Friday, February 12
George Condo Donates $400,000 to Bard College in Support of the Arts
The artist George Condo has donated $400,000 to Bard College in New York to support a new series of online concerts, scholarships, musical events, and exhibitions at the school. The funds came from a limited edition print sale with Condo’s gallery, Hauser & Wirth. In a statement, Condo, whose daughter graduated from Bard in 2018, said, “During one of the most challenging times for colleges in the United States, I wanted to provide both funding and inspirational programming for students.”
Alexis Johnson Rejoins Paula Cooper Gallery in Senior Position
Alexis Johnson has rejoined to New York’s Paula Cooper Gallery in a senior role, beginning February 16. “This feels like a homecoming, at a moment of tremendous excitement for the gallery and its artists,” Johnson said in a statement. She previously worked at the gallery from 2010 through 2016, before departing to serve as a director and artist liaison at Lévy Gorvy in New York. She has also held positions as director at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York, director at Blum and Poe in Los Angeles, and director at 1301PE in Los Angeles.
Thursday, February 11
Gavlak Now Represents April Bey
Gavlak gallery, which maintains spaces in Los Angeles and Palm Beach, now represents Los Angeles-based artist April Bey. An interdisciplinary artist, Bey is known for her critiques of American and Bahamian popular culture, in particular mainstream rhetoric around Black feminism, immigration, and social media. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Blum & Poe in Los Angels and the New Orleans African American History Museum. Bey’s first solo exhibition with Gavlak Gallery will take place in January 2022, coinciding with her solo presentation at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Wednesday, February 10
Viennacontemporary Reveals New Dates for 2021 Edition
Viennacontemporary, Austria’s biggest art fair, will hold its edition this year from September 2–5. It had been set to run from September 23 to 26 but, according to a report by Monopol, Viennacontemporary’s organizers did not want the event to conflict with Art Basel, which was rescheduled from June with the hope of luring more international exhibitors after travel restrictions lift.
Tuesday, February 9
Victoria Miro Now Represents Ali Banisadr
Victoria Miro, which maintains spaces in London and Venice, now represents Ali Banisadr alongside Thaddaeus Ropac and Kasmin gallery. The Brooklyn-based, Tehran-born painter is known for his abstract works inspired by childhood memories of the Iran-Iraq war, as well as his synesthesia, in which various senses are associated with colors. Banisadr has been the subject of solo and group exhibitions at Gemäldegalerie, Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, the Het Noordbrabants Museum in the Netherlands and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, among other institutions. Victoria Miro will present new work by Banisadr as part of an upcoming online group exhibition, and the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery will take place in 2022.
Monday, February 8
Jordan Casteel Joins Massimo De Carlo Gallery
Jordan Casteel is now jointly represented by Casey Kaplan Gallery in New York and Massimo De Carlo, which maintains spaces in Milan, London, and Hong Kong. A work by Casteel, who is known for her figurative paintings, appeared on the cover of Vogue last fall and was subsequently put on long-term loan to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by collectors Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida. Casteel said in an interview with ARTnews last year that protests focused on racial justice have inspired her “in the sense that my practice is centered on the most authentic version of the world that I can find.”
Pérez Art Museum Miami Acquires Work for New Black Art Fund
Pérez Art Museum Miami has acquired three new artworks for its newly renamed Fund for Black Art, formerly known as the Fund for African American Art. The fund, which aims to diversify the museum’s collection with works by artists from Latin America and the Caribbean, in addition to the African Diaspora, has raised over $1.4 million so far. Its latest acquisitions are Untitled, Harlem, New York (1970s/2019), a photograph by Gordon Parks; Dance in Heat II (2020), a painting by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones; and Untitled (AJASS Model on Black Background), 1963, a photograph by Kwame Brathwaite.
Centre Pompidou Acquires Pierre Guyotat Archive
The family of the French writer Pierre Guyotat, who died in 2020, has donated his drawings to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Guyotat’s drawing practice is less widely known than his work in literature and poetry, and Xavier Hufkens in Brussels presented a major exhibition of his visual works last year. “May the Museum bring this priceless collection to life and help the public and researchers discover it, and allow them to appreciate the drawings one of the greatest writers of his time,” Bernard Blistène, director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, said in a statement.
Art Institute of Chicago Names Chair of Architecture and Design
The Art Institute of Chicago has appointed Irene Sunwoo as its chair and curator of architecture and design. Sunwoo will join the institution on April 26 from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, where she has served as curator and director of exhibitions of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery since 2016. She also worked as associate curator of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015.
Toledo Museum of Art Names Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
The Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio has appointed Jessica S. Hong as curator of modern and contemporary art. Hong will assume her new role on March 15. In this role, Hong will manage the modern and contemporary art collection and help broaden the discourse around global and contemporary art. She previously served as the inaugural associate curator of global contemporary art at Dartmouth’s Hood Museum of Art, where she spearheaded the contemporary art program. Prior to the Hood Museum, Hong held curatorial positions at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston and the Harvard Art Museums.