News

  • Ursula von Rydingsvard, Luba, 2009–10.
    January 18, 2019 at 3:35pm

    College Art Association Announces 2019 Award Recipients

    Honorees of this year’s College Art Association awards include Howardena Pindell, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Anna C. Chave, Senga Nengudi, Nancy S. Steinhardt, Edward Sullivan, and Artforum contributing editor Molly Nesbit. The distinctions in art will be presented during the group’s annual conference, which will take place from February 13 to February 16 in New York. 

    The Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work went to von Rydingsvard, who has been developing a distinct artistic language through large-scale sculptures in cast bronze, resin, and her characteristic carved cedar for over forty

    Read more
  • Protesters in Zimbabwe, where the government has more than doubled fuel prices. Photo: Democracy Now!
    January 18, 2019 at 3:30pm

    Zimbabwe Biennial Delayed Amid Violent Government Crackdown on Protesters

    Following the biggest government security crackdown Zimbabwe has seen in years, the Bulawayo Biennial has been postponed from October 2019 to October 2020. Curator, artist, and biennial organizer Sithabile Mlotshwa had planned a program featuring the work of sixty artists and exhibiting performance, architecture, and installation in pavilions and public spaces across the city, but the country’s precarious political climate has forced it to be delayed, reports the Art Newspaper.

    The crackdown began on Monday after protests broke out following the announcement that fuel prices would be more than

    Read more
  • The New Museum in New York. Photo: Julienne Schaer.
    January 18, 2019 at 3:00pm

    “Do the Right Thing”: Artists Urge New Museum to Allow Staff to Unionize

    More than fifty artists, curators, and educators have signed an open letter in solidarity with the employees of the New Museum in New York who have faced pushback from the institution’s management since they began the process of forming a union. The staff filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board earlier this month and are waiting for the union election to take place on Thursday, January 24.

    The institution is currently working with the union-busting consulting firm Adams Nash Haskell & Sheridan (ANHS) to dissuade workers from joining the collective bargaining unit. The firm brags

    Read more
  • Musée Fernand Léger–André Mare director Magali Guillaumin with Léger’s Cycles X, ca. 1899. Photo: Ouest France.
    January 18, 2019 at 1:26pm

    Fernand Léger and André Mare Museum to Open in France

    A new museum dedicated to twentieth-century French artists Fernand Léger and André Mare is expected to open in Argentan, Normandy, in June. Housed in the childhood home of Léger, at 6 rue de l’Hotel de Ville, the institution, which was acquired by the municipality of Argentan in 1990 and has since served as an artist studio and a project space, will undergo a $1.5 million renovation.

    “[Léger and Mare’s] shared love for painting and drawing was to strengthen a sincere friendship that would nourish their respective creativity,” a statement from the museum reads. Musée Fernand Léger–André Mare “

    Read more
  • Sarah Watson.
    January 18, 2019 at 12:44pm

    Sarah Watson Joins Kayne Griffin Corcoran Gallery as President

    Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles announced that Sarah Watson has been named president of the gallery. Watson joins the gallery from LA’s Sprüth Magers, where she has served as senior director since 2015. In her new role, Watson will focus on expanding the gallery’s program, to which it recently added artists Llyn Foulkes and Hank Willis Thomas.

    Prior to joining Sprüth Magers, Watson opened the Los Angeles outpost of the New York–based gallery L&M (now Mnuchin Gallery) and worked as a director at Gagosian in Beverly Hills, Patrick Painter’s gallery in Santa Monica, and Deitch Projects in New

    Read more
  • “Say No to Amazon” graphic designed by Bad Barcode.
    January 18, 2019 at 8:00am

    Culture Workers Protest Plans for Amazon’s Queens Headquarters

    A group of New York–based culture workers banding under the name Bad Barcode have published a “research dossier” to challenge Amazon and its controversial plans to build a new corporate headquarters in Long Island City in Queens, New York. The retail behemoth’s announcement—made after months of secret bidding between cities—sparked outrage last November, when over two hundred politicians, union organizers, and community members rallied in protest near the proposed site for “H2Q.”  

