Friday, March 13
Contemporary Jewish Museum Director to Step Down
Lori Starr will step down as executive director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco on December 31. During her seven-year tenure as director, Starr oversaw notable exhibitions such as “From Generation to Generation: Inherited Memory and Contemporary Art” (2016) and “Levi Strauss: A History of American Style” (2020). Among her achievements are expanding the museum’s disability accommodations, securing funding to offer free admission for youth aged 18 and under, and the development of the Helen Diller Institute, which hosts educational programming.
Thursday, March 12
Artadia Names 2020 Los Angeles Awardees
The nonprofit Artadia, which gives unrestricted grants to artists working across the United States, has revealed that Beatriz Cortez, Amir H. Fallah, and Suné Woods are its 2020 awardees in Los Angeles. Cortez and Woods, who were both included in the 2018 edition of the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. biennial, will each receive $10,000 and Fallah will get $25,000 as the Marciano Art Foundation Artadia Awardee.
Mellon Foundation Adds New Board Member
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York has elected Jonathan Holloway to its board of trustees. Holloway is the president-elect of Rutgers University and he currently serves as provost and professor of history and African American studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Before joining Northwestern, Holloway was the dean of Yale University and its Edmund S. Morgan Professor of African American Studies, History, and American Studies.
Mississippi Museum of Art Makes Two Curatorial Appointments
The Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson has named Ryan N. Dennis as chief curator and artistic director of its Center for Art & Public Exchange and Holly R. Harrison as deputy director for art and programs. Dennis most recently served as curator and programs director for the nonprofit Project Row Houses in Houston, Texas, and Harrison joins the museum from her post as program associate for arts and cultural heritage at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York.
Wednesday, March 11
David Kordansky Appoints New Director
David Kordansky gallery in Los Angeles has appointed Michelle Pobar as director. Pobar joins the enterprise from Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York, where she served as its remote director from Los Angeles. Pobar previously served as associate director and senior sales associate at Kordansky prior to her tenure at Andrew Kreps. She has also held sales positions at galleries including Cherry and Martin and Honor Fraser, both in Los Angeles. “I’m excited to rejoin such a dynamic gallery, add my voice to its leadership, and help oversee its growing sales team,” Pobar told ARTnews. “With my background in private sales, I’m also looking forward to further developing the gallery’s active work on the secondary market.”
Following Former Leader’s Abrupt Departure, Aspen Art Museum Appoints New Director
The Aspen Art Museum in Colorado has named Nicola Lees, the current head of New York University’s contemporary art space 80WSE, as its next director. Lees will join the Aspen Art Museum on April 6, and she succeeds Heidi Zuckerman, who stepped down from the post last year. Lees also has experience as senior curator of public programs at the Serpentine Galleries in London and as assistant curator of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.
Marian Goodman Gallery Now Represents Tavares Strachan
Artist Tavares Strachan has joined Marian Goodman Gallery, which maintains spaces in New York, Paris, and London. Strachan’s works explore science and politics, with one of his most well-known pieces being The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Ice Project), 2004–06, in which he exhibited an arctic ice block in the Bahamas, where he was born. The artist is currently an artist-in-residence at Getty Research Institute, and he has shown work at the Prospect 3 Biennial in New Orleans in 2014, the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, and other venues.
