ARTnews in Brief: Saint Louis Art Museum Acquires Elizabeth Catlett Work—and More from October 11, 2019

Friday, October 11, 2019

Man Dies After Fall at Brooklyn Museum Party
Earlier this month, at the Brooklyn Museum’s regular First Saturday event, a 34-year-old attorney named Kirkland Dawson died after attempting to slide down a banister from the museum’s third floor, the New York Daily News reports. Dawson was pronounced dead the next day at New York-Presbyterian New York Methodist Hospital. In a statement, the Brooklyn Museum told Hyperallergic, “The safety of our visitors is our top priority. We’re deeply saddened by this tragic accident, and our heartfelt thoughts are with Mr. Dawson’s family and friends, and particularly those who were with Mr. Dawson that night.”

Saint Louis Art Museum Acquires Elizabeth Catlett Sculpture
Earlier this week, Elizabeth Catlett’s Seated Woman (1962) sold at Swann Auction Galleries in New York for $389,000, a record for the artist. Now we know the buyer. The Saint Louis Art Museum in Missouri said today that it acquired the carved mahogany work and that it plans to begin showing it early next year. Brent R. Benjamin, SLAM’s director, said in a statement, “As a modernist wood sculpture by an African American woman artist, ‘Seated Woman’ will significantly enrich our American art collection.”

Poet Cancels Upcoming Event at Swiss Institute, Citing Allegations Against Artist
The Athens, Georgia–based poet CAConrad said in a tweet that they had decided to cancel an upcoming appearance they were to make at the Swiss Institute in New York on October 16 because of domestic violence allegations against an artist in a show at the nonprofit gallery. Earlier this week, a group of artists and writers sent the organization an open letter voicing concern about pending criminal charges against artist Tobias Madison, who is currently included in a group exhibition, titled “Life and Limbs,” at Swiss Institute. Madison has declined to comment and not yet entered a plea. The allegations against the artist involve alleged physical assault against his ex-girlfriend. In their tweet, CAConrad wrote, “I grew up with a violent stepfather & I know how this violence reverberates through the years in the lives of victims. There are terrific, dedicated people at Swiss, but I canceled my upcoming appearance in solidarity with the victim.” —Maximilíano Durón

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Firelei Báez Selected for Major ICA Boston Commission
Since opening the Watershed, its East Boston annex space, in 2018, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston has tapped major talent to do oversize projects—this year, John Akomfrah showed a multiscreen video installation called Purple there. Now the ICA Boston has revealed the artist who will do the 2020 Watershed commission: Firelei Báez, whose installation will be overseen by Eva Respini and Cara Kuball. Her work will be on view at the ICA Watershed from May 24 to September 7.

The installation marks the latest star turn for Báez, who is currently shortlisted for the 2020 Artes Mundi Prize, one of Europe’s most prestigious art awards, and who was one of the talked-about artists of the 2018 Berlin Biennale. Her work has previously dealt with diasporas—of Africa and the Caribbean, in particular—and her ICA piece will focus specifically on the Sans-Souci Palace in Milot, Haiti, a structure whose history is intertwined with the country’s rebellion against colonialism. Her installation will be painted blue, in reference to West African indigo printing (which was brought to America by enslaved peoples) and the harbor that surrounds the Watershed. —Alex Greenberger

IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair Commissions First Site-Specific Installation
Famed street artist Caledonia Curry, who is widely known as Swoon, will unveil a monumental installation at the IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair, which will take place at the Javits Center in New York from October 23 to 27. Measuring 12 by 24 feet, the mixed-media work will combine two- and three-dimensional elements, including wood, found objects, paper, and silk-screening, with etching as its focal point. ARTnews Editor-in-Chief Sarah Douglas will lead a conversation with Swoon, Nadine Orenstein, curator in charge of the department of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Jenny Gibbs, executive director of the IFPDA, at the fair on October 27.

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Chicago’s Andrew Rafacz Gallery Is On the Move
The Chicago-based Andrew Rafacz Gallery will relocate from its current location on Washington Boulevard in the city’s West Loop neighborhood to a space twice its current size in the West Town arts district. The gallery will take up residence in a 2,000-square-foot building dating to 1916 that has been retrofitted by Chicago architect Paul Preissner. The gallery will reopen on November 8 with two solo exhibitions of new work by Brooklyn-based artist Julia Bland and Chicago-based artist Robert Burnier. Artist Cody Hudson will create a mural on the building’s eastern facade that will be unveiled next spring. The move to West Town by Rafacz, which is currently located in the same building as one of Kavi Gupta’s two spaces, follows those of some of the city’s other galleries, including Monique Meloche and Rhona Hoffman. Dealer Mariane Ibrahim also recently set up there after moving from Seattle.

