VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
MUSEUM UPDATES
As the Met prepares to open its annex in the Breuer Building, the Whitney’s former headquarters, its programming has gotten more and more contemporary. Here’s Calvin Tomkins on how the museum has adjusted. [The New Yorker]
At the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris, a performance artist took off her clothes in front of Édouard Manet’s Olympia and lay down, only to be arrested for indecent exposure by French police. [The Guardian]
Jason Smith, who previously directed the Heide Museum of Art, in Victoria, Australia, will now head up the Geelong Art Gallery. [Sydney Morning Herald]
After a $13 million renovation, Charleston’s Gibbes Museum of Art will re-open in May. [Centre Daily Times]
The Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation gave New York’s Asia Society Museum $2 million. The money will be used for the museum’s exhibition programming. [ArtAsiaPacific]
ART EDUCATION
Three hundred members of the Art Students League have sued the organization for selling the air rights above its headquarters in 2014, a big piece of news nearly outdone by the punny New York Times headline for it: “At Art Students League, Air Rights and Airing Grievances.” [The New York Times]
Lisa Robb is now the executive director of the Center for Arts Education. [The New York Times]
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
In Chicago, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Sonja Henderson and John Pitman Weber memorialized the Civil Rights Movement leader in an art installation dedicated to a 1966 march in Marquette Park. [Chicago Tribune]
The Smithsonian acquired a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by Charles Alston for its African American History Museum. [Smithsonian Magazine]
EXTRAS
For a new installation he’s planning for a cancer facility in Cleveland, Spencer Finch will climb a mountain in Germany and, along the way, record the hues of the sky. Doing so is meant to mirror the experiences of cancer patients. [The Art Newspaper]
More than a third of the dealers who showed at the London Art Fair say that rising rents are the biggest threat to the British art market. [The Art Newspaper]
A look at the latest show of work by up-and-comer Magali Reus, who won the Prix de Rome last year. [Contemporary Art Daily]