Tuesday, March 10
Inaugural Helsinki Biennial Names Artist List
The inaugural edition of the Helsinki Biennial, which is set to run from June 12 to September 27, will bring together the work of 40 artists and collectives—more than half of which hail from Finland—on the Baltic Sea island of Vallisaari. Organized by Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola, head curators of the Helsinki Art Museum, and featuring 31 new commissions, the exhibition will take the theme “The Same Sea.” Among the artists presenting new work will be Paweł Althamer, Kyungwoo Chun, Katharina Grosse, Tadashi Kawamata, Alicja Kwade, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Antto Melasniemi. In a statement Helsinki mayor Jan Vapaavuori said that the Biennial “will both provoke and inspire audiences by confronting significant global issues.” —Maximilíano Durón
The inaugural edition of the Helsinki Biennial, which is set to run from June 12 to September 27, will bring together the work of 40 artists and collectives—more than half of which hail from Finland—on the Baltic Sea island of Vallisaari. Organized by Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola, head curators of the Helsinki Art Museum, and featuring 31 new commissions, the exhibition will take the theme “The Same Sea.” Among the artists presenting new work will be Paweł Althamer, Kyungwoo Chun, Katharina Grosse, Tadashi Kawamata, Alicja Kwade, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Antto Melasniemi. In a statement Helsinki mayor Jan Vapaavuori said that the Biennial “will both provoke and inspire audiences by confronting significant global issues.” —Maximilíano Durón
Museum of Nebraska Art Names New Executive Director
Nicole Herden, who most recently served as curator at the Boise Art Museum in Idaho, will join the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney as executive director, beginning March 30. Herden previously managed curatorial and museum facilities and worked as registrar at the Boise Art Museum, where she grew the permanent collection by some 500 works. She has also held curatorial roles at the Phoenix Art Museum and the Arizona State University Art Museum.
Max Mara Art Prize for Women Reveals 2020 Recipient
Artist Emma Talbot, whose practice spans painting, drawing, installation, and sculpture, has won the biennial Max Mara Art Prize for Women, given out by the fashion label Max Mara, London’s Whitechapel Gallery, and the Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy. As the winner of the prize, Talbot will spend six months on residency in Italy creating a new body of work to be shown at Whitechapel Gallery and the Collezione Maramotti in 2021. She was selected from a shortlist that included Allison Katz, Katie Schwab, Tai Shani, and Hanna Tuulikki.
Artist Emma Talbot, whose practice spans painting, drawing, installation, and sculpture, has won the biennial Max Mara Art Prize for Women, given out by the fashion label Max Mara, London’s Whitechapel Gallery, and the Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy. As the winner of the prize, Talbot will spend six months on residency in Italy creating a new body of work to be shown at Whitechapel Gallery and the Collezione Maramotti in 2021. She was selected from a shortlist that included Allison Katz, Katie Schwab, Tai Shani, and Hanna Tuulikki.
Monday, March 9
NYU Latinx Project Gets $750,000 from Mellon Foundation
The Latinx Project, an interdisciplinary initiative founded by NYU professor Arlene Dávila in 2018 to support U.S. Latinx art and culture and the scholarship around it, has received a three-year grant from the Mellon Foundation for $750,000. The award will help fund the organization’s programming, which has so far included four exhibitions in New York as well as numerous panels and talks. Additionally, the grant money will go toward supporting artists-in-residence, starting a new conference (titled the Future of Latinx Studies), a summer institute, and graduate student working groups. In a statement, Dávila said, “[The Mellon Foundation’s] trust in this initiative is politically important at this moment in time and I trust the news will inspire many other such projects to develop and thrive throughout U.S. universities, where Latinx studies has been historically invisible.” —Maximilíano Durón
Kurimanzutto Closes for Women’s March
Kurimanzutto gallery in Mexico City said that it would not require its employees to work Monday, March 9, in solidarity with a nationwide strike in protest of Mexico’s femicide crisis. (Though the gallery is generally closed to the public on Mondays, some staff does work then.) A statement on the gallery’s website reads, “Responding to the gender violence and inequality that has prevailed in Mexico, we joined the national strike on Monday, March 9. Women are the 70% of the force of Kurimanzutto. Since they cannot function without us, the gallery will resume work on March 10.”
Luhring Augustine Now Represents Richard Rezac
Chicago-based sculptor Richard Rezac, who is known for his geometric abstractions, has joined the roster of New York’s Luhring Augustine gallery, which will open a solo exhibition of his new and recent work at the gallery’s Chelsea space on March 14. Rezac’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and other institutions.
After Fire, Workers Help Rescue Museum of Chinese in America Archives
Following a devastating fire in January, workers have been dispatched to salvage the archives of New York’s Museum of Chinese in America ahead of the planned demolition of the building. Some 80 percent of the archives, including photographs, textiles, rare books, and newspapers, still remain in the building at 70 Mulberry Street. Two previous efforts managed to salvage only 20 percent of the 85,000-item archive, according to the Art Newspaper.