News

  • Washington, DC.
    November 30, 2018 at 1:30pm

    New Bill Threatens Independence of DC Arts Commission

    A bill proposed by Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser could change the role of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) from an independent arts funder to an advisory body. The new bill would create a Department of Arts and Humanities within the mayor’s office, which would be run by a director—appointed by the city—who would be given “exclusive authority for evaluating and initiating action on matters relating to the arts and humanities,” reads the draft legislation.

    “As introduced, this bill clarifies that the DCCAH board members serve an advisory role and explicitly

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  • Helen Frankenthaler, Untitled, 1967, screenprint, 25 3/4 x 17 7/8 inches (65.4 x 45.4 cm). © 2018 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Chiron Press, New York. Photo: Steven Sloman.
    November 30, 2018 at 12:15pm

    Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Gives More Than $4 Million to Art Schools

    The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation announced today that it is launching two new multiyear educational initiatives that will support art and art history students studying at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate levels. The organization will give nearly $5 million through scholarships and gifts of art to several art schools across the United States.

    A total of $2 million will be awarded to the Columbia University School of the Arts; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; the School of the Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles; and the Yale School of Art.

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  • Mickalene Thomas, Lovely Six Foota, 2007.
    November 30, 2018 at 11:34am

    Baltimore Museum of Art Launches Commission Series and Curatorial Fellowship with Focus on Diversity

    The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is launching a diversity-minded commission program for artists to create site-specific works in the museum’s lobby with funds from a gift by philanthropists Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker. The New York–based artist Mickalene Thomas—best known for her rhinestone-studded paintings, collages, and photography, which explore the layers of selves in the identities of black women and the constructs of canonical Western art history—has been chosen as the first participant. She will make a new work that will go on view next fall. The funds will also

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  • Louvre Abu Dhabi dome.
    November 30, 2018 at 10:47am

    Austrian Company Declares Insolvency After Louvre Abu Dhabi Dome Project

    Waagner-Biro, the Austrian steel engineering company that made the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s elaborate dome, has declared insolvency due to its involvement in the project, reports Die Presse. When costs for the dome—approximately $90 million—rose during installation, Abu Dhabi refused to pay, and the company was forced to shoulder the financial burden. On October 23, just a year after the museum opened its doors in November 2017, Waagner-Biro announced that its subsidiary SBE Alpha AG was bankrupt and declared that “the remainder of the group is in danger of insolvency.”

    Waagner-Biro, which

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  • Hoor Al Qasimi. Photo by Nato Welton.
    November 30, 2018 at 10:33am

    Hoor Al Qasimi Appointed Curator of Second Lahore Biennale

    Hoor Al Qasimi, president and founding director of the Sharjah Art Foundation and president of the International Biennial Association, has been named curator of the second Lahore Biennale. Set to open in early 2020, the exhibition will take place at various venues across Lahore, Pakistan.

    “The Lahore Biennale Foundation is delighted to have Hoor Al Qasimi as its curator for the second edition of the Lahore Biennale,” Osman Khalid Waheed, chairman of the foundation’s board, said in a statement. “In addition to her deep knowledge and extensive curatorial experience, Al Qasimi brings a very special

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  • Robert Morris in a controversial advertisement for a 1974 exhibition.
    November 29, 2018 at 5:20pm

    Robert Morris (1931–2018)

    Robert Morris—the American artist who, as a founding practitioner of Minimalism, irreversibly transformed contemporary art—has died at age eighty-seven in Kingston, New York, from pneumonia, according to his wife, Lucile Michaels Morris. For over five decades, Morris flouted predictability through his experimentations in sculpture, dance, performance, installation, Land art, and process art.

    Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1931, Morris studied painting at the Kansas City Art Institute before serving in the Army Corps of Engineers. He then went on to study philosophy at Reed College

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  • November 29, 2018 at 4:41pm

    Managing Director of Sotheby’s India Takes Leave of Absence Following Allegations of Sexual Misconduct

    Days before Sotheby’s India was set to hold its inaugural auction in Mumbai, which raked in $7.9 million at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel earlier today, the auction house’s managing director, Gaurav Bhatia, temporarily stepped down after allegations of sexual harassment surfaced on social media.

    At least four anonymous victims came forward by sharing their experiences on the Instagram account Scene and Herd (@herdsceneand), which has become a platform where members of the Indian art world can safely post their #MeToo stories. One of the posts describes forcible kissing and touching. In response to

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  • November 29, 2018 at 1:41pm

    Renoir Painting Stolen from Vienna’s Dorotheum Auction House

    A landscape by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, estimated to be worth between $131,000 and $181,000, was stolen off the walls of the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna on Monday, November 26. According to the New York Times, three men entered the auction house at 5:15 PM, approached the painting, took it out of its frame, and then exited the building. It took the culprits only a couple of minutes to carry out the heist.

    The painting, Golfe, mer, falaises vertes, 1895, which depicts green cliffs along the seaside, was on display ahead of an auction that took place on Wednesday, November 28. The work previously

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  • November 29, 2018 at 12:49pm

    Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Welcomes Tsugumi Maki as Chief Operating Officer

    The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, has appointed Tsugumi Maki as the museum’s new chief operating officer. Maki comes to the ICA from the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, where she has served as associate director of operations and collections management since March 2015. She will assume her new role at the ICA on January 7, 2019.

    During her tenure at the Davis Museum, Maki oversaw the institution’s collections and operational activities. She also worked on the reinstallation of the Davis Museum’s permanent collection galleries in 2016. Previously, she held various positions at the

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  • November 29, 2018 at 11:47am

    High Line Invites Artists to Imagine New Monuments

    The nonprofit organization Friends of the High Line is launching a new initiative that asks artists to imagine what monuments should look like today. Five artists from five cities—Austin, Chicago, Houston, New York, and Toronto—were asked to design posters portraying their ideas for new public artworks. The proposals will be part of a traveling exhibition for which the posters will be projected at industrial reuse spaces in each location.

    Called “New Monuments for New Cities” the project was conceived last year as the national debate over the removal of Confederate-era monuments

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  • November 29, 2018 at 10:12am

    Lévy Gorvy to Open New Hong Kong Space in 2019

    Dominique Lévy and Brett Gorvy, the founders of Lévy Gorvy, announced today that the gallery will establish headquarters in Asia in March 2019. The gallery will join Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, Gagosian, and Hauser & Wirth in Hong Kong. Its new space in the city’s Central District will be located on the ground floor of the historic St. George’s Building and will serve as the “third pillar” of Lévy Gorvy’s operations, “equal in stature and focus to its spaces in the art capitals of New York and London.” The gallery also launched an office in Shanghai in September of last year.

    Designed by architect

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  • Daria Martin receiving the 2018 Film London Jarman Award.
    November 28, 2018 at 2:48pm

    Daria Martin Wins 2018 Film London Jarman Award

    Daria Martin has been named the winner of the 2018 Film London Jarman Award. Recognized for her enigmatic films, which mix the naturalistic with the surreal, Martin will receive $12,800 in prize money. She was presented with the honor at an award ceremony on Tuesday, November 27, at the Barbican Centre in London.

    “I am delighted that the Eleventh Film London Jarman Award will honor the work of Daria Martin, whose long-running practice has seen her constantly challenge herself, creating an eclectic and expansive body of work that has explored everything from dreams and mythology to technology and

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