News

  • Paul Make, Seeking After the Fully Grown Dancer (deep within), 2016–18. Photo: Sandino Scheidegger.
    April 03, 2019 at 8:58am

    Venice Biennale Reveals Details of Inaugural Satellite Performance Program

    Ralph Rugoff, the artistic director of this year’s Venice Biennale, “May You Live in Interesting Times,” has announced the launch of a new performance program that will coincide with the event. The initiative will bring fourteen performances to Venice and will expand on the theme of the exhibition.

    Coproduced with Aaron Cezar of the London-based nonprofit the Delfina Foundation and backed by Arts Council England, the program will feature works by Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, boychild, Paul Maheke & Nkisi, Nástio Mosquito, Florence Peake & Eve Stainton, Victoria Sin, and Zadie Xa during the first and

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  • Budi Tek. Photo: The Yuz Foundation.
    April 03, 2019 at 8:18am

    LACMA and Collector Budi Tek Move Forward with Landmark Deal

    Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), has signed an agreement with the Indonesian Chinese collector Budi Tek, the founder of the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, making an unprecedented partnership between the Chinese and US institutions official, Gareth Harris of the Art Newspaper reports.

    The deal, which was first announced at a panel discussion at Art Basel Hong Kong in March 2018, involves the creation of a foundation to which Tek will donate 1,500 works of Chinese contemporary art—about 90 percent of his collection. The organization will be jointly managed

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  • Ruby City. Photo: Dror Baldinger for Adjaye Associates.
    April 03, 2019 at 6:22am

    San Antonio’s New David Adjaye–Designed Contemporary Art Center to Open in October

    Ruby City, a new contemporary art center designed by the Ghanaian British architect David Adjaye, will open in San Antonio, Texas, this fall. Newly released photos of the angular crimson building show that construction on the fourteen-thousand-square-foot structure has been completed.

    Envisioned by the late artist, philanthropist, and collector Linda Pace in 2007 as a “Ruby City,” the new museum will house the Linda Pace Foundation Collection of more than nine hundred paintings, sculptures, installations, and video works, including pieces by artists Isaac Julien, Jennifer Steinkamp, Kiki Smith,

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  • Stacy C. Hollander.
    April 02, 2019 at 3:31pm

    Stacy C. Hollander to Leave American Folk Art Museum After Thirty-Four Years

    The American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) announced today that Stacy C. Hollander, the museum’s deputy director of curatorial affairs, chief curator, and director of exhibitions, will depart the museum in July after thirty-four years to focus on independent curatorial work and writing projects.

    Hollander holds a master’s in American folk art studies from New York University and began as an intern at AFAM in 1985. She has directed the museum’s exhibition program for twenty-five years and stewarded notable acquisitions of works by Ammi Phillips, Sheldon Peck, Joseph Whiting Stock, William Matthew Prior,

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  • 2019 fellows Rosten Woo, John Malpede, Henriëtte Brouwers, Ras Cutlass, Monica Sheets, Daresha Kyi Bottom, L to R: Kevin Bott, Tara Rynders, Amara Tabor-Smith, Ellen Sebastian Chang, and Shaun Leonardo.
    April 02, 2019 at 1:00pm

    A Blade of Grass Names 2019 Fellows for Socially Engaged Art

    A Blade of Grass, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit that supports socially engaged artists nationwide, has awarded its 2019 fellowships. Artists Kevin Bott, Ras Cutlass, Daresha Kyi, Shaun Leonardo, Tara Rynders, Monica Sheets, and the collectives House/Full of Blackwomen and John Malpede, Henriëtte Brouwers, and Rosten Woo will make up this year’s cohort.

    The fellows were chosen from a record number of applications and will each receive a stipend of $20,000 to realize projects that explore issues ranging from criminal justice reform and mental wellness to workers’ rights and gentrification. The

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  • The National Institute of Art History, which is in the process of creating a database of sales catalogues from occupied France in order to aid the country’s restitution efforts.
    April 02, 2019 at 11:33am

    France to Launch New Office Dedicated to Research and Restitution of Nazi-Looted Art

    Following a report published in March of last year, which stated that France is lagging behind the international effort to return Nazi-looted art, the French government will establish a new team dedicated to provenance research and restitution within its ministry of culture. Documentation formally approving the task force is expected to be signed in the next two weeks.

