Friday, October 30
Company Gallery Adds Jeanette Mundt to Its Roster
Company Gallery in New York now represents New York–based painter Jeanette Mundt. Mundt is best known for her boldly colored figurative works which appropriate imagery from popular culture and art history as a social critique. Her paintings of the 2016 USA Women’s Gymnastics team were featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Her paintings have also shown in group exhibitions at the New Museum in New York, Kunsthalle Leipzig, and Greene Naftali. This past February, Company Gallery presented a solo exhibition of her work.
Art Dealers Association of America Foundation Awards Six Grants
The Art Dealers Association of America Foundation (ADAA Foundation) has named six recipients of its 2020 grants, which come with $10,000 each for the development and execution of exhibitions and virtual programs presented in the next two years. The grantees are the Asia Society Texas Center; the Frost Art Museum in Miami; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago; the Rockwell Museum in Corning, New York; and the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The Approach Now Represents Rubem Valentim
The Approach gallery in London has added artist Rubem Valentim to its roster. The self-taught Brazilian artist is known for his abstract sculptures and paintings with geometric forms inspired by Latin American folklore and Afro-Brazilian religions, a number of which figured in a Museu de Arte de São Paulo survey in 2018. Works by Valentim, who died in São Paulo in 1991, have been exhibited at Mendes Wood DM in New York, the Museu de Arte de Ribeirão Preto in Brazil, the Museu Nacional de la Estampa in Mexico, and more international institutions.
Thursday, October 29
Atta Kwami Wins 2021 Maria Lassnig Prize
Artist, art historian, and curator Atta Kwami, whose practice spans painting and printmaking, has won the 2021 Maria Lassnig Prize, which is presented by the Maria Lassnig Foundation and the Serpentine Galleries in London. The biennial award for mid-career artists comes with a €50,000 (about $58,300) grant and a project at the Serpentine Galleries, for which Kwami, who is based in Loughborough in central England, will present a monograph publication and public artwork in 2022. Kwami’s work is in the collections of the National Museum of Ghana in Accra, the National Museum of Kenya / Kuona Trust in Nairobi, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and other international institutions.
Asia Society Museum Names New Director as Boon Hui Tan Departs Institution
Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, who currently serves as senior curator of Asian contemporary art at the Asia Society Museum in New York, will become director of the institution on October 31. Yun Mapplethorpe, who succeeds Boon Hui Tan at the helm of the museum, is also associate director and co-curator of the Asia Society Triennial, which opened its inaugural edition in New York in October and continues through June 27, 2021. Additionally, she is now taking on the role of artistic director of the Triennial upon Tan’s departure from the Asia Society.
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Now Represents Rachel Jones
Rachel Jones, who is known for her vibrant abstract paintings exploring identity and selfhood, has joined Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, which showed the artist’s work in the recent group exhibition “A Focus on Painting” at its London gallery. Jones will have a solo exhibition at the gallery’s London space in fall 2021. The artist has said that her practice centers on “using motifs and color as a way to communicate ideas about the interiority of Black bodies and their lived experience.”
Evans Richardson IV Named Next AAM Accreditation Chair
Evans Richardson IV, chief of staff at the Studio Museum in Harlem, has been appointed the next chair of the American Alliance of Museums‘s accreditation commission. Richardson succeeds Amy Bartow-Melia, the executive director of the South Carolina State Museum. Richardson joined the commission in 2019, and will take the helm on January 1. “As Chair, I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Commission to support a diverse and growing coalition of museums taking bold steps to become the inclusive and accessible institutions our communities deserve,” Richardson said in a statement.
AGO Establishes Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora Department
The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto has created a new Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora department, which will focus on collecting and exhibiting historic, modern, and contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora. The new department will be led by Julie Crooks, who is currently the associate curator of photography at the AGO. In her previous role, Crooks curated notable exhibitions including “Free Black North” (2017) and “Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires” (2018), and has helped the museum acquire work by Dawoud Bey, Ming Smith, and Malick Sidibé. Established in tandem with the department is the new support group, Friends of Global Africa and the Diaspora, which will focus on furthering the program’s goals and creating a “dynamic forum for community voices.”
