ARTnews in Brief: Frieze London Awards 2019 Prizes, and More from October 4, 2019

Friday, October 4, 2019

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Names New Head of European Art
Sylvain Cordier has been hired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond to be its new Paul Mellon Curator and head of its department of European art. He starts on November 4, and comes from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where he has been curator of early decorative arts and the Napoleonic Collection since 2013. Cordier’s curatorial credits include “Napoleon: Power and Splendor” (2018) and “Rodin: Evolution of a Genius” (2015), which both traveled to the VMFA. The newly minted European art chief will reinstall the museum’s French Impressionist and British Sporting Art galleries in October 2020. He has also held curatorial positions at Versailles and the Musée Gustave Moreau and Mobilier National in Paris.

Frieze Names Winners of 2019 London Prizes
The Frieze art fair in London has named the winners of its 2019 prizes. The British capital’s Stephen Friedman Gallery won the fair’s Stand Prize for its two-person presentation of works by Mamma Andersson and Tonico Lemos Auad. Special commendations were given to Maisterravalbuena (Madrid), Galerie Buchholz (Cologne, Berlin, and New York), Matthew Marks Gallery (New York and Los Angeles), and Jhaveri Contemporary (Mumbai). Meanwhile, Proyectos Ultravioleta gallery, of Guatemala City, has won the 2019 Frieze Focus Stand Prize award for its presentation in the section for galleries aged 15 years or younger. The gallery won for its booth featuring work by Hellen Ascoli, who crafts textiles that reference traditions practiced by Mayan women in Guatemala as well as artists like Sheila Hicks and Anni Albers. The jury also awarded special mentions to Commonwealth & Council, of Los Angeles, and Galerie Tanja Wagner, of Berlin. Also announced was the winner of the fair’s LIFEWTR® Sculpture Prize for emerging artists, which has gone to Beatriz Cortez. Through the award, Cortez has been invited to create a new outdoor work for an event called Frieze Sculpture, set to take place in New York in April 2020.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Spring/Break Art Show Reveals Theme for Los Angeles and New York Fairs in 2020
The Spring/Break Art Show is inviting curators to “go for baroque” for its 2020 editions in New York and Los Angeles, which is take as their theme “In Excess.” The event, which is now accepting applications, will explore maximalism, materialism, capitalism, and consumerism. Spring/Break has offered up a list of “required” reading and viewing to get curators in the right mindset, which includes works from Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 to Zadie Smith’s Feel Free to Agnés Varda’s documentary The Gleaners and I. The fair will return for its ninth installment in New York during Armory Week, from March 3 to 9, and it will continue its new program in Los Angeles during Frieze Week, from February 13 to 16.

Academy Museum Names Director
Bill Kramer, who served as managing director of development and external relations of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures from 2012 to 2016, has been named its director. Kramer will start January 1, 2020, taking the place of Kerry Brougher, who resigned in August. He will be in charge of managing the last phase of construction on the Los Angeles museum, which is set to open next year after a number of delays. (Its original completion date was 2017.) He most recently worked as vice president of development at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and he was previously the vice president of institutional engagement at Rhode Island School of Design. Kramer also has experience leading capital campaigns at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and the California Institute of the Arts.

The Bass Adds Three New Board Members
The Bass museum in Miami Beach has brought on three new board members: Kobi Karp, Pamela Liebman, and Ariel Penzer Milgroom. Karp is the founder and principal of Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design, Inc., which has spearheaded projects in Miami Beach’s Art Deco District. Liebman is the president and CEO of the Corcoran Group real estate firm, and a founding board member of the Wipe Out Leukemia Forever Foundation. Penzer Milgroom is part of the host committee for the Bass’s annual gala and its Night at the Museum fundraiser.

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Meg Onli Moves Up at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia
The Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia has promoted Meg Onli to associate curator. Onli was previously assistant curator at the museum, and she recently organized the three-part exhibition “Colored People Time,” a critically acclaimed survey of the many ways in which black artists have addressed the legacies of colonialism and slavery. In a statement, John McInerney, the ICA’s interim director, said, “Her work examining the intricacies of race, language and power has brought an important and exciting voice into the institution.”

Julien Creuzet Wins Camden Arts Centre Emerging Artist Prize at Frieze
Camden Arts Centre in London and Frieze have named Julien Creuzet as the winner of the 2019 Camden Arts Centre Emerging Artist Prize. As part of the award, Creuzet, who explores diasporic experiences through drawing, sculpture, film, performance, and poetry, will have a solo show at Camden Arts Centre in October 2020. He has exhibited at the 12th Gwangju Biennale in 2018, Frac Basse-Normandie in Caen, France, the 11th Biennale Africaine de la Photographie in 2017, and other venues. The Camden Arts Centre prize, now in its second year, was juried by a panel chaired by Mark Clark, director of the Camden Arts Centre, with Gina Buenfeld and Sophie Williamson, curators at the center, and Francesca Bertolotti-Bailey, head of program at Kettle’s Yard (Maternity Cover). Clark said of Creuzet in a statement, “All of the jury were struck by his complex and sensitive use of textual, digital and sculptural materials, creating expansive but highly concentrated works that address timely and important issues from a very personal perspective.”

