Friday, July 17
Paris Musées Director Dies at 51
Delphine Levy, the director of Paris Musées, a coalition that includes various city-run Paris museums including the Petit Palais and the Musée d’Art Moderne, has died at 51. According to an obituary put out by Paris Musées, she died suddenly on July 13. Levy began leading Paris Musées in 2013, the year of its creation, and she was at work on an exhibition focused on British Post-Impressionist artist Walter Sickert that is due to open at the Petit Palais in 2023.
Faena Art Launches Artist Residency Program
Faena Art, the nonprofit arm of the hotel company of the same name, has launched an artist residency program at its Miami Beach location. The inaugural artists in residence, all of whom are based in Miami, are Jamilah Sabur, Suzi Analogue, and the artist duo Paperwork (Daygee Kwia and Eddy Samy), who will take up temporary studios at the Faena Forum from July–September 2020.
Vera List Center Names Five New Board Members
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School in New York has appointed five new members to its advisory board. They are New York–based artist and curator Alan Michelson, artist and educator Naeem Mohaiemen, documentary filmmaker Louis Massiah, the Whitman Institute’s co-executive director Pia Infante, and Linda Earle, a professor at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture. In a statement, Vera List Center director Carin Kuoni said, “The new members will strengthen the VLC’s core efforts to bring diverse perspectives and compelling conversations to our public programs, exhibitions, and workshops.”
Thursday, July 16
Art Gallery of Ontario Offers Front-Line Workers Free Yearly Pass
The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto announced that it will offer a free AGO Annual Pass to all front-line workers living in Canada’s Ontario province as a way to honor their service to their local communities during the coronavirus pandemic. Eligible people working in health care, emergency services, grocery stores, sanitation, and public transit can apply for the pass until August 16. The pass, which typically costs $35 per year, allows holders to book timed-entry visits at any point during their membership. In a statement, AGO director Stephan Jost said, “It is with deep gratitude that we extend this invitation to front-line workers. Thank you. The restorative power of art should not be underestimated—it can lift our spirits and support our wellbeing.” (More information and registration forms are available here.)
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Names Director of Finance
The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in Texas has appointed Seba Raquel Suber as director of finance and strategic resources. Suber will assume her new position immediately. Prior to joining the museum, she served as as director of finance and operations for St. Stephen’s Episcopal School and Church and as director of finance for Houston’s Project Row Houses.
Open Society Foundations Names 2020 Soros Art Fellows
The Open Society Foundations has revealed the list of its 2020 Soros Art Fellows, who will each receive $80,000 for the creation of a project over the next year and a half. The artists receiving grants this year include Meleko Mokgosi, who will create artworks and a digital archive about histories of Pan-Africanism; Olu Oguibe, who will consider themes related to hospitality, refuge, and flight; and Nicholas Galanin, who will focus on the relationship between the land, migration, and Indigenous perspectives. Also receiving grants this year are Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Abdullah Alkafri, Deborah Anzinger, Rachèle Magloire, Paloma Mcgregor, and Tiago Sant’ana.
Tuesday, July 14
Pace Gallery Now Represents Merrill Wagner
Merrill Wagner, an artist known for minimalist objects that take their cues from the landscape of the Pacific Northwest, will now be represented by Pace Gallery. Often working in the form of wall reliefs that blur the line between painting and sculpture, Wagner relies on industrial materials, and she typically applies blues and earth-tones to them, to make them appear more natural. During the 1970s and ’80s, her work was featured in several early exhibitions at the New York art space that became MoMA PS1.
Monday, July 13
Colby College Museum of Art Names New Director
Jacqueline Terrassa will be the next director of the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine. She will start in her new post in October and succeeds Sharon Corwin, who was recently appointed president and CEO of the Terra Foundation. Since 2016, Terrassa has led education initiatives at the Art Institute of Chicago as vice president for Learning and Public Engagement, and she previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as managing museum educator for gallery and studio programs. In a statement, Terrassa, who is also an artist, said, “During the coming years we will continue to create an expansive, inclusive model for what an art museum can be in collaboration with the many communities the museum seeks to serve, while continuing to also open new ways of understanding American art, art history, and art practice in relation to a continually evolving, diverse, and complex world.”
New York’s Jane Lombard Gallery to Move to Tribeca
After two decades in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, Jane Lombard Gallery will relocate to Tribeca, which has see renewed interest over the past year, thanks to various galleries—including Luhring Augustine, P.P.O.W, James Cohan Gallery, and others—revealing plans to open there. In October, the gallery will open in a two-floor space measuring 3,000 square feet with a solo show by Dan Perjovschi.
Marc Bauer, Koyo Kouoh Win 2020 Prix Meret Oppenheim
Artist Marc Bauer and curator Koyo Kouoh are among the 2020 winners of the Prix Meret Oppenheim, the top award for the arts in Switzerland. Bauer is known for his black-and-white drawings that focus on collective memory and trauma, and Kouoh is currently executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art in Cape Town, South Africa. Their awards come with 40,000 Swiss francs ($42,500) each.