Ampersand Foundation Names Winner of Inaugural Award
Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England, has won the Ampersand Foundation Award, which comes with £125,000 ($152,715). The new prize, from the arts nonprofit founded by Jack Kirkland, allows any U.K. institution that is part of the Plus Tate network to submit a proposal to help realize a “dream project in the form of an exhibition, new commission, public space intervention or any other kind of project,” according to a release. With those funds, Ikon will stage an exhibition focused on the 15th-century Italian painter Carlo Crivelli, with four masterpieces on loan from the National Gallery in London. The show, titled “Carlo Crivelli: Radical Illusionism in the 15th Century,” will be presented during summer 2021. Ikon was selected for the award from a shortlist of U.K. institutions that also included Camden Arts Centre in London, Firstsite gallery in Colchester, MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, and South London Gallery. Jonathan Watkins, Ikon’s director, said in a statement, “Since being an undergraduate I have been fascinated by Crivelli, at once very ‘traditional’ in a northern Italian style but pointing toward a postmodern art historical future unlike any other pre-modern artist.”

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Joan Mitchell Foundation Names New Director in New Orleans
Toccarra A. H. Thomas has been appointed director of the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, which was established in 2015 by the New York–based Joan Mitchell Foundation. Thomas, who will take up her new position on October 14, has served previously as the first general manager of Pioneer Works in Brooklyn and the inaugural managing director of the contemporary art organization SPACE in Portland, Maine. As director of the Joan Mitchell Center, she will oversee a robust artist residency program, develop public programs and special projects, and cultivate community engagement.

Newark Museum Appoints Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs
Catherine Evans, who formerly served as chief curator and co-director of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, has joined the Newark Museum in New Jersey as deputy director of curatorial affairs. In her new role, Evans will oversee the curatorial department and manage the museum’s permanent collection. Prior to working at the Carnegie Museum, she served as chief curator and curator of photography at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio and assistant curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In a statement, Evans said that the museum’s “vast and deep collections offer endless opportunities to welcome multiple perspectives, forge connections, and create meaningful experiences for every visitor.”

New York’s Fort Gansevoort Expands to Los Angeles
The New York–based gallery Fort Gansevoort, which established its first space in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan in 2015, will open a Los Angeles outpost on November 21. Fort Gansevoort will present its first two exhibitions in a 3,000-square-foot street-level space, which belongs to the gallery there-there, in the Merrick Building in East Hollywood. Its inaugural show will present new works focused on notions of freedom by multimedia artist and author Christopher Myers, and a subsequent presentation in February 2020 will spotlight Zoya Cherkassky, whose practice spans painting, drawing, and sculpture. In New York, it has done shows with Patrick Martinez, Michelangelo Lovelace, and Cheryl Pope, among other artists.

In an interview with ARTnews, gallery cofounder Adam Shopkorn said that Fort Gansevoort’s expansion to L.A. is part of its effort to provide more resources for artists. “Fort Gansevoort has lots of friends out on the West Coast and we want to provide other venues for our artists to flex their muscles,” he said. “There are a lot of exciting things happening out there. It feels like an appropriate time for us to move out there without compromising what we’ve built and what we have in New York.” Shopkorn noted that the new space is “a touch quirky, but a little less quirky than the New York space,” which occupies a Greek Revival row house. Of the L.A. gallery, he said, “It’s certainly not cookie cutter by any stretch.” —Claire Selvin

Judith F. Dolkart Named Deputy Director of Detroit Institute of Arts
Judith F. Dolkart will begin in January as the new deputy director of the Detroit Institute of Arts. She joins the museum after a stint as director of the Addison Gallery of American Art, which is part of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Drawing on her experience in art and academics, she will be charged with expanding the museum’s curatorial initiatives and educational programming.

Monday, October 7, 2019

Five Plus One: Reopening, MoMA Will Show Six Site-Specific Works
The Museum of Modern Art in New York will display six long-term, site-specific artworks in its public spaces beginning October 21, when it officially reopens to the public after a $450 million renovation. Commissions by Kerstin Brätsch, the design collective Experimental Jetset, Goshka Macuga, Yoko Ono, and Philippe Parreno, along with a large-scale work by Haim Steinbach recently acquired by the museum, will be on view in MoMA’s lobby, Café 2,  the Louise Reinhardt Smith Gallery, the Carroll and Milton Petrie Terrace Café, and the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building. The works vary in media and subject matter, from Macuga’s monumental jacquard tapestry focusing largely on the museum and its collection to Ono’s PEACE is POWER (2019), for which the artist has covered the walls and ceilings of a third-floor gallery with images of blue sky.

Galerie Eva Presenhuber Names Partner
Galerie Eva Presenhuber, which has spaces in Zurich and New York, has named Markus Rischgasser, who has been with the gallery since 2002, a partner. Rischgasser has worked as the enterprise’s director of sales for the last 10 years, and he is currently spearheading its business in Asia. Founder Eva Presenhuber, whose gallery reps Doug Aitken, Valentin Carron, Eva Rothschild, and others, said in a statement that “Markus’s professionalism, dedication, and loyalty towards our artists, clients, and the gallery are legendary.”

Update 10/11/19, 2:36 p.m.: This post has been updated to reflect that Fort Gansevoort will stage its first two exhibitions in Los Angeles in a space owned by the gallery there-there.