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  • The Unisphere in front of the Queens Museum, a grantee. Photo: Sam/Wikipedia Commons.
    August 17, 2021 at 3:33pm

    National Endowment for the Humanities Announces $28.4 Million in Grants

    The Washington, DC–based National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has announced that it is awarding $28.4 million in grants to 239 museums, libraries, universities, and historic sites across the United States; Washington, DC; and Puerto Rico. Among the recipients are New York’s Queens Museum, which will put the money toward the restaging of its 1964 World’s Fair exhibition “Panorama of the City of New York” in the context of city planning and its attendant reinforcement of racism and classism; the University of Pennsylvania, which will deploy its funding in the service of the development of

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  • Queens Museum. Photo: Leo Chiou/Wikimedia Commons.
    August 16, 2021 at 3:20pm

    New York Arts Institutions Mandate Vaccines for Visitors and Staff

    The city of New York, the first US city to mandate vaccination for those attending indoor concerts, gyms, and restaurants, will soon require those visiting or working at any of its museums or cultural institutions to show proof of vaccination, the New York Times reports. In addition to the thirty-three city-owned museums scattered throughout New York's five-borough area, concert halls, aquariums, and zoos will also adhere to the vaccine mandate. Children under the age of twelve, who are too young to be vaccinated, may enter these venues only in the company of a vaccinated adult, and are urged

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  • Site of the smaller Buddha of Bamiyan after the statue’s destruction, 2005. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
    August 16, 2021 at 1:21pm

    Afghan Museums Imperiled as Taliban Assumes Control of Government

    Museums and arts institutions across Afghanistan, blindsided by the Taliban's swift ascent to national power, are scrambling to save the country's artifacts and artworks, National Geographic reports. The group on August 15 ousted the US-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani as American troops began their scheduled withdrawal following a roughly two-decade occupation of the country. “We didn’t expect this to happen so quickly,” Noor Agha Noori, head of Afghanistan’s Institute of Archaeology in Kabul, told the magazine. In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the historic Buddhas of Bamiyan, two

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  • Barbican Centre, London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. 
    August 13, 2021 at 5:35pm

    Staff Changes Follow Allegations of Racism at London’s Barbican Centre

    The Barbican Centre has overhauled its staff in the wake of the June publication of Barbican Stories, a dossier compiling 98 anonymous accounts of alleged racism and discrimination at London’s prestigious performing arts venue.

    Sir Nicholas Kenyon CBE, the music critic and broadcaster who has served as the institution’s managing director since 2007, will step down next month, The Art Newspaper reported. Will Gompertz, who recently joined the Barbican’s staff as director of arts and learning, and Sandeep Dwesar, currently the institution’s chief operating and financial officer, will together serve

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  • Hendrik Folkerts.
    August 13, 2021 at 1:20pm

    Hendrik Folkerts to Join Moderna Museet

    The Moderna Museet has expanded its staff, hiring Hendrik Folkerts as curator of international contemporary art. Folkerts will join the Swedish institution directly from the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has for the last four years served as Dittmer Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. He will assume his post on October 1.

    The curator and art historian has held positions at documenta 14 (2014–2017); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2010–2015); and De Appel, Amsterdam (2009–2011). A frequent contributor to catalogues and magazines, Folkerts’s research focuses on performance and feminist,

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  • One of the Ai Weiwei-designed buildings at the Forge Project, where Forge Fellows will work.
    August 12, 2021 at 2:08pm

    Forge Project Announces Inaugural Residencies in Support of Indigenous Artists

    The Forge Project, a new, Hudson Valley, New York–based initiative aimed at supporting Indigenous artists, has awarded its first fellowships to four Indigenous creators. Architect Chris T. Cornelius, artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka, ecologist and writer Jasmine Neosh, and language preservationist Brock Schreiber will each receive $25,000 and a studio residency of varying duration. 

