Friday, October 15
Castello di Rivoli Sponsors Arrival of Afghan Artist and Curator Rahraw Omarzad
Afghan writer, artist, and curator Rahraw Omarzad and his family have arrived in Italy thanks to the joint efforts of Castello di Rivoli in Turn, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian Ministry of Culture, and the Accademia Albertina of Turin. Omarzad will take part in a scholarship and artistic residency at the museum and will work closely with its curatorial and educational departments. Omarzad, whose own artistic practice includes video and photography, is the founder and chief editor of Gahnama-e-Hunar, currently the only art magazine based in Afghanistan. He is also the founder of of the nonprofit art space CCAA Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in Kabul. He has previously collaborated Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Castello di Rivoli’s director, when she organized Documenta 13, which held programming in Kabul in 2012. Christov-Bakargiev said in a statement: “Contemporary art is made up of people who talk to our world and process traumas at the very moment they happen; it is therefore important to look after artists in conflict zones—it is our responsibility. With the arrival of Omarzad and his family in Italy, new cultural enrichments will begin.”
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Layr Now Represents Dominique Knowles
The Vienna-based gallery Layr has added Bahamian artist Dominique Knowles to its roster. Knowles’s paintings and installations often focus on the relationship between man and nature. Interspecies companionship is a recurring point of interest for him, and in several recent paintings, animal forms ebb and flow through vibrant abstracted landscapes. A selection of his work will be presented by the gallery at the 2021 edition of FIAC, which opens October 21 at the Grand Palais Ephémère in Paris.
Anat Ebgi Names Partner, Hires Director
Los Angeles–based gallery Anat Ebgi has appointed Stefano Di Paola as a partner and senior director and Alex Rojas has joined the gallery as a director. Di Paolo has worked at the gallery since 2014 and helped to grow the gallery’s program of artists, which include Faith Wilding, Jordan Nassar, Janet Werner, and Tammi Campbell. Di Paolo has previously held positions at the ONE Archives in Los Angeles and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Rojas was most recently a director at Various Small Fires and previously worked at David Kordansky Gallery.
Headlands Center for the Arts Announces $85,000 Fellowship for Bay Area Artists
The Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County, California, has announced a new fellowship that will benefit Bay Area artists. The two-year fellowship, awarded under the title The Svane Family Foundation Inaugural Artists, will support writers and artists working across various fields by providing $85,000 in financial support. The inaugural recipients of the fellowship include multidisciplinary artist Arleene Correa Valencia, poet and performer Torreya Cummings, playwright Yvonne Onakeme Etaghene, and director Erika Chong Shuch. Each awardee will receive access to the center’s operational spaces and studios, along with an annual stipend of $20,000, and other financing to cover health insurance, project development and travel.
Thursday, October 14
mor charpentier Wins 2021 Frieze Stand Prize
Frieze has announced Paris gallery mor charpentier as the winner of its 2021 Frieze Stand Prize, which is awarded to an exceptional gallery presentation at the art fair’s London edition. The gallery’s presentation includes vintage photographs Paz Errázuriz, landscapes by Hajra Waheed, and a video installation by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, as well as pieces by Liliana Porter, Daniel Correa Mejia, and ChengChingYuan.
Wednesday, October 13
Almine Rech Now Represents Gerasimos Floratos
Almine Rech, which has space in Paris, Brussels, London, New York, and Shanghai, now represents New York–based artist Gerasimos Floratos in France, Belgium, and China. Floratos’s practice is rooted in the restlessness and hyper-charged atmosphere of his longtime home of midtown Manhattan. Many of his paintings feature a reoccurring cast of anthropomorphic creatures navigating a luminous but cacophonous urban landscape. Floratos’s inaugural solo exhibition with the gallery was presented in Paris in 2020, to be followed by his second solo exhibition at its Brussels location in September 2022.
UCI Institute and Museum of California Art Appoints Executive Director of Development
The University of California, Irvine’s UCI Institute and Museum of California Art has named Katlyn Heusner as its executive director of development, a newly formed position dedicated to securing philanthropic investments. Heusner will begin her tenure on October 25. She joins the museum from the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, where she worked as managing director of development. She has also provided fundraising support for venues including the Lux Art Institute in Encinitas; Portland2014, the contemporary art biennial presented by Disjecta Contemporary Art Center; and Mor Charpentier gallery in Paris.
Whitney Museum Appoints New Members to Its Board of Trustees
The Whitney Museum in New York announced today that they have appointed seven new members to its board of trustees. The new trustees are Paul Arnhold, Katja Goldman, Michael E. Kassan (ex officio), Claudia Laviada, Eric L. Motley, Jen Rubio, and, finally, Julie Mehretu as the artist trustee. Mehretu had a major mid-career survey at the museum earlier this year. The Whitney has been appointing artists to their Board of Trustees since 2000.
