Friday, December 11
Alison Jacques Gallery Now Represents Carol Rhodes
The London-based Alison Jacques Gallery now represents the late artist Carol Rhodes, who died in 2018 and is known for her landscape paintings and drawings. The gallery, which will represent the artist in partnership with her estate, will open an exhibition of Rhodes’s work in February 2021. During her lifetime, the Edinburgh-born artist had solo shows at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the MAC in Belfast, and other institutions. Her work can be found in the collections of the Center for British Art at Yale University, Tate in London, and elsewhere.
Ural Industrial Biennial Names 2021 Curators
While plenty of question marks hang over any exhibition scheduled for 2021, the Ural Industrial Biennial is going ahead with plans for its sixth edition, which is due to open in the fall in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and the surrounding area. The biennial said that it has selected a team of three curators to stage its central show: Çağla İlk and Misal Adnan Yıldız, who together direct the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden in Germany, and Assaf Kimmel, an architect and curator in Berlin. Titled “A Time to Embrace and to Refrain from Embracing,” the biennial will take up themes like “touch, the right to touch, bodily boundaries, and the shifting conventions of interpersonal communication,” according to the organization. The selected trio’s exhibition will be named “Thinking Hands, Touching Each Other,” riffing on architect Juhani Pallasmaa’s book The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom.
Thursday, December 10
Victoria Miro Now Represents Kudzanai-Violet Hwami
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami has joined Victoria Miro, which maintains spaces in London and Venice, Italy. Hwami is known for her paintings about life in South Africa, where she lived from ages 9 to 17, as well as notions of displacement. The gallery will present a new work by Hwami in an upcoming online exhibition, opening December 10, and the artist will have her first presentation with the gallery in summer 2021. The painter’s work has been shown at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, Gasworks in London, Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, South Africa, the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare, and other venues.
Tiwani Contemporary Now Represents Charmaine Watkiss
Tiwani Contemporary in London has added Charmaine Watkiss to its roster. Watkiss’ drawing practice centers themes of Africa diaspora, ancient and modern spirituality, and cosmology. Her work was on view in “The Abstract Truth of Things,” a two-person show at the gallery which closed in September. She was also featured in the exhibitions “Me, Myself and I” at Collyer Bristow Gallery (2020), the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize (2019), and “Against Static” at Wimbledon Space (2018).
Toledo Museum of Art Appoints New Board Members
The Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio has added Romules Durant, Lisa McDuffie, and Brian Chambers to its board of directors. Durant is CEO and superintendent of Toledo Public Schools, McDuffie serves as president and CEO of the YWCA of Northwest Ohio, and Chambers works as chairman and CEO of roofing and insulation company Owens Corning. Each new member will serve a five-year term with the opportunity to have a second term of the same length.
Luminaria Names Yadhira Lozano Next Executive Director
Yadhira Lozano will succeed Kathy Armstrong as executive director of Luminaria, a nonprofit arts organization which manages San Antonio’s annual contemporary art festival. She will begin her transition this month and assume full responsibilities in 2021. Lozano previously served as Tejano Conjunto Festival coordinator for the the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center and head of communications for the Briscoe Western Art Museum. She represents District 3 for San Antonio’s Arts Commission and is the inaugural chair of the city’s Centro de Artes gallery.
Berry Campbell Adds Estate of Frederick J. Brown
Berry Campbell in New York now represents the Estate of Frederick J. Brown, who died in 2012 at the age of 67. Brown was a central figure in downtown Manhattan’s art and music scene of the 1970’s and 80’s. A painter who frequently collaborated with multidisciplinary artists, his work fused religious and historical themes with scenes from the city. Among his best-known works is a portrait series of jazz and blues musicians including Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, among institutions elsewhere. Berry Campbell will present an exhibition of his work in September 2021.
Wednesday, December 9
Courtney Willis Blair Named Partner at Mitchell-Innes & Nash
Mitchell-Innes & Nash gallery in New York has named Courtney Willis Blair a partner. Willis Blair has worked at the gallery since 2016; she is currently a director, and was previously an artist liaison, working with Pope.L, Martha Rosler, and others on the gallery’s roster. She also facilitates Entre Nous, a collective of Black women dealers, and is a member of Triple Canopy’s publishing circle.
Mariane Ibrahim Gallery Adds Shannon T. Lewis to Roster
Mariane Ibrahim in Chicago now represents Berlin-based artist Shannon T. Lewis, who will have her first solo exhibition with the gallery in 2022. Lewis is known for her dreamy figurative paintings that examine femininity, Blackness, and other topics, oftentimes through a dystopian lens. “I feel called to portray bodies fluidly throughout my work, setting the stage for Black women to be as ubiquitous and as universal as any other,” the artist has said of her work. “I am interested in deciphering regulatory structures of society—and how the bodies who are not deemed as equal are regulated the strongest.”
BRIC Names Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President
BRIC, a nonprofit arts organization based in Brooklyn, has appointed Seneca Mudd as its chief operating officer and executive vice president. In this new role, he will oversee development and operational strategy across the organization’s business sectors. Prior to joining BRIC, Mudd was senior vice president for business development at MDC Partners Inc., an advertising and marketing company, and vice president for global clients at Xaxis, a digital media company, where he led audience strategy and revenue development, among other responsibilities.
Marianne Boesky and Goodman Gallery Open Exhibition Space in Miami
Marianne Boesky Gallery and Goodman Gallery have joined forces to present a temporary exhibition space in Miami’s Design District from December 12 to January 20, 2021. Both galleries will show group exhibitions featuring works by artists from their respective rosters. Marianne Boesky Gallery’s showing will include pieces by Gina Beavers, Sanford Biggers, Allison Janae Hamilton, Frank Stella, and others. Goodman Gallery will exhibit works by William Kentridge, David Goldblatt, Alfredo Jaar, and more.
