News

  • Andrew Tshabangu, Long Road, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.
    September 04, 2019 at 12:29pm

    Rencontres de Bamako Reveals Artists Participating in Its 2019 Edition

    Rencontres de Bamako (Bamako Encounters), the biennial dedicated to African photography and video, has released the list of artists participating in its twenty-fifth anniversary edition, which will take place in Mali from November 30, 2019 to January 31, 2020.

    Titled “Streams of Consciousness,” after the eponymous 1977 record by Abdullah Ibrahim and Max Roach, the exhibition was conceived by artistic director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and a curatorial team comprising Aziza Harmel, Astrid Sokona Lepoultier, and Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh; artistic advisors Akinbode Akinbiyi and Seydou Camara; and

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  • Amy Sadao. Photo: David Kelley. Courtesy of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.
    September 04, 2019 at 11:42am

    Amy Sadao, Director of Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art, Steps Down

    Amy Sadao, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania, has announced that she is resigning to pursue new opportunities and personal projects after more than seven years at the helm of the institution. Under Sadao’s leadership, the ICA strengthened its exhibition and publications program, increased attendance and public engagement, and expanded the museum’s digital impact and reach.

    During her tenure, the ICA presented fifty-one exhibitions dedicated to underrepresented and overlooked artists. Sadao said her term was “guided by questions of what a

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  • Michael Rakowitz. Courtesy of the Nasher Sculpture Center.
    September 04, 2019 at 8:00am

    Michael Rakowitz Wins $100,000 Nasher Prize

    Michael Rakowitz, the Chicago-based, Iraqi American artist known for producing powerful works that often address complicated histories and events, such as the death of Tamir Rice—the twelve-year-old boy who was fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer in 2014—and ISIS’s systematic campaign to destroy cultural heritage, has been named the winner of the $100,000 Nasher Prize.

    Awarded by the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, the prize recognizes artists who “elevate the understanding of sculpture and its possibilities.” Rakowitz will be presented with an award designed by Renzo Piano,

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  • Andy Warhol, Moonwalk, 1987. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
    September 03, 2019 at 3:03pm

    Brothers Feud over Andy Warhol Moonwalk Prints

    Two brothers are currently locked in a legal battle over the sale of Andy Warhol’s Moonwalk, a set of two prints depicting Buzz Aldrin and the American flag. Executed in 1987, the piece was meant to be part of a series titled “TV” that would have featured historic images from American television—Moonwalk was the only image printed—and was one of the last works Warhol created before his death.

    Artnews reports that the work, which was one of 160 editions, was acquired by Keith and Robert Donaldson in 1999 and had been in the possession of Robert. Unbeknownst to Keith, Robert sold the

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  • Eva Langret. Photo: Deniz Guzel.
    September 03, 2019 at 1:49pm

    Frieze London Appoints Eva Langret as Artistic Director

    Frieze announced today that Eva Langret has been named artistic director of Frieze London. Langret joins Frieze from the London-based gallery Tiwani Contemporary, where she curated Maren Hassinger’s first solo show outside of the United States and collaborated with artists such as Simone Leigh, Zina Saro-Wiwa, Theo Eshetu, and ruby onyinyechi amanze. Starting in November 2019, she will lead the strategic development and artistic program of the London art fair and act as a liaison for galleries, collectors, and curators in collaboration with global director Victoria Siddall.

    “Eva’s passion and

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  • Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.
    September 03, 2019 at 12:36pm

    Artists Call for Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art to Drop Trustee Tied to $130 Million Lawsuit over ICE Detainees

    Mariner Kemper, the CEO and chairman of the UMB Financial Corp (UMB Bank) and a trustee of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri—which was founded by his parents, R. Crosby Kemper Jr. and Mary “Bebe” Hunt, in 1994—is under fire for his connections to President Trump’s controversial immigration policies. Artists began calling for his removal from the museum board after learning that UMB Bank represents the bondholders for the publicly owned and privately operated Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island, which began housing undocumented immigrants

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  • Lea Pinsky.
    September 03, 2019 at 8:30am

    Lea Pinsky Named Inaugural Executive Director of Art Encounter

    Art Encounter, a Chicago-based arts education organization, has appointed Lea Pinsky as its first-ever executive director. Pinsky has been a teaching artist with Art Encounter since 2002 and has served as its director of outreach and community programs since 2015. In her new leadership role, she will work with the board of directors and staff to implement the nonprofit’s strategic vision and carry out its mission of educating, empowering, and connecting people through the visual arts.  

