students at VPM. Courtesy VCU University Relations
Friday, August 14
LACMA Names 2020 Art + Technology Grants Recipients
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has announced the recipients of its 2020 Art + Technology grants. Recipients will receive advisory and monetary support for new projects that use cutting-edge technologies to explore the intersections of art, technology, history, and culture. (Up to $50,000 may be awarded per project.) The 2020 recipients are Matthew Angelo Harrison, who will use 3-D printing to reconstruct historical environments relating to the the African diaspora; Agnieszka Kurant, who will create “shape-shifting sculptural organisms” controlled by data and intelligence from participants worldwide; Kyle McDonald, Daisy Mahaina, and Dr. Marianne George will recreate ancient Polynesian navigation techniques with experimental light technology; and Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael will re-create architecture native to the Indigenous Chumash and Tongva people of Southern California with 21st-century robotics.
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TEFAF Appoints Managing Director
Charlotte van Leerdam, who has served as chief financial officer of The European Fine Art Foundation since 2019, is now the fair’s managing director. Van Leerdam is based in Amsterdam, and she will succeed Sofie Scheerlink in the role.
Thursday, August 13
di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art Appoints Acting Executive Director
Kate Eilertsen, who has worked as director of curatorial affairs at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Napa, California, since spring 2020, has been named acting executive director of the institution. The center’s previous director, Robert Sain, transitioned to being director emeritus on May 1. Eilertsen is organizing the di Rosa’s 2021 exhibition “The Incorrect Museum: Vignettes from the di Rosa Collection,” and she has previously held positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and other museums.
Creative Capital Names Add Six Members to its Board
Creative Capital, a New York–based arts nonprofit organization, has added six new members to its board of directors. They are artist Edgar Arceneaux, Capital Markets executive Reginald M. Browne, designer Isa Catto, AR New York cofounder Alejandro González, artist and Coeio CEO Jae Rhim Lee, and former Brooklyn Academy of Music executive producer Joseph V. Melillo. Additionally, Annie Han and Bill Foulkes have been named board co-chairs.
Wednesday, August 12
ICA Philadelphia Names Zoë Ryan Director
The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has named Zoë Ryan as its next director. She will begin her tenure on November 5. Ryan is currently the curator of architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has worked at the Art Institute since 2006, and she has significantly expanded the museum’s collection of 20th- and 21st-century design. Prior to her tenure in Chicago, she was on staff at the Van Alen Institute in New York for six years.
Art Dealers Association of America Adds Six New Members
The Art Dealers Association of America has added six new members from New York, Chicago, New England, and Los Angeles. Newcomers to the organization include Garth Greenan Gallery (of New York), Hill-Stone (South Dartmouth, Massachusetts and New York), James Barron Art (Kent, Connecticut), Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago), Roberts Projects (Los Angeles), and Tina Kim Gallery (New York).
students at VPM. Courtesy VCU University Relations
Tuesday, August 11
ICA at Virginia Commonwealth University Will Establish New Media Center
The Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University has partnered with the public media organization VPM to create a new media center at the art institution, where VCU students, community members, and VPM journalists will produce audio content. In addition, the ICA and VPM will collaborate on a multi-year media program featuring academic seminars, youth media programs, public seminars, workshops, and symposia. Chioke I’Anson, assistant professor of African American studies at VCU and underwriting announcer at NPR, will lead the new center as director of community media. The media center is set to open in spring 2021, and programming around the center will start remotely this fall.
Monday, August 10
Seattle Art Museum Names Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Priya Frank has been appointed as director of equity, diversity, and inclusion at the Seattle Art Museum. In this newly created role, Frank will develop partnerships, communication strategies, and audience-engagement at the museum, as well as internal diversity and inclusion initiatives. Frank has worked at the institution since 2016 as associate director of community programs in the education department and the founding chair of the staff-led equity team.
Milwaukee Art Museum Workers Push to Unionize
Workers at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin are seeking to unionize. Over 150 employees at the museum are a part of the effort, and they are aiming to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) District 10. If the workers’ push to unionize is successful, the Milwaukee Art Museum will become the latest U.S. institution with a union, after the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the New Museum, and others.
MAXXI Museum Will Open Outpost in L’Aquila, Italy
Rome’s MAXXI museum of contemporary art, which is situated in a Zaha Hadid–designed structure, will open a new branch in L’Aquila, Italy, on October 30. L’Aquila was hit by a major earthquake in 2009, and MAXXI intends to help “the relaunch of the territory … through a cultural initiative,” according to a release. The institution will be housed in the 18th-century Palazzo Ardinghelli, where works by Maurizio Cattelan, Rudolph Stingel, Sol LeWitt, and other artists will be situated. Site-specific works by Elisabetta Benassi, Daniela De Lorenzo, Alberto Garutti, Nunzio, and Ettore Spalletti will also be on view at the institution’s opening.
Meow Wolf Announces Permanent Art Installation in Las Vegas
Meow Wolf, a Santa Fe–based entertainment collective that creates immersive art installations, will open a permanent work in Las Vegas. The installation, titled Omega Mart, will be unveiled in early 2021, and is being billed as a “one-of-a-kind grocery store experience.” “Our exhibit will bring storytelling alive through a hands-on experience of art,” said Marsi Gray, senior creative producer of Omega Mart, in a statement.