    Founded by philanthropist Becky Gochman with executive director Candice Hopkins, who is a citizen of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, director of education Heather Bruegl, a Stockbridge-Munsee descendent and member

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  • Rendering of the 2021 edition of The Armory Show. Courtesy of The Armory Show and the Javits Center.
    August 12, 2021 at 1:23pm

    New York Arts Scene Evolves in Response to Delta Variant

    Two major arts-related events in New York have taken hits this week as Covid-19 cases, fueled by the disease’s highly contagious Delta variant, continue to spike nationwide. Sanford Smith, long the force behind the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, announced yesterday that this year’s iteration of the event, which was to have taken place September 9–12 at the city’s Park Avenue Armory, is canceled. Smith cited the uncertainty caused by the rise of the variant as the cause, noting that he was “disappointed” that the fair could not take place but that the decision had been taken to

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  • Nan Goldin, Pain/Sackler, Royal College of Art, London, 2017.
    August 11, 2021 at 4:00pm

    Artists, Activists Protest Purdue Bankruptcy Settlement

    Nan Goldin and members of her advocacy group P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) as well as members of the anti-harm organization Truth Pharm were among those protesting the upcoming bankruptcy proceedings of Purdue Pharma in White Plains, New York, early this week. As first reported in Hyperallergic, demonstrators on August 9 convened outside the US Bankruptcy Court where Judge Robert Drain is to preside over the disgraced opioid maker’s bankruptcy case, slated to begin August 12. Planting cardboard tombstones bearing the names of those lost to the opioid epidemic in a

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  • Protest in Hong Kong on June 26, 2019. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
    August 11, 2021 at 2:55pm

    Three Hong Kong Arts Development Council Members Resign

    Three members of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC)—artist Chan Kam-shing, songwriter Chow Pok-yin, and theater worker Lee Indy Chun-leung—have resigned from the elected ten-member body in response to a campaign of harassment waged by Chinese state-owned media. The three, who were elected in 2016 and reconfirmed in 2019, were to remain on the board through the end of 2022. Following the June 30, 2020 enforcement in Hong Kong of China’s national security law broadly curtailing dissent, the trio, all of whom have pro-democracy ties, have been cast in the state-owned Ta Kung Pao as “

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  • David E. Little. Photo: ©Verbsite 2021.
    August 10, 2021 at 2:08pm

    David E. Little to Lead New York’s International Center of Photography

    The International Center of Photography in New York has named David E. Little as is next executive director. Little, who for the past six years has helmed the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College in Massachusetts, will replace Mark Lubell, who served as ICP’s executive director since 2013 before announcing his intention to depart earlier this spring. The changeover is to take place in mid-September.

    Little brings to the ICP extensive fundraising experience as well as a strong background in education and community outreach, having previously served as curator and department head of photography and

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  • Stefan Kalmár. Photo: Vost Collectif.
    August 10, 2021 at 10:54am

    Stefan Kalmár to Depart as Director of London ICA

    Stefan Kalmár, who has served as director of London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts since 2016, is stepping down, the institution announced today. “Directorships should never be for life—fixed tenures should be the norm not the exception,” said the German-born curator in a statement.

    Under the leadership of Kalmár, who had previously helmed New York nonprofit Artists Space, the ICA mounted exhibitions by Forensic Architecture, Cameron Rowland, Metahaven, and Seth Price, as well as retrospectives of the work of Kathy Acker and Julie Becker. The museum additionally hosted talks by Chelsea Manning,

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  • The main entrance to the Tate Britain in London. Photo: travelmag/Flickr.
    August 09, 2021 at 5:04pm

    Francis Bacon’s Ex-Handyman Threatens Tate with Lawsuit over Donated Works

    Barry Joule, Francis Bacon’s former handyman and close friend, has threatened to sue Tate over its failure to publicly display any of a trove of works by the late figurative artist that he gifted to it in 2004. According to the Guardian, Joule has been waiting for nearly two decades for the museum to stage an exhibition centering around the $37 million donation, said to be one of the most generous gifts the London institution has ever received and comprising 1,200 sketches, photographs, and related documents. He has also said he will rescind a promised gift of an important 1936 self-portrait by

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