    According to Artnet, the office will comprise a five-person staff, headed by cultural heritage adviser David Zivie, and will have an annual budget of $224,000. Zivie authored the report published last year, which cited the French

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  • Parts & Labor in Beacon, New York.
    April 02, 2019 at 10:36am

    Nicelle Beauchene and Franklin Parrasch to Open a Space in Beacon, New York

    In early May, New York veteran dealers Nicelle Beauchene and Franklin Parrasch will launch Parts & Labor, a new gallery in upstate New York. Located at 1154 North Avenue—about a ninety-minute train ride from the city and minutes away from Dia:Beacon—the 2,500-square-foot former inn will host exhibitions that pair midcareer artists with more historical figures. This collaborative model seeks to “reframe and recontextualize important dialogues while allowing intimate conversations to unfold.”

    The first exhibition will present work by Rosy Keyser (b. 1974), an artist whose paintings have

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  • Bethany Montagano. Photo: University of Southern California.
    April 02, 2019 at 5:57am

    USC Pacific Asia Museum Names Bethany Montagano Director

    The USC Pacific Asia Museum (USC PAM) in Pasadena, California, has appointed cultural historian Bethany Montagano as its next director. Montagano comes to the institution from the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, where she served as senior curator for the past three years. During her tenure, she curated exhibitions such as “Pop for the People: Roy Lichtenstein in L.A.” (2016); “Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite” (2019); and, most recently, “Fearless Fashion: Rudi Gernreich” (2019).

    As director of USC PAM, Montagano will assume leadership of the only university-affiliated

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  • Riyas Komu.
    April 01, 2019 at 5:36pm

    Kochi Biennale Foundation Drops Inquiry into #MeToo Allegations Against Cofounder

    The Kochi Biennale Foundation announced that Kochi-Muziris Biennale cofounder and secretary Riyas Komu has been invited to return to work following the conclusion of an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations made against him last year. An anonymous post on the Instagram account Scene and Herd—which was created to provide victims of sexual harassment with a safe space to share their stories—accused Komu of “forcibly kissing” a colleague and making other unwanted advances in October 2018.

    In response, Komu denied wrongdoing and temporarily stepped down from his post. At the

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  • Jody Gottfried Arnhold. Photo: The Dance Education Laboratory.
    April 01, 2019 at 2:50pm

    Harkness Dance Center at 92nd Street Y Receives $5 Million Gift

    The Harkness Dance Center at the 92nd Street Y in New York has received a $5 million donation from its board member Jody Gottfried Arnhold—who founded the organization’s Dance Education Laboratory with Joan Finkelstein and Ann Biddle in 1995—and her husband, John. The gift will support an expansion project that will create more studio space for the center.

    “To have Jody as a partner with us, to think through what the physical space should look like at the Y and who should populate it for the twenty-first century is a real gift, not just of money but also of talent and resources that we

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  • Isaac Julien. Photo: Graeme Robertson.
    March 29, 2019 at 5:02pm

    Isaac Julien and Mark Nash Join Faculty of University of California, Santa Cruz

    Artist Isaac Julien and independent curator and writer Mark Nash, the former head of contemporary art at the Royal College of Art in London, have recently been appointed professors at the University of California, Santa Cruz. They will work together on developing the Isaac Julien Lab at the UC Santa Cruz campus, which will provide students with the opportunity to assist Julien with project research and the production of moving-image and photographic works in California and London, where the artist has a studio.

    “The Arts Division, along with the entire campus community, enthusiastically welcome

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  • Installation view of “Moroni: The Riches of Renaissance Portraiture.” Photo: The Frick Collection in New York.
    March 29, 2019 at 4:40pm

    Frick Collection Elects Four New Trustees

    The Frick Collection in New York has welcomed four new trustees to its board: Tai-Heng Cheng, a partner at the Los Angeles–based law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP; longtime economist Kathleen Feldstein, who currently serves as president of the private consulting firm Economics Studies, Inc.; Christian Keesee, who is chairman of the Kirkpatrick Bank and the founder of the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center; and attorney Victoria Lea Smith.

    Cheng, Keesee, and Smith are members of the Frick’s director’s circle. Smith has supported numerous exhibitions, including “Moroni: The Riches of

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