Bennett Prize Names 2021 Recipient
The artist Ayana Ross has won the 2021 Bennett Prize, which comes with $50,000 and recognizes the achievements of women working in figurative painting. The funds will be used toward a traveling solo show of Ross’s work, which often examines Black life in the American South. An exhibition at the Muskegon Museum of Art in Michigan, on view through September 5, features work by Ross, the nine other finalists for this year’s award, and Aneka Ingold, the first winner of the Bennett Prize in 2019.
Simon Lee Gallery Now Represents Sonia Boyce Sonia Boyce, who will be the first Black woman to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2022, is now represented by Simon Lee Gallery, which has locations in London and Hong Kong. Boyce’s socially engaged practice has spanned performance, drawing, photography, video, and other mediums. Simon Lee will present an exhibition of the artist’s work in London in fall 2022, and the artist will continue to work with Apalazzo Gallery in Italy.
Nicelle Beauchene Now Represents Lucy Puls Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York now represents multidisciplinary artist Lucy Puls. Since the early 1980s, Puls has interrogated materiality, capitalism, and memory through sculpture and photography. Her work is often comprised of discarded or lost objects as a statement on what people assign value. She has shown at the Jewish Museum in New York, SculptureCenter in Queens, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among other venues. The gallery will present her work during Art Basel’s “OVR: Portals” in June, and will mount a solo exhibition of her work at the gallery in December.
David Castillo Adds Yesiyu Zhao to Roster
Miami-based gallery David Castillo now represents Brooklyn-based artist Yesiyu Zhao. Through his painting practice, Zhao attempts to humanize communities that have historically been “othered” by creating images that show the beauty within these communities. Zhao’s first solo exhibition is currently on view in the DC Triangle at David Castillo through July 3. Zhao will have a solo exhibition at David Castillo’s flagship location in 2022.
Cris Scorza.
Zachary Barron Studios
Thursday, May 27
Whitney Museum Appoints New Chair of Education
The Whitney Museum in New York has hired Cris Scorza as its chair of education. Joining the museum on July 1 from the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, where she has worked as senior director of education and engagement since 2017, Scorza will work closely with Whitney director Adam Weinberg to grow its education program. She will manage the education department and its staff across four program areas—interpretation and research; public programs; school, youth, and family programs; and access and community programs—and she will also have a role in the institution’s Latinx initiatives.
White Cube Now Represents Cinga Samson White Cube gallery, which maintains spaces in London, New York, Hong Kong, and Paris, now represents South African painter Cinga Samson. A self-taught artist, his figurative works explore ideas of desire and transience. He has shown at Perrotin Gallery in New York, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Museum of Cultures of Oaxaca in Santo Domingo. His upcoming solo exhibitions include solo presentations at the FLAG Art Foundation in New York and White Cube in London in 2022.National YoungArts Foundation Names 2021 Winner of Jorge M. Pérez Award
New York–based textile artist Malaika Temba is this year’s winner of the National YoungArts Foundation’sJorge M. Pérez Award, which comes with an unrestricted $25,000 prize. “This award will change the way I can create, and will help me connect to a more global art world, specifically one that embraces the Global South,” Temba said in a statement.
Winfred Rembert, The Dirty Spoon Cafe, 2002.
Courtesy the Estate of Winfred Rembert and Fort Gansevoort
Wednesday, May 26
Fort Gansevoort Now Represents the Estate of Winfred Rembert
Following his death earlier this year at the age of 75, New York’s Fort Gansevoort gallery will represent the estate of Winfred Rembert, an artist whose work reflected on racism and prejudice in the Jim Crow South. Rembert survived a near-lynching, and he spent seven years in prison, at one point briefly escaping. His art, filled with incarcerated figures arranged in striking patterns, often borders on abstraction. Later this year, Rembert’s memoir will be published.
Ryan Lee Now Represents the Estate of Camille Billops Ryan Lee Gallery in New York has added the estate of Camille Billops to its roster. A pioneering activist and artist, Billops, who died in 2019, is known for her documentary films, ceramics, and prints that examined overlooked histories and narratives addressing race and gender. Her work will be on view in the gallery’s group exhibition “Friends and Agitators: Emma Amos, Camille Billops, Vivian Browne and May Stevens, 1965-1993,” opening June 4.
Tuesday, May 25
Loewe Foundation Craft Prize Names 2021 Winner Fanglu Lin has been named as the winner of the fourth Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, which was launched in 2016. Lin won the prize for her 2016 monumental fiber work SHE. Special mentions were given to David Corvalán for the copper wire and resin work Desértico (2019) and Takayuki Sakiyama for the sculpture Chōtō:Listening to the Waves (2019). Works by the 30 finalists—selected from over 2,500 submissions—are on view as part of a digital exhibition.
Nicole Eisenman, Jewelry Tree, model.
Photo by James O’Jenkins, courtesy of the National Gallery, London
Monday, May 24
Artists Shortlisted for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth Revealed
Six artist have been shortlisted for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth. The winning two designs, which will go on display in 2022 and 2024, will be selected by the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group in late June. The six shortlisted proposals are GONOGO by Goshka Macuga, a giant rocket; Improntas (Imprint) by Teresa Margolles, which features casts of the faces of 850 trans people; On Hunger and Farming in the Skies of the Past 1957-1966 by Ibrahim Mahama, a grain silo like those used by Eastern European architects in Ghana in the early 1960s; Bumpman for Trafalgar Square by Paloma Varga Weisz, inspired by German folklore; Jewelry Tree by Nicole Eisenman, which features the household objects mixed with British military memorabilia; and Antelope by Samson Kambalu, which restages a 1914 photograph of Baptist preacher John Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley.
Whitney Museum Acquires Work by Freddy Rodríguez
The artist Freddy Rodríguez is now represented in the collection of the Whitney Museum in New York. His abstract painting Y me quedé sin nombre (1974) is the first work by a Dominican-born New York artist to be acquired by the institution. Rodríguez, who draws from Dominican history and Caribbean culture in his practice, is known for his brightly colored paintings and collages that rely on New York School techniques and styles.
San Francisco Fine Arts Museums Hire Curator in Charge of European Paintings Emily Beeny, who most recently served as associate curator of drawings at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, will join the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as curator in charge of European paintings on July 1. A specialist in French paintings and drawings from the 17th to 19th centuries, Beeny will work with the 800-plus paintings in the institutions’ collections.
Longtime Director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center to Step Down
Art historian and curator Chon Noriega will step down as director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center after nearly two decades in the role. During his tenure, the institution became home to the largest archive of materials Mexican Americans and Latinos in the world, accrued 63 international book awards, and established four endowed funds, among other accomplishments. “Chon Noriega’s visionary leadership of the Chicano Studies Research Center in the past two decades has taken it to new heights,” said David Yoo, vice provost of UCLA’s Institute of American Cultures, in a statement.
