Friday, October 9
New York’s Drawing Center Adds Six Trustees
The Drawing Center, an alternative space for works on paper in New York, has added six new trustees, most of whom are artists. The new board members are lawyer David M. Pohl; artists Adam Pendleton, Curtis Talwst Santiago, Amy Sillman, and Rirkrit Tiravanija; and writer Linda Yablonsky. In a statement, Laura Hoptman, the Drawing Center’s director, called the new additions to the board “six brilliant, creative minds.”
Thursday, October 8
Crystal Bridges Museum Appoints Senior Director and Deputy Director
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas, has appointed Sandy Edwards as senior director and Jill Wagar as deputy director. Edwards previously served as deputy director at the institution, and Wagar served as chief strategy officer before her promotion. In her new role as deputy director, she will oversee development, fundraising efforts, and strategic planning, among other responsibilities.
Lio Capital Art Prize Names Inaugural Recipient
Artist and filmmaker Rä di Martino has received the first annual Lio Capital Art Prize, through which the investment platform acquires recently created and exhibited contemporary artworks. Headed by artistic director Gaspare Luigi Marcone, the prize acquired the artist’s 2019 video work L’eccezione, which was shown at the Museo Novecento in Florence earlier this year. The piece was selected by a jury that included Marcone, collectors Monica and Federico Ghizzoni, curator and lecturer at the University of Catania Raffaella Perna, independent curator Alessandro Rabottini, and others.
Ellsworth Kelly Award Goes to ICA at VCU
The Foundation for Contemporary Arts has granted this year’s $40,000 Ellsworth Kelly Award to the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. The award will support the ICA’s two-year-long collaboration with filmmaker, photographer, and writer dana washington-queen for a new multimedia work focused on labor and the Black body. The piece will debut at the institution in 2022, and the FCA will award two additional smaller grants funded by the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation to the Cranbook Art Museum in Michigan and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in North Carolina.
Bonhams Appoints Senior Leadership
Bonhams has appointed Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard as non-executive chairman, following the promotion of Bruno Vinciguerra to global CEO. Most recently, Hoejsgaard served as chairman of the luxury textile company Calida Group, and non-executive director and former CEO of MCH group, which owns Art Basel and Masterpiece London. Vinciguerra joined Bonhams in 2018 to develop new digital marketing platforms.
Wednesday, October 7
Luhring Augustine Now Represents Allison Katz
Allison Katz, who experiments with forms of figuration and representation in her lyrical paintings, has joined Luhring Augustine in New York. The London-based artist explores psychology and subjectivity in her works, and she has previously exhibited work at the MIT List Center for the Arts in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Leeds Museum and Art Gallery in the United Kingdom, and other institutions.
Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens Names Andrea Barnwell Brownlee Director and CEO
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida has selected historian and curator Andrea Barnwell Brownlee as its next director and chief executive officer. Brownlee joins the museum after a 20-year tenure as the director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta. She has also served as a MacArthur curatorial fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago’s department of modern and contemporary art. Brownlee will begin her new in December 2020.
NGV Triennial Releases Artist List for 2020 Edition
The National Gallery of Victoria has released program details for the upcoming edition of the NGV Triennial in Melbourne, Australia. The event will run as an in-person presentation from December 19, 2020 through April 18, 2021. More than 100 artists, designers, and architects from over 30 countries will present works spanning photography, film, installation, and fashion design. Exhibitions highlights include portraiture and textiles by Congolese-Australian artist Pierre Mukeba, an immersive video installation by Aboriginal artist Hannah Bronte, works by French photographer JR, an architectural pavilion created by Melbourne-based artist Geoffrey Nees, and Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. A full artist list is available here.
Tuesday, October 6
François Ghebaly Gallery Adds Three Artists to Roster
The Los Angeles–based gallery François Ghebaly now represents Cindy Ji Hye Kim, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, and Meriem Bennani. Kim, who will have a solo exhibition with the gallery in May 2021, creates drawings, paintings, installations, sculptures, and animations featuring contorted bodies and surreal, disquieting scenes. Gork will have a solo show with François Ghebaly in fall 2021, and her practice spans sound, installation, performance, and sculpture. Bennani, whose video installations and sculptures about digital culture appeared in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, will get her first solo presentation on the West Coast with her solo exhibition at the gallery in early 2021.
NYSCA/NYFA Name 2020 Artist Fellowship Recipients and Finalists
The New York State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts have revealed the 85 artists among whom the organizations will distribute $588,000 in grants. Based in New York state and working across creative disciplines, those artists include Patricia Ayres, Vivian Chiu, Jes Fan, Erin M. Riley, Olalekan Jeyifous, and Derek Lerner. Fifteen finalists selected will not receive cash prizes but will be offered special NYFA services. The full list of fellows, finalists, and panelists can be found here.
Monday, October 5
Company Gallery Now Represents Katherine Hubbard
Company Gallery in New York has added Katherine Hubbard to its roster. Hubbard is an interdisciplinary artist whose performances, photographs, and writings consider the relationship between one’s body and images of it. Her work has been featured in shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, among elsewhere. She is currently assistant professor of art of photography at Carnegie Mellon University School of Art.
Queer|Art Names 2020–21 Mentorship Fellows
The New York–based organization Queer|Art has revealed the 10 fellows who will participate in its 2020–21 mentorship program. In the visual art field, Jeffrey Meris a fellow, will be mentored by Carlos Motta, and Nandita Raman has been paired with mentor Maia Cruz Palileo. The cohort was selected by their mentors from a pool of over 320 applicants working in visual arts, performance, film, and literature. The full list of fellows for the next cycle of the program, which culminates in an exhibition, can be found here.
Smithsonian Institution Lays Off 237 Employees
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has cut 237 as a result of financial fallout from the pandemic, according to a report by Artforum. The layoffs, which are intended to offset $49 million in losses since the institution’s March closure, impacted its retail, concessions, and theater workers.
LnS Gallery Adds Estate of Rafael Soriano
LnS Gallery in Miami now represents the estate of celebrated Cuban painter Rafael Soriano, who died in 2015 at 94. Soriano was a key figure in the development of Cuban geometric abstraction and a member of the short-lived but influential artist group the Ten Concrete Painters, who were active from 1959 to 1961. Soriano was also the cofounder of the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Matanzas, one of the most important art schools in Cuba, and today his works are held in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, and National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana, among other institutions.