Thursday, July 8
Ahead of First U.S. Retrospective, Lisson Gallery Takes on Colombian Artist Olga de Amaral
Lisson Gallery will now represent Bogotá-based artist Olga de Amaral. Over the past 60 years, the 89-year-old artist has become known for a practice that blurs the lines between traditional hierarchies of fine art and craft, creating tapestries and fiber-based sculptures that present stunning fields of color, often while making use of gold tones. Later this month, her first major North American retrospective will open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which organized the exhibition with the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The show will travel to the Cranbrook in October and then the Cooper Hewitt in New York in late 2022. Lisson will mount two exhibitions of de Amaral this year: the first in August at its space in East Hampton, New York, and the second in November at its Chelsea location. In a statement, Lisson Gallery executive director Alex Logsdail said, “Until recently, artists like Olga who work with materials traditionally associated with craft have been excluded from the art historical cannon. … Our goal is to further this work by contextualizing Olga’s radical creations within the realm of contemporary art.”
Oluremi C. Onabanjo Named Associate Curator of Photography at MoMA
The Museum of Modern Art in New York has appointed Oluremi C. Onabanjo as an associate curator in its photography department. Onabanjo was formerly the director of exhibitions and collections at the Walther Collection, a photography-focused art space with locations in New York and Neu-Ulm, Germany. Her exhibitions there included “Recent Histories,” an acclaimed 2017 survey focused on African photography and video art. In 2020, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant; she is currently at work on a book about artist Marilyn Nance’s photography. On Instagram, she wrote, “I’m excited by the possibilities this appointment holds: bringing a Black feminist and Africanist perspective to a collection that has been foundational to the history of photography; collaborating with visionary colleagues on exhibitions that expand and deepen our relationship to the medium; working in an institution frankly unparalleled in its dedication to curatorial research and scholarship—which importantly, holds critical re-evaluation among its core tenets.”
Aliza Shvarts Named Director of Artist Initiatives at Creative Capital
Creative Capital, a New York–based organization that offers grants to artists, has named Aliza Shvarts as its next director of artist initiatives. Shvarts is herself an artist, and has exhibited her work at Tate Modern in London, SculptureCenter in New York, LACE in Los Angeles, and other venues. “I am thrilled to be joining an organization that has led the way in always putting artists first,” she said in a statement.
Wednesday, July 7
Art Basel Miami Beach to Open a Day Early
Art Basel Miami Beach, which is scheduled to host its first in-person edition in the United States since the beginning of the pandemic, will open a day early for its 2021 edition. The fair will now launch with two VIP preview days on Tuesday, November 30, and Wednesday, December 1, and it will run until Saturday, December 4. The fair’s Meridians section, which launched in 2019 and is for large-scale installations, will now open on Monday, November 29.
Smithsonian Acquires Nancy Holt’s Archives
The Smithsonian Institute’s Archives for American Art has acquired an array of writings and documents related to Nancy Holt, a Land artist who died in 2014, the Art Newspaper reports. Known for her large-scale sculptures situated in grand outdoor spaces, Holt has been the subject of renewed interest as of late—thanks, in part, to the Dia Art Foundation’s 2018 acquisition of her Sun Tunnels (1973–76), a group of four circular concrete structures arranged in an X shape in a Utah desert. Jacob Proctor, the curator who oversaw the acquisition, said that the archive is intended to widen the Smithsonian’s holdings devoted to female Land artists, who have been under-recognized relative to their male peers.
ArtTable Names New Board President
Curator Jennifer Scanlan will serve as president of the board at ArtTable, an organization focused on supporting and advancing the work of women in the art world. Alongside that announcement came news of six additions to ArtTable’s board of directors: Phillips Collection chair of diversity, equity, and inclusion Makeba Clay; artist and scholar Haili Francis; curator Danyelle Means; Wallace Foundation director of arts Bahia Ramos; and Suhaly Bautista-Carolina and Patricia Marroquin Norby, who work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s audience development and engagement and Native American art departments, respectively.
François Ghebaly Adds Three Artists to Roster
Los Angeles gallery François Ghebaly now represents Em Rooney, Ivy Haldeman, and Ludovic Nkoth. Massachusetts-based Rooney, who is also represented by New York’s Bodega gallery, is best known for her works in sculpture and photography that how the gender binary may be dismantled and how gender is performed. Haldeman, who is also represented by Capsule Shanghai and Downs & Ross in New York, is known for her tender paintings of anthropomorphized hot dogs, suits, and other objects. Nkoth’s figurative paintings deal with feelings of displacement and belonging, and how those experiences shape one’s identity.
Harper’s Opens Two New Locations
Harper’s gallery, which operates a space in East Hampton, New York, and Harper’s Apartment on New York’s Upper East Side, will soon open two new locations, both of which will begin mounting exhibitions early next year. In New York, Harper’s will open a 4,000-square-foot location in the city’s Chelsea neighborhood at 512 West 22nd Street. The second space will be in Los Angeles at 8115 Melrose Avenue.
Tuesday, July 6
Aga Khan Museum Names New Director
Ulrike Al-Khamis has been named the director and CEO of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, which focuses on Islamic art. Al-Khamis has been director of collections at the museum since 2017. Prince Amyn Aga Khan, chairman of the museum’s board, said in a statement, “She is a passionate advocate for the arts and culture of the Muslim world and their potential to bridge cultures—a task that is more urgent than ever.”
Mendes Wood DM Now Represents Cassi Namoda
Cassi Namoda, a painter whose figurations focused on the Mozambican diaspora have found a loyal following over the past few years, has joined Mendes Wood DM gallery, which has spaces in São Paulo, Brussels, and New York. Born in Maputo, Mozambique, and based in Los Angeles and New York, Namoda creates images in which Black sitters populate thinly rendered landscapes and domestic spaces. She will continue to be represented by François Ghebaly gallery (in Los Angeles and New York) and Goodman Gallery (in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and London).
National Gallery of Art Names 2021–22 Academic Fellows
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has named the 2021–22 academic fellows at its Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Among them are Museum of Art and Design curator emerita Lowery Stokes Sims, art historians Huey Copeland and Richard J. Powell, and critic Aruna D’Souza. A full list of the fellows is available on the museum’s website.
Salon Art + Design Names Exhibitors for 2021 Edition
The Salon Art + Design fair has named the exhibitors that will take part in its 10th edition, scheduled to take place at the Park Avenue Armory in New York from November 11–15. The fair will bring to together more than 50 galleries from 9 countries. They will present a range of vintage, modern, and contemporary design alongside art from the 20th and 21st centuries. This year’s exhibitors include Friedman Benda, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, R & Company, Maison Gerard, and Vallois. In a statement, Salon Art + Design director Jill Bokor said, “We anticipate a new, reinvigorated audience of design collectors and enthusiasts who have become more interested in the aesthetics and function of the home this past year.”
Source: https://www.artnews.com/
