Le Quotidien de l’Art reported last week that Honoré’s suicide had been determined a “work accident” by French social security and featured allegations from unnamed MO.CO workers who claimed Honoré had a tense relationship with museum management. The publication quoted a text from Honoré to a friend in which he said he felt “trapped.”

In an unusual move, MO.CO issued a lengthy statement Friday rebutting the Le Quotidien de l’Art article, saying that the museum considered the report “an unbearable exploitation of a tragic event which deserves dignified, measured and respectful treatment for all.”

The museum said it had set up a “psychological support unit” for staff there following Honoré’s suicide in November and wrote that his “memory was sensitively honored” in a number of ways, including via the staging of a Huma Bhabha exhibition that he had organized, which the museum has offered to the public free of charge.

Responding to Honore’s text about feeling “trapped,” the museum said that he had never taken sick leave “in recent years,” and that it had never denied a request by him for time off.

Le Quotidien de l’Art reported that Honoré had been facing a “hidden demotion” just prior to his death wherein certain unspecified responsibilities were to be taken away from him. MO.CO denied this, saying that his “positions and responsibilities have never been called into question.”

The museum did not deny that French social security had determined his suicide was a “work accident,” noting that the institution confirmed receipt of the decision in March. MO.CO is currently appealing that decision.

Honoré was 48 when he died by suicide last year. He had been head of exhibitions since 2019, and had before that been senior curator at the Hayward Gallery in London, where he gained a reputation as a closely-watched figure in the European scene.

The French art publication reported that Caisse primaire d’assurances maladie, a public health organization that is part of the nation’s social security system, has now concluded that inquiry, and deemed Honoré’s suicide a “work accident.” That label allows his family the possibility to seek criminal charges against MO.CO.

A representative for MO.CO told Le Quotidien de l’Art that the museum “vigorously contests this decision and has filed an appeal.”

A MO.CO spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from ARTnews.

Honoré died by suicide this past November, leaving the French art world in shock. He had been head of exhibitions at MO.CO since 2019, and had before that been senior curator at London’s Hayward Gallery.

The Le Quotidien de l’Art report features allegations that there were tensions between Honoré and museum management just before his suicide. The publication quoted written communication between him and an unnamed friend the day before he died. He reportedly wrote that he was “trapped” at the museum and that he “will not be able to leave.”

The MO.CO statement provided to Le Quotidien de l’Art said that the museum conducted a survey about the psychological health of workers there following Honoré’s suicide and determined that 90 percent of respondents were “satisfied” with their conditions.

The French publication Le Quotidien de l’Art reported that Honoré had died on Wednesday and that the cause of his death was still being investigated by the police. The report cited several relatives who said that Honoré had died by suicide.

MO.CO Montepellier, the French museum where Honoré served as head of exhibitions, confirmed Honoré’s death on Friday morning. In a statement posted to social media, the museum wrote, “Today we lose an extraordinary and inspiring colleague who will leave a huge void in our community. His legacy will live on through all the exhibitions he designed, like the current one by Huma Bhabha, and the young artists he mentored and supported. During this difficult time, our thoughts are with his family, loved ones and everyone else who had the privilege of working alongside him.”

Across the past two and a half decades, Honoré amassed a reputation for staging exhibitions of cutting-edge art, much of it by women and queer artists. “I consider exhibitions as open systems and I think that is something that can definitely be read in my work,” he said in an interview with This Is Tomorrow. “Overall, I like proposing introductions, rather than conclusions. I like things that are unresolved.”

He started his curatorial career in 2000 at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and would go on to hold positions at London institutions, like Tate Modern, the David Roberts Arts Foundation, and the Hayward Gallery, before joining MO.CO Montpellier in southern France.

Among the celebrated exhibitions that he mounted was “DRAG: Self-Portrait and Body Politics,” which he curated in 2018 for the Hayward Gallery, where he was senior curator at the time. Featuring works by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Sin Wai Kin, and others, the show sought to show how artists—both queer and not—had incorporated drag into their work. “This timely exhibition examines how the way we look, at ourselves and at others, has been conditioned by a series of gendered, racial, class and colonial structures,” Apollo wrote in its review.