Wednesday, October 28
El Museo del Barrio Names Artists in Forthcoming Edition of La Trienal
El Museo del Barrio in New York has revealed more than 40 Latinx artists and collectives from the U.S. and Puerto Rico who will participate in the museum’s forthcoming exhibition “Estamos Bien – La Trienal 20/21,” which will run from March 13–August 22, 2021. The participating artists include Candida Alvarez, Juan William Chavez, Roberto Lugo, ektor garcia, and Maria Gaspar. The curatorial team for the exhibition is El Museo del Barrio’s chief curator Rodrigo Moura and curator Susanna V. Temkin along with New York–based artist Elia Alba, who serves as guest curator. The museum will announce the participating artists on a panel on October 28 featuring the exhibitions curators and Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, program officer at the Ford Foundation and former curator at El Museo.
Tuesday, October 27
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts President to Step Down
David R. Brigham, the president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, will step down from his position on November 30. Subsequently he will become CEO of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. During Brigham’s 11-year tenure, the institution inaugurated a new performing arts space and art storage facility, launched an undergraduate program in illustrations and a low-residency MFA residency program, and made notable acquisitions of works by women and artists of colors. His tenure was also marked by controversy, including accusations of mishandling sexual assault cases by two former students and the recent firings of 13 percent of PAFA’s staff. At the time of his departure more than 850 alumni and students had called for his termination in response to a lack of diversity at the institution. Brigham also came under fire for a school policy that barred individuals from stating their PAFA affiliation when posting support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Modern Art Gallery Adds Justin Caguiat to Roster
The London-based gallery Modern Art now represents Justin Caguiat, who creates abstract paintings featuring topographical combinations of shapes and colors. The artist had a solo exhibition with the gallery in summer 2020, and he has also shown work at the Loon in Toronto, the Sunroom in Richmond, Virginia, Kimberly-Klark in New York, and other spaces.
Galeria Millan Now Represents Peter Halley
Peter Halley, who is known for his vibrantly colored geometric paintings, has joined Galeria Millan in São Paulo, where he will have a solo exhibition next year. The artist, whose practice also spans installation, sound, sculpture, and printing, was a prominent figure in the art scene in New York’s East Village in the 1980s. His work has been exhibited at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, and other international institutions.
Monday, October 26
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery Adds Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers to Roster
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery now represents the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers in New York. Additionally, the gallery will directly represent Mary Lee Bendolph, one of the group’s famed artists. The first Bendolph solo exhibition in New York will be presented at the gallery in fall 2021, and a group exhibition of Gee’s Bend Quilters will follow in 2022. Since the mid-19th century, Black Quiltmakers in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, have created multifarious textiles, examples of which can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and other institutions. Nicelle Beauchene will work with the Quiltmakers and their families to “further secure the vital legacy of Gee’s Bend and African-American quiltmaking,” according to a release.
Artwork Vandalized Outside the Altes Museum on Berlin’s Museum Island
A granite stone bowl installed outside the Altes Museum in Berlin was graffitied over the weekend, per a report in Monopol. According to authorities, the crime does not appear to be politically motivated. This is the second case of vandalism that has been reported on Berlin’s Museum Island this month. In early October, more than 70 artworks and artworks were sprayed with an oily substance in three museum’s in the historic complex. Investigations into both cases of vandalism are ongoing, and police do not believe there is any connection between the crimes.
Timothy Taylor Adds Daniel Crews-Chubb to its Roster
Timothy Taylor gallery, which maintains spaces in London and New York, now represents British artist Daniel Crews-Chubb. The artist is known for his experimental collage-based paintings, which deconstruct elements of art history, in particular the legacies of Arte Povera, Art Brut, and Abstract Expressionism. In February, the gallery presented its first solo exhibition of work by Crews-Chubb at its New York location, followed by a sold out solo show at Frieze Online in May. An exhibition of new paintings by the artist will open at the London gallery in fall 2021.