News

  • Protesters in Philadelphia on May 30. Photo: Joe Piette/Flickr.
    June 04, 2020 at 2:40pm

    Action Steps Against Police Brutality

    In the days since Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, mass protests have spread throughout the United States as people demand immediate action to end police brutality and the carceral state.

    Below is a list of organizations that you can donate to, petitions you can sign, and US lawmakers you can call to support movements for racial justice and the thousands of protesters who have been arrested while participating in actions nationwide.

     

    DONATE TO:

    Bail Funds

    National Bail Fund Network

    The Bail Project

    ActBlue

     

    National Organizations

    Black Lives Matter

    Campaign Zero

    American Civil

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  • Protesters gathered at the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue, in Richmond, Virginia, on September 16, 2017. Photo: Wikipedia.
    June 04, 2020 at 1:22pm

    Confederate Monuments Removed Across America

    As protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police continue to take place across America, several states have committed to removing or have already taken down Confederate-era statues, condemned by activists as symbols of institutional racism. Many controversial public monuments served as rallying points for supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and people demonstrating against police brutality, and were defaced or toppled in the ongoing nationwide demonstrations following Floyd’s death on May 25.

    Randall Woodfin, the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, ordered the removal of

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  • Metropolitan Opera, New York. Photo: Wikipedia.
    June 04, 2020 at 10:55am

    Struggling Cultural Institutions Begin Dipping into Endowments

    The coronavirus pandemic is challenging the United States’ cultural industry’s core belief that endowments—assets generally made up of donations that are invested in order to generate income—should not be touched. Only the earnings from such funds are meant to be spent by institutions. The economic hardship caused by Covid-19, however, has led some arts groups to draw from their endowments’ principal funds.

    “When your entire business model is being compromised by a pandemic, we have to reconsider everything,” George Suttles, a senior executive of the education and research arm of Commonfund, an

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  • Protestors at a demonstration in Philadelphia.
    June 03, 2020 at 7:15pm

    “We Can Do Better,” Claim US Museums Criticized for Hollow Signs of BLM Solidarity

    As the ongoing protests over George Floyd’s death, police brutality, and racism roil the United States, museums across the country are being called out for not doing more to condemn racist policing and to show their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

    Many art institutions have issued statements about racial injustice that have been criticized as “vague” or “throwaway” comments, and have been slow to directly confront the May 25 killing of Floyd by white Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin. Among the museums that faced backlash was the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which apologized for

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  • Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
    June 03, 2020 at 3:39pm

    As Protests Against Police Brutality Continue, Walker Art Center Suspends MPD Contracts

    The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis announced that it will no longer contract the services of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) for events until the law enforcement agency “implements meaningful change by demilitarizing training programs, holding officers accountable for the use of excessive force, and treating communities of color with dignity and respect.” In a statement posted on Instagram, the institution said: “Enough is enough. George Floyd should still be alive. Black Lives Matter.”

    The move makes it the first institution to break from the police amid the ongoing protests, calls

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  • Courtesy of Critical Minded.
    June 02, 2020 at 12:37pm

    Critical Minded Launches Relief Fund for Cultural Critics

    Critical Minded, a grantmaking and educational initiative that was founded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Ford Foundation to support cultural critics of color in the United States, has set up a new Covid-19 relief fund that aims to provide financial assistance to critics during the pandemic.

    Sponsored by Allied Media Projects, the initiative will accept applications for funding up until the end of the day on Monday, June 8. To be eligible for the program, critics must self-identify as belonging to an underrepresented group in the US or US territories and must submit three work samples

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  • Alison Gass. Photo: San José Institute of Contemporary Art.
    June 02, 2020 at 11:57am

    San José Institute of Contemporary Art Names Alison Gass Director

    Alison Gass, a Bay Area native, contemporary art curator, and museum administrator, is returning to California to head the San José Institute of Contemporary Art (SJICA). She joins the institution amid preparations to celebrate its fortieth anniversary this fall and during a period of temporary closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Gass most recently served as head of the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, which she helmed from May 2017 to September 2019. She also previously served as chief curator and associate director for exhibitions and collections at the Cantor Arts Center at

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  • June 02, 2020 at 10:24am

    Tate Appoints Roland Rudd Board Chair

    The Tate’s board of trustees has appointed Roland Rudd as the institution’s new board chairman. He will succeed Lionel Barber at the end of his term on January 30, 2021. Roland has served as a trustee of the Tate since November 2017. He was elected through a private ballot overseen by senior independent trustee Moya Greene, the former CEO of the Royal Mail Group.

    “Tate is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions,” Barber said in a statement. “It will have a significant role to play as the United Kingdom recovers from the impact of coronavirus. I am delighted that when I step down in

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  • Lincoln Center, New York. Photo: Wikipedia.
    June 01, 2020 at 3:50pm

    Jane Moss, Artistic Director of Lincoln Center, to Depart

    After nearly three decades as head of artistic programming at New York’s Lincoln Center, Jane Moss has announced that she will step down on August 1. The center, which comprises the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center Theater, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, has been temporarily shuttered because of the Covid-19 pandemic since mid-March. In addition to housing the constituent organizations, the center hosts around two hundred events each year.

    “I think that live performance is going to be the most avant-garde aspect of our lives if these devices

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  • Protesters in Des Moines, Idaho, on May 29. Photo: Phil Roeder/Flickr.
    June 01, 2020 at 2:05pm

    Smithsonian Responds to US Protests, Urges Collective Action to Demand Racial Justice

    Smithsonian secretary Lonnie G. Bunch has issued a statement on behalf of the federally funded institution in response to the ongoing unrest over racial injustice in the United States. Cities in every state across the country have erupted in protests over the last six days as people expressed anger and anguish over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who was killed by a white police officer while he was being placed under arrest for allegedly trying to use a counterfeit bill in Minneapolis last week.

    While Derek Chauvin, the officer who held his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than

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  • Nina Beier, Empire, 2019. Photo: Kunst-dokumentation.com. Courtesy Croy Nielsen, Vienna.
    June 01, 2020 at 12:01pm

    Reformatted CHART Fair Will Show Only Women Artists

    CHART Art Fair is revamping its upcoming edition. The 2020 event will embrace a new decentered format that will unfold across five Nordic capitals from August 28 to August 30. Traditionally held in Copenhagen, CHART will now take place in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Reykjavík, and Stockholm. The restructuring, which was undertaken in response to the current global health crisis, will include a number of online initiatives in addition to physical exhibitions.

    “The past few months have turned everything upside down,” said CHART director Nanna Hjortenberg. “Not just for us but for everyone. Adapting

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  • Elyn Zimmerman, Marabar, 1984. Courtesy of the artist.
    June 01, 2020 at 8:30am

    National Geographic’s Renovation Plans Stalled Amid Campaign to Save Elyn Zimmerman Sculpture

    The National Geographic Society’s plans to push forward with a redesign that involves the dismantling of a major site-specific land artwork by sculptor Elyn Zimmerman at its headquarters in Washington, DC, have been put on hold after an outcry from academics, art historians, architects, and museum administrators. On Thursday, May 28, the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) of the District of Columbia decided to suspend the proposed redesign while it revisits the plans, the New York Times reports.

    The preservation panel originally gave Nat Geo the green light to overhaul its current campus

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