Untitled Fair Names Head of Collector and Institutional Development
The international fair Untitled, Art has named Emily Counihan as its head of collector and institutional development. Counihan, who will be based in San Francisco, has previously worked as VIP relations manager in New York for the New Art Dealers Alliance, director of the Outsider Art Fair, and fair manager for the Art Show and the International Fine Print Dealers Association Fine Art Print Fair. Manuela Mozo, the executive director of Untitled, Art, said of Counihan in a release, “We are thrilled to have her on board in this pivotal moment for the fair, as the San Francisco art market grows in size and global attention.”

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

MAXXI Bulgari Prize Finalists Named
The MAXXI Bulgari Prize, which is presented by the MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome and the Italian luxury brand Bulgari, has named the three shortlisted artists, who will create a new site-specific work that will be shown at the museum next May. The trio, who are all Italian by birth, are Giulia Cenci, who lives and works in Amsterdam and Tuscany; Tomaso De Luca, who is based out of Berlin; and Renato Leotta, who lives and works in Acireale, Italy. The winner, to be chosen by an international jury, will be announced in October 2020, with their work entering the MAXXI museum’s permanent collection.

The Drawing Center in New York Plans Temporary Free Admission
As museums of all kinds rethink their admissions policies, one New York–based institution has a plan to comp all fees entirely for a few months. For the full run of its upcoming exhibition “The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists,” which opens on October 11 and runs through January 5, the Drawing Center will waive all admission charges. (The funds necessary to undergo the temporary policy change came via an anonymous donation.)

“The Pencil Is a Key” takes as its focus a broad definition of incarceration, with works on view by political prisoners such as Ruth Asawa and Gustav Courbet, as well as pieces by artists kept in Russian gulags, Guantanamo Bay, and countries run by dictators. In a statement, Laura Hoptman, the center’s director, said, “Our hope is that free admission will foster increased engagement with the content of the exhibition and encourage visitors of all backgrounds to come back and experience the show on multiple occasions.” —Alex Greenberger

BRIC Names Inaugural Recipients of $100,000 Colene Brown Art Prize
The Brooklyn-based arts nonprofit BRIC has revealed the 10 winners of its first annual Colene Brown Art Prize, which aims to honor under-recognized artists with unrestricted grants of $10,000. The 2019 recipients, who will be recognized at BRIC’s annual gala on November 7, are Manuel Acevedo, Nicole Awai, Xenobia Bailey, Nona Faustine, Alicia Grullón, Baseera Khan, Heidi Lau, Christopher Myers, Judith Simonian, and Kennedy Yanko.

The winning artists were nominated by New York–based curators, critics, and artists, and a selection committee at BRIC chose the final recipients of the prize, which is underwritten by artist and BRIC board member Deborah Brown; it is named for her late mother, Colene.

“We are proud to announce the ten recipients of the inaugural Colene Brown Art Prize, which recognizes the extraordinary talents of these NY-based artists and their contribution to society through their artistic practice,” Kristina Newman Scott, BRIC’s president, said in a statement. “We are grateful to our visionary board member Deborah Brown for her generosity and deep understanding of the needs of artists working today.”

This year’s recipients were selected from a pool of 50 nominations. They are working at various stages of their careers and in various mediums.

[Read more about the world’s top artist prizes.]

$100,000 Landscape Prize Named for Pioneering Practitioner
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit, has named its recently established International Landscape Architecture Prize after the Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. The $100,000 Oberlander Prize, which is the first of its kind, will be given biennially starting in 2021. Over the course of her 70-year career, Oberlander has led projects at the Museum of Anthropology and the Public Library in Vancouver, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the New York Times building courtyard, and other sites. In 2013, she won the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal and, in 2016, she became the inaugural recipient of the Governor General’s Medal in Landscape Architecture. Charles A. Birnbaum, the president and CEO of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, said in a statement that Oberlander “embodies the Prize criteria of creativity, courage, and vision.”

Rachel Uffner Gallery Now Represents Hilary Pecis
Painter Hilary Pecis has joined Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York. Pecis draws on the traditions of landscapes and still life painting in her works, which often depict flattened domestic scenes rendered in bright hues. She will have her second solo show with the gallery in March 2020. She has previously exhibited work at the Pit in Los Angeles and Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco, among other venues.