    “We, as artists, critics, teachers, curators, administrators, writers, poets, artisans, editors, and other

    Read more
  • Joan Lyons, Are these men collaborators?, 1983. Photo: Susan E. Cohen and William S. Johnson Creativity Project Archive, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
    January 17, 2019 at 4:43pm

    Harry Ransom Center Acquires Archive Exploring Photographers’ Creative Process

    The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has acquired the Susan E. Cohen and William S. Johnson Creativity Project archive, which comprises materials from a three-year initiative that aimed to create a comprehensive record of the creative process in photography.

    More than thirty-five years ago, art historians Susan E. Cohen and William S. Johnson asked if they could work with artists Robert Frank, Dave Heath, Robert Heinecken, and John Wood on the project. Starting in January 1983, Cohen and Johnson conducted interviews with each of the artists, observed them in the studio,

    Read more
  • Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles.
    January 17, 2019 at 4:38pm

    LA’s Craft & Folk Art Museum Changes Name to Craft Contemporary

    The Craft & Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles has announced that it is changing its name to Craft Contemporary. For executive director Suzanne Isken, the museum has strengthened its focus on contemporary art made with craft media, techniques, and processes, and the name Craft Contemporary more accurately reflects this.  

    “‘Craft Contemporary’ emphasizes the word ‘craft’ as a verb and a noun—celebrating both the act and outcome of making,” Isken said. “With our new name, we continue to respect the deep history of the craft field while also looking forward to its bold and exciting future.”

    Founded

    Read more
  • Devin Mathis. Photo: Tania Garbe.
    January 17, 2019 at 2:36pm

    Brooklyn’s UrbanGlass Names Devin Mathis Executive Director

    UrbanGlass, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit established in 1977 to advance the use and critical understanding of glass as a creative medium, has welcomed Devin Mathis as its new executive director. Mathis joins the organization from the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, where she was the director of programs, leading nearly five hundred cultural, recreational, and educational initiatives annually.

    “Both the board and our senior staff unanimously recognized that Devin was exactly the right person at the right time for UrbanGlass,” board chair Larry Pitterman said in a statement. “Her unique blend of

    Read more
  • The Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
    January 17, 2019 at 1:37pm

    New York’s Museum of Arts and Design Announces Curatorial Appointments

    The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York has appointed Andrew Blauvelt as its new curator at large for design and John Underkoffler as curator at large for design technology, effective immediately. Blauvelt currently serves as director of the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and will remain in the role during his tenure at MAD.

    Prior to joining Cranbrook, Blauvelt spent seventeen years at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, serving in various curatorial and administrative roles, including as design director and senior curator of design, research, and publishing. Among

    Read more
  • Jo Andres, 1985. Photo: Paula Court.
    January 17, 2019 at 1:10pm

    Jo Andres (1954–2019)

    Artist, choreographer, and experimental filmmaker Jo Andres, whose practice combined elements as diverse as scratch animation, East Village heavy metal, and plastics, died on January 6. She was sixty-four years old. One of her works, a short film titled Black Kites, 1996, uses dreamlike, nonlinear storytelling and distortion to depict the inner life of Bosnian artist Izeta Gradevic, whose diary account of the 1992 siege of Sarajevo was adapted for the piece. Andres’s husband, actor Steve Buscemi, and their son were included in the cast of the film, which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival

    Read more
  • The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a member of the American Alliance of Museums.
    January 17, 2019 at 11:31am

    American Alliance of Museums Launches $4 Million Diversity Initiative

    The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), an organization with more than four thousand members, announced that it has established a new $4 million initiative that will focus on “diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion work” and will aim to diversify boards at museums across the US.

    Backed by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Alice L. Walton Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, the “Facing Change: Advancing Museum Board Diversity & Inclusion” initiative will provide training and resources to institutions over the course of the next three years to help them better reflect the

    Read more