    Pinksy is the daughter of artist Joanna Pinsky, who cofounded the organization with Ellen Kamerling and Bonnie

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  • The National Gallery of Victoria Photo: Gracchus250.
    September 03, 2019 at 8:13am

    National Gallery of Victoria Criticized for Refusing to Host Hong Kong Activists

    The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Australia has been accused of censorship for refusing to host a panel on art and resistance in Hong Kong that was organized by activist Denise Ho and Chinese Australian political cartoonist Badiucao, The Guardian reports. While the gallery was available on the requested date for the event, the museum informed Ho and Badiucao via email that it could not accommodate the panel but did not cite a reason for the rejection.

    In response to the allegations, a spokesperson for the museum provided Artforum with the following statement: “The NGV supports artists’

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  • Emelie Gevalt.
    August 30, 2019 at 3:39pm

    American Folk Art Museum Hires Emelie Gevalt as Curator

    The American Folk Art Museum in New York appointed Emelie Gevalt as its new curator of folk art. She comes to the institution from the Art of the Americas Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she helped organize the upcoming exhibition “Collecting Stories: The Invention of Folk Art,” which opens in May 2020.

    Previously, Gevalt served in leadership roles at Christie’s in New York in the Estates, Appraisals, and Valuations Department and assisted in the management of private collections in New York. Gevalt has a master’s degree from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture

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  • A courtroom sketch of a fake Mark Rothko painting bought by Domenico de Sole from Knoedler Gallery—the only Knoedler fraud case to go to trial. Photo: Elizabeth Williams/www.elizabethwilliamstudio.com.
    August 30, 2019 at 2:30pm

    Knoedler Settles Suit over Bogus Rothko, Inaugural Future Fair Pledges to Share Profits with Galleries, and More

    The tenth and final lawsuit in the Knoedler Gallery forgery scandal has been settled. Since it shuttered in 2011, the historic gallery, which was founded in 1846, has been embroiled in legal disputes over the tens of millions of dollars in counterfeit art that it sold to clients.

    The suit involves a fake Mark Rothko painting that was sold to the Martin Hilti Family Trust in 2002 for $5.5 million. The trust was prompted to send paint samples from the oil painting to a lab for forensic analysis after the first reports of forgery concerns began to surface eight years ago and learned that the work

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  • Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art. Courtesy of the Aichi Triennale in Japan.
    August 29, 2019 at 5:28pm

    International Museum Association Calls for Reopening of Aichi Triennale Exhibition Following Censorship Controversy

    The International Committee of Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) has added its voice to the growing backlash against the organizers of the Aichi Triennale in Japan over their decision to shutter the exhibition “After ‘Freedom of Expression?’”—a presentation of artworks that had been previously censored in the country—on August 3, days after it opened.

    Staged at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art in Nagoya, the show had received several threats over the inclusion of a “comfort woman” statue, a tribute to the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during

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  • Howardena Pindell, Carnival: Rio Samba School, Brazil, 2017–18. Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.
    August 29, 2019 at 12:25pm

    Howardena Pindell Receives Artists’ Legacy Foundation’s $25,000 Artist Award

    The Artists’ Legacy Foundation in Oakland, California, announced that Howardena Pindell has won its 2019 Artist Award, a $25,000 prize that is given annually to a painter or sculptor who has made significant contributions to their field. Represented by Garth Greenan Gallery in New York, Pindell, a Philadelphia-born, African American artist who has been underrecognized for much of her five-decade career, creates abstract works on paper, constructed out of hundreds of numbered dots; paintings that examine topics such as racism and feminism; drawings; photographs; and video works.

    Over the years,

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