The Shed Names Artists In Open Call Commissioning Program
The Shed has revealed the 27 New York City–based artists who will participate in its second Open Call commissioning program for emerging artists, who will create and present new works at the arts center from summer 2021 into 2022. Artists receive a commissioning fee up to $15,000 depending on the scale of their projects. Artists selected for Open Call include Aisha Amin, Caroline Garcia, Simon Liu, Merche Blasco, Anne Wu, and DonChristian Jones. The full list of Open Call recipients can be found here.
Tuesday, December 8
Tiwani Contemporary Now Represents Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers)
Tiwani Contemporary in London has added Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers). Rashid is known for his painting practice which centers the saga of a fictional world superpower, the Frenglish Empire, to explore real-world imperial and colonial histories, while incorporating elements of Afrofuturism, hip-hop, and Renaissance portraiture. His work is currently on view in the Made in L.A. biennial at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. His first solo U.K. exhibition, “In The Court of the Crimson Queen or White Lady On A Horse,” was presented by Tiwani Contemporary this fall.
Tiwani Contemporary in London has added Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers). Rashid is known for his painting practice which centers the saga of a fictional world superpower, the Frenglish Empire, to explore real-world imperial and colonial histories, while incorporating elements of Afrofuturism, hip-hop, and Renaissance portraiture. His work is currently on view in the Made in L.A. biennial at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. His first solo U.K. exhibition, “In The Court of the Crimson Queen or White Lady On A Horse,” was presented by Tiwani Contemporary this fall.
Terra Foundation Adds Members to Board of Directors
The Chicago-based Terra Foundation for American Art, which maintains a grant program and collection, has appointed Huey Copeland and Clare Muñana to its board of directors. Copeland, who has been a faculty member of Northwestern University’s art history department since 2005, is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. He will become BFC Presidential Associate Professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s art history department in 2021. Muñana, who served on the Terra Foundation’s board of directors from 2009 to 2014, is president of Ancora Associates, Inc., an international management consulting firm she founded in 1987, and the Blue Foundation, a family foundation.
The Chicago-based Terra Foundation for American Art, which maintains a grant program and collection, has appointed Huey Copeland and Clare Muñana to its board of directors. Copeland, who has been a faculty member of Northwestern University’s art history department since 2005, is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. He will become BFC Presidential Associate Professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s art history department in 2021. Muñana, who served on the Terra Foundation’s board of directors from 2009 to 2014, is president of Ancora Associates, Inc., an international management consulting firm she founded in 1987, and the Blue Foundation, a family foundation.
Monday, December 7
Sanford Biggers Work Acquired Through Public Vote
By way of a public vote, the Art in Public Places Program in Miami Beach has chosen Sanford Biggers’s Somethin’ Close to Nothin’ (2019) to join the collection of the Miami Beach Convention Center. The artwork, which was on view in Art Basel’s OVR: Miami Beach via David Castillo Gallery in Miami, incorporates cut antique quilts and graphite. The work will join a collection that features art by Franz Ackermann, Ellen Harvey, Elmgreen & Dragset, Joep van Lieshout, and Joseph Kosuth.
By way of a public vote, the Art in Public Places Program in Miami Beach has chosen Sanford Biggers’s Somethin’ Close to Nothin’ (2019) to join the collection of the Miami Beach Convention Center. The artwork, which was on view in Art Basel’s OVR: Miami Beach via David Castillo Gallery in Miami, incorporates cut antique quilts and graphite. The work will join a collection that features art by Franz Ackermann, Ellen Harvey, Elmgreen & Dragset, Joep van Lieshout, and Joseph Kosuth.
USLAF Announces First Round of Microgrants for Artist Projects
The U.S. Latinx Art Forum, a professional organization comprised of artists, scholars, educators, and graduate students, has announced the recipients of its first round of the Charla Fund, a Ford Foundation–sponsored initiative that provides $400 microgrants to support informal artist-generated conversations. The format is open-ended and includes projects spanning curated Zoom conversations, artist studio visits, oral history initiatives, and recipe exchanges. Among the artist recipients are Lionel Cruet, Magda Fernandez with Dell Marie Hamilton, Carlos Martiel, Las Nietas de Nonó, and Vick Quezada, among others.
Ama Josephine B. Johnstone Awarded Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism
The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and the Human Rights Project have announced that Ama Josephine B. Johnstone has been selected as the seventh recipient of the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism, an annual award for an artist, activist, or scholar to teach and further a research project at Bard College. Johnstone is a speculative writer, artist, curator and pleasure activist currently pursuing a Ph.D. candidate in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. In a statement, she described her work as centered on “a queer, decolonial approach to challenging climate colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa with a particular focus on inherently environmentalist pleasure practices in Ghana and across the Black universe.” She will be in residence at Bard during the spring 2021 semester.
The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and the Human Rights Project have announced that Ama Josephine B. Johnstone has been selected as the seventh recipient of the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism, an annual award for an artist, activist, or scholar to teach and further a research project at Bard College. Johnstone is a speculative writer, artist, curator and pleasure activist currently pursuing a Ph.D. candidate in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. In a statement, she described her work as centered on “a queer, decolonial approach to challenging climate colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa with a particular focus on inherently environmentalist pleasure practices in Ghana and across the Black universe.” She will be in residence at Bard during the spring 2021 semester.