation.”

    According to the organizers of the petition, Erhard Grundl and Claudia Roth, the cultural landscape is being threatened. The right-wing Alternative for

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  • July 18, 2018 at 4:39pm

    Imprisoned Turkish Artist Smuggles Thank You Note to Banksy

    Five months ago, the anonymous British artist Banksy and the street artist Borf painted a mural protesting the imprisonment of the Turkish artist and journalist Zehra Doğan on the corner of Houston Street and Bowery in New York. On Tuesday, Banksy revealed that he received a handwritten letter from the artist thanking him for his support.

    Doğan was arrested at a café in July 2016 and sentenced to nearly three years in prison for painting the destruction of a predominantly Kurdish town with Turkish flags flying above it. Doğan was on assignment for the feminist Kurdish news agency JINHA when she

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  • July 18, 2018 at 1:00pm

    Jhaveri Contemporary Moves to Larger Mumbai Space

    Jhaveri Contemporary has announced that, after eight years in the Malabar Hill neighborhood of Mumbai, the gallery is relocating. It will move to a new larger home in the city’s historic area of Colaba. The new space, which is situated on the third floor of a nineteenth-century mansion on Mereweather Road, will triple the gallery’s footprint.

    Comprising two exhibition spaces, the new gallery boasts thirteen-foot ceilings, concrete walls, exposed beams, and large windows that let in an abundance of natural light. The gallery will also have two balconies with views of the Gateway of India and the

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  • July 18, 2018 at 7:33am

    Song-Ming Ang to Represent Singapore at 2019 Venice Biennale

    Singapore’s Fost Gallery has announced that artist Song-Ming Ang has been selected by the National Arts Council to represent the country at the Fifty-Eighth Venice Biennale, which will open in May 2019. Michelle Ho, director of the ADM Gallery at the School of Art, Design, and Media at Nanyang Technological University and a former curator at the Singapore Art Museum, will curate the pavilion.

    Ang’s art often examines how people relate to music, individually and as a society. Through his practice, he challenges contexts in which music is produced, shared, and consumed. For his 2012 work Parts and

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  • July 18, 2018 at 7:00am

    Nonprofit Dedicated to Working with Artists in Conflict Zones to Launch in October

    Ruya Maps, a nonprofit that plans to work with visual artists based in areas of social or political instability, will launch this fall. A sister organization of the Iraq-based Ruya Foundation, which is best known for commissioning the Iraq Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Ruya Maps will host projects across the globe.

    Led by director Tamara Chalabi and curatorial advisor Paolo Colombo, the program aims to bring exhibitions, artist commissions, workshops, talks, and other initiatives to new audiences in order to foster a greater understanding of the challenges people face internationally. Ruya

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  • July 18, 2018 at 3:54am

    Whitney Ferrare Joins Pace Gallery as Senior Director in Hong Kong

    Pace Gallery announced that Whitney Ferrare has been appointed senior director. Based in Hong Kong, Ferrare will support primary and secondary market activity for Pace’s artists and estates, in addition to contributing to the gallery’s exhibition and art fair programming across the Asia Pacific region. She will also lead Pace’s first participation in Sydney Contemporary in Australia, which will kick off on September 13.

    “When we opened our second gallery in Hong Kong this past
 March, it was clear that it wasn’t the culmination of Pace’s work
 in Asia; but rather, the commencement of a new level

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