Friday, January 8
Nicodim Now Represents Mosie Romney
Los Angeles gallery Nicodim now represents Brooklyn-based painter Mosie Romney, who will have a show at the gallery later this year. Romney’s canvases play at the intersection of figuration, abstraction, and collage, often depicting a lone figure amid a surreal background. Previous exhibitions to include their work are “Mosie Romney and Juan Guiterrez” at Meredith Rosen Gallery in New York and “Evening Lark” at Y2K Group in New York, both in 2020.
Joan Mitchell Foundation Adds Board Member
The New York–based Joan Mitchell Foundation has appointed conservator Jim Coddington to its board of directors for a three-year term. Coddington served as chief conservator at the Museum of Modern Art from 1996 to 2016, and from 2019 to 2020 he was an advisor to the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s legacy committee, which focuses on the preservation and documentation of the late artist’s work. He also worked as a distinguished visiting professor at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU in 2019 and as a visiting conservator at the Courtauld Institute in London in 2010.
Thursday, January 7
Collezione Maramotti Names Sara Piccinini as Director
Sara Piccinini has been named the new director of the Collezione Maramotti, the private contemporary art space in Reggio Emilia, Italy of ARTnews Top 200 Collectors the Maramotti Family. Piccinini has served in a range of positions at the collection since 2007, developing exhibitions, communications, and residencies, among more. She was named the collection’s senior coordinator in January 2018, and has since overseen all major operations at the organization.
New York Gallery Victori + Mo Changes Name
Victori + Mo, a gallery located in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, is changing its name to Dinner Gallery. Celine Mo and Ed Victori, the gallery’s founders, have been presenting artists’ work under the name Victori + Mo since 2015, and the name change is intended to reflect the enterprises’s spirit of collaboration. “Dinner brings people together, it can forge friendships, bond relationships and compel open conversation,” Mo and Victori said in a statement. “There has never been a time like the present where we long for dinner with friends more than we do now, so we hope that we’ll all be able to come together at Dinner in the new year.”
Wednesday, January 6
The Met Hires Akili Tommasino as Associate Curator
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has appointed Akili Tommasino as associate curator in its Modern and Contemporary Art department. Akili, an arts educator and expert in 20th-century avant-garde art movements, has been an associate curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston since 2018. Prior to joining the MFA Boston, he worked as a curatorial assistant in the department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, where he curated the 2017 exhibition “Projects: 107: Lone Wolf Recital Corps,” and published essays in Among Others: Blackness at MoMA and MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art. He also completed a Fulbright Fellowship at the Centre Pompidou.
Miles McEnery Now Represents Douglas Melini
Mixed-media artist Douglas Melini, who is known for his vibrant, geometric paintings and collages, has joined Miles McEnery Gallery in New York. His latest works, which are called “Tree Paintings,” explore instances of abstraction in nature. Melini has previously had solo exhibitions at Van Doren Waxter and White Columns in New York, the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, Oregon, and other venues.
Tuesday, January 5
The Center Names Inaugural Activists-in-Residence
The Center in New York has announced the inaugural fellows of its Activist-in-Residence Fellowship Program, both of whom are based in Brooklyn: Dominic Bradley, a nonbinary artist and educator whose work spans visual art, writing, and performance, and Joshua Allen, a nonbinary artist and founder of the Black Excellence Collective, a gathering space for Black LGBTQI+ young people. Each recipient will receive benefits including a stipend of $15,000 to support a new project over 12 months, office space at the Center, and professional development opportunities. Bradley’s project will focus on developing new strategies to support the mental health of BIPOC LGBTQ New Yorkers, while Allen will focus on youth mentorship among New York’s Black, trans, and gender nonconforming and queer communities.
Carnegie Museum of Art Adds to Leadership Team
The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has announced three new appointments. Ronald Lee Newman, who most recently served as a board member and interim communications director of the August Wilson Society in Washington, D.C., will be the museum’s deputy director. Dana Bishop-Root, a former associate director of the Braddock Carnegie Library Association, is now director of education and public programs. And Aryn Beitz, most recently a designer for The Shed in New York, has been named director of design and publishing.
National Gallery of Canada Adds to Senior Management Team
The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa has appointed Angela Cassie as vice president of strategic transformation and inclusion and Tania Lafrenière as senior vice president of people, culture, and belonging. Cassie has previously held senior positions at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg and worked for the Department of Canadian Heritage. Lafrenière has served as a senior executive at the CBC-Radio Canada, Groupe Nordik, PSAC, and the Canadian Red Cross.
Monday, January 4
Six Philadelphia Cultural Institutions Announce 2021 Reopening Dates
Following temporary closures that have been in effect just before the Thanksgiving holiday, six institutions in Philadelphia have made plans to reopen in 2021. The Franklin Institute will reopen to the public January 6, and the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Academy of Natural Sciences will reopen January 8. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts will reopen January 21, while the historic Eastern State Penitentiary will reopen in March.
Amanda Coulson Departs National Art Gallery of the Bahamas
Amanda Coulson, who has served as executive director of the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas for nine years, will leave her post in May to join Nassau’s new TERN Gallery as founding director. The recently opened enterprise will foreground Bahamian and Caribbean art, and its first exhibition, titled “Inherited Values,” will feature work by Kendra Frorup and Anina Major. “We aim to create the support structure for artists to reach beyond the Bahamas, to be represented truly globally,” Coulson said of TERN in a statement.
Luis De Jesus Details Recent Museum Acquisitions
Luis De Jesus gallery in Los Angeles has revealed works by its artists that have recently added to museum collections. The Nasher Museum in Durham, North Carolina, acquired Peter Williams‘s 2020 painting Birdland; the Baltimore Museum of Art acquired photos from two series, “Relationship” and “Before and After,” by Zackary Drucker; Federico Solmi‘s video installation The Great Farce Portable Theater was acquired by the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; Edra Soto’s installation Open 24 Hours is now held in the collection of the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago; and five works by Erik Olson have been acquired by the Art Gallery of Alberta in Calgary, Canada. Additionally, the gallery announced that Lia Halloran has been named a 2020–21 City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellow. As such, Halloran will be awarded a $10,000 grant to produce a new body of work.