Monday, September 30, 2019

Duchamp/Koons Show Breaks Attendance Records at Museo Jumex
Museo Jumex said that “Appearance Stripped Bare: Desire and the Object in the Work of Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons, Even” had blown past attendance records at the museum, with 440,240 people having seen the Massimiliano Gioni–curated show over the course of its five-month run. According to the museum, the two-person outing is now “one of the most visited exhibitions of contemporary art in Mexico.” In an interview with ARTnews earlier this year, Gioni said that the show presented “the individual as compromised [by] the market, by capital, by desires for success, and in doing so, Duchamp and Koons present a much more complex notion of who we are and how we are implicated in the world around us.”

Princeton University Art Museum Names Inaugural Chief Curator
The Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey has appointed Juliana Ochs Dweck to the newly created position of chief curator. Dweck has worked at the museum since 2010, most recently serving as curator of academic engagement. In her new role, effective immediately, Dweck will lead a team of 11 curators, along with research assistants and interns. Some of her curatorial credits at the museum include “Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States” (2019), “Time Capsule 1970: Rauschenberg’s Currents” (2019), and “Surfaces Seen and Unseen: African Art at Princeton” (2016). Dweck has previously held positions at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Artists Withdraw from Mattress Factory Auction in Protest
Two artists—Ann Hamilton and Kathleen Montgomery—have pulled their work from an auction at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, as a protest against the art space’s decision to put its director, Michael Olijnyk, on temporary paid leave following an inquiry into the way he handled a complaint by four female employees. A third artist, Hans Peter Kuhn, also reportedly emailed the museum to let leadership know that he disagreed with the institution’s treatment of Olijnyk. “This is not the way a cultivated people deal with problems,” Kuhn told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which first reported the news.

The investigation into Olijnyk was first taken up last year, after a WESA report revealed allegations of harassment and rape against one male employee at the Mattress Factory. After one female employee went to Olijnyk with her accusations, the director made the employee take a harassment training course and reportedly kept him on staff for several more months. Following a National Labor Relations Board investigation, Olijnyk was placed on temporary paid leave in September 2018. —Alex Greenberger

Queer|Art and Robert Giard Foundation Partner for $10,000 for LGBTQ+ Photographers
The New York–based arts nonprofit Queer|Art has partnered with the Robert Giard Foundation, named after the late queer photographer, to relaunch its signature prize for emerging or under-recognized LGBTQ+ photographers, which comes with $10,000 and supports the creation of new work. Previously administered since 2008 as the Robert Giard Fellowship with an award of $7,500, the grant has been renamed the Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers and will honor artists working in that medium whose practice specifically “address issues of sexuality, gender, or LGBTQ+ identity,” according to a release. The prize will be selected through an open-pool application, open until November 24, and the winner will be announced next March. The jury for this next round includes artists Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Elle Pérez, and Guadalupe Rosales, and curator and writer Efrem Zelony-Mindell.

Giard first worked as a photographer of landscapes and the nude figure, concentrating on the vistas and communities of South Fork on Long Island. In 1985, after seeing a performance of Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking play The Normal Heart, about the early days of the AIDS crisis, Giard turned his lens on the activists of that community, producing his best-known series, “Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers,” which documented over 500 of the people involved in the fight to end HIV/AIDS. The series was published as a book in 1997, and in its introduction, Giard wrote, “How can it not count to recognize at some level, no matter how submerged or close to the surface, that for many people you are somehow less—less man or less woman, less human, less serious, less significant, less deserving? Can it really make no difference realizing that some feel subtle or downright contempt for who you are, even hate you, and are convinced that you have no history, no story worth telling or worth listening to, that you are not even out there in the world, existing? … I want the world to know that we are here, have a past, and many stories to tell.” —Maximilíano Durón

Pace Gallery Now Represents John Gerrard
John Gerrard has been added to Pace Gallery’s roster. Gerrard, who creates moving-image works that he terms “simulations,” often addresses notions of power. He has said that he relies on digital moving-image work because “this medium can talk to the complexity of contemporary conditions as no other medium can.” Gerrard currently has work on view at this year’s Pierre Huyghe–curated Okayama Art Summit in Japan, and it was also on view earlier this year at Desert X, a biennial-style exhibition for outdoor artworks in California’s Coachella Valley. His art has also appeared in the 2009 Venice Biennale and the 2016 Shanghai Biennale.

Pace, which will co-represent the artist with Thomas Dane Gallery in London, plans to bring the Vienna- and Dublin-based artist’s work to its booth at the Frieze art fair, which opens to the public on Thursday. On view at the booth will be two works that will be shown on a large LED wall at the fair. (Gerrard also previously showed with Simon Preston Gallery in New York, whose founder recently closed up shop to become a senior director at Pace.) “John’s simulated worlds have helped us understand where art can go in the 21st century,” Marc Glimcher, the CEO and president of Pace, said in a statement. —Alex Greenberger

Ceramics Collection Goes to Alfred University
Alfred University in New York said that it is acquiring the Miller Ceramic Art Collection  for its Ceramic Art Museum. Put together by Marlin Miller and his with his first and second wives, Marcianne (Maple) Miller and Ginger it consists of more than 200 pieces. The news was first reported by The Leader.