Kemar Keanu Wynter Is Now Represented by Klaus von Nichtssagend
Klaus von Nichtssagend gallery has added Kemar Keanu Wynter to its roster of artists. Born and raised in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, Wynter’s colorful, abstract works on paper and paintings focus on the food of his childhood and commemorate the people who made it. He is currently the subject of a solo show at the gallery that runs until October 23.
Tuesday, October 12
MoMA Adds Four, Including Sarah Suzuki, to Leadership Team
The Museum of Modern Art in New York has hired and promoted four people to its leadership team, including curator Sarah Suzuki, who oversaw the institution’s reopening in 2019. Suzuki, who was formerly deputy director for curatorial affairs, has now been named associate director. Beverly Morgan-Welch, who was associate director of external affairs at the National Museum of African American Historian and Culture in Washington, D.C., will now be MoMA’s senior deputy director of external affairs. Christy Thompson, who as an associate director at the Art Gallery of Ontario, was given the title of senior deputy director of exhibitions and collections at MoMA. And Nisa Mackie, who led the education department at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, has been named MoMA’s director of learning and audience engagement.
Kenneth Baker, Longtime San Francisco Chronicle Critic, Has Died at 75
Kenneth Baker, who served as the art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle for 30 years before retiring in 2015, has died at 75. “[He] was an art critic, a craftsman of his trade who wrote pieces that made you pay attention, that opened your eyes to new ways of looking at the world, that elevated the form,” Baker’s longtime colleague and friend John McMurtrie wrote in a tribute on his website. A Boston area native, Baker served as critic for the now-defunct Boston Phoenix between 1972 and 1985, and later acted as contributing editor of Artforum. Baker was also the author of two books: Minimalism: Art of Circumstance (1988) and The Lightning Field (2008), a personal exploration of Walter De Maria’s monumental artwork conducted by Baker over nearly 30 years. After his retirement, Baker continued to report on the visual arts regionally and internationally for publications including the Art Newspaper. An avid reader, he also penned book reviews throughout his career.
David Lewis Now Represents Claire Lehmann
New York’s David Lewis gallery will now be representing Claire Lehmann. Lehmann will show a group of oil paintings at the gallery on November 5, marking the first public presentation of her work in 18 years. Her paintings are inspired by a variety of sources, including how-to photography manuals, Gothic altarpieces, and radiographic simulators. Uniting these disparate sources is an ongoing preoccupation with how the unseen can be visualized. Previously, Lehmann was an editor at the Brooklyn-based arts magazine Cabinet and a contributor to Artforum. With Ann Temkin, she curated the 2013 Museum of Modern Art exhibition “Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New.”
Monday, October 11
König Galerie Opens Vienna Space
The Berlin-based König Galerie, which also maintains galleries in London and Seoul, has opened a new outpost in Vienna. The space’s inaugural exhibition, titled “One Decade of Female Sculptors,” is a survey of contemporary women sculptors including Alicja Kwade, Helen Marten, Camille Henrot, and Sarah Morris. The show is on view now through December 5.
Andy Warhol Foundation Appoints Mamadou-Abou Sarr as Board Member
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has appointed Mamadou-Abou Sarr as member of its board. Sarr is the founder and President of V-Square Quantitative Management, an asset management firm in Chicago. He also serves as a board trustee at the Art Institute of Chicago and is collector whose holdings focuses on contemporary art and photography. “His informed perspective on the important role that artists and art play in cultural discourses strongly aligns with the Foundation’s artist-centered values and its support of the organizations and institutions that amplify artists’ voices,” Joel Wachs, the foundation’s president, said in a statement.
Art Miami Announces Exhibitors List for 31st Edition
For its upcoming 31st edition, which runs November 30 to December 4, Art Miami will host more than 700 artists represented by 135 dealers, including Bogotá’s Galería Casa Cuadrada, London’s Cynthia Corbett Gallery, Detroit’s David Klein Gallery, and Miami Beach’s Dean Project. The fair will also have an online component, Art Miami + Online, a curated viewing room for sales. Art Miami’s sister fair, Context Art Miami, which focused on emerging artists, will coincide for its 9th edition with 61 international galleries.
Rose Art Museum Names 2021–22 Artist-in-Residence
The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, has named Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds as its 2021–22 artist-in-residence. Issues of identity, belonging, colonization, and resilience guide Heap of Birds’ multidisciplinary practice, which is rooted within the traditions of his Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho homelands. His work spans painting, drawings, sculptures, and text-based public interventions. For one of his longest-running series, titled “Native Hosts,” the artist reprises the typeface and design of municipal signage to draw attention to historical acts of cultural repression and violence against Indigenous people. Following a public forum hosted at the museum this winter, Heap of Birds will create new “Native Hosts” signs for permanent installation at the Rose Art Museum and the Brandeis Library.