“Kiss My Genders,” a show Honoré staged the year after at the Hayward Gallery, sought to explore gender fluidity through works by Juliana Huxtable, Kent Monkman, Catherine Opie, and more, and also received positive reviews. The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones awarded the exhibition five stars, writing that it “touches, in profound ways, on what it is to be human, and why we need this great river of the unfixed.”

He also organized solo shows for artists such as Neïl Beloufa, Hans Haacke, Ana Mendieta, Pierre Huyghe, Jeff Wall, Fiona Banner, and many more, as well as the 13th edition of the Baltic Triennial in 2018.

In addition to curating, Honoré wrote criticism, contributing to Mousse regularly, and started his own journal, Drawing Room Confessions, which enlisted artists such as Miriam Cahn and David Lamelas for drawing-oriented projects.

“I really believe an art museum should be a stage on which events are happening,” he said in an interview for the website Art Map London. “It should not be a temple and it should not be an amusement park. Displaying an artwork is an event, a talk is an event, and they create memories. Therefore, a museum is made of memories and when we leave it we should be filled with these memories.”

Alban Muja, Family Album, 1999.

SKENDER MUJA/©MUJA FAMILY/COURTESY THE ARTIST

Kosovo has selected artist Alban Muja to represent it at the 2019 Venice Biennale, which runs from May 11 to November 24. To oversee the pavilion, Kosovo has enlisted Vincent Honoré, the director of exhibitions at Montpellier Contemporary in France. (Arta Agani, the director of the National Gallery of Kosovo in Prishtina and the curator of the country’s 2017 pavilion at the biennale, is serving as its commissioner.)

In recognition of the 20th anniversary of the Kosovo War, which lasted from 1998 to 1999, Muja will create for the pavilion a new video installation that meditates on the conflict. The work will explore the ways the war was represented in the media, both in Kosovo and beyond, and is based on photographs of child refugees that were taken during the war. The project will then go on to explore the lives of the pictured refugees in contemporary times.

A release announcing the pavilion says, “Given that 20 years on, the world faces new and ever-growing hotspots of conflict and an acute refugee crisis, whose experience and reality are contingent on the proliferation and dissemination of accompanying documentary images, Muja’s project for the Kosovo Pavilion opens up a wider field of questioning about the relationship between aesthetics and politics, between subject and narrator.”

Zoé Whitley.

TAKIS ZONITROS/COURTESY SOUTHBANK CENTRE

The Hayward Gallery in London has appointed Zoé Whitley as its new senior curator. She will begin at the Hayward on April 8. Vincent Honoré, who previously held the position, has departed the museum to become artistic director of MoCo Contemporary Arts in Montpellier, France.

Whitley is currently curator of international art at Tate Modern. Her most notable curatorial credit for that museum is “Soul of a Nation,” a critically acclaimed survey about the Black Power movement and art made between 1963 and 1983 she co-organized with Mark Godfrey that is now on view at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Prior to becoming a curator at Tate, Whitley held positions at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

“The mix of world-class and risk-taking programming consistently draws me to the Southbank Centre as a member of the public,” Whitley said in a statement. “I am so excited to now join the team when the organization is innovating interdisciplinary leadership and collaboration.”

In addition to starting at the Hayward, Whitley is overseeing the 2019 Venice Biennale’s British Pavilion, in which artist Cathy Wilkes will appear. As it so happens, Ralph Rugoff, the Hayward’s director, is curating the Biennale’s main show.

Vincent Honoré.

JOEL RIFF

When curators play a role in art fairs, it tends to be for one small part or section. But for the third edition of Independent Brussels, Vincent Honoré, senior curator for the Hayward Gallery in London, will organize an entire fair. Scheduled to open on April 19 in Belgium, the 2018 fair will include commissioned presentations by galleries and institutions, as well as an expanded talks program.

Before the Hayward Gallery, Honoré worked at various institutions around Europe. He has held curatorial positions at the Palais de Tokyo and Tate Modern, and, from 2008 until earlier this year, he was the founding director and chief curator of the David Roberts Art Foundation. Honoré is currently organizing the 13th edition of the Baltic Triennial of International Art, which opens in Vilnius, Lithuania, in May 2018.

Much of Honoré’s work has dealt with performance art, and the 2018 edition of Independent Brussels will feature a greater emphasis on time-based work. (No details about the events programming or an exhibitor list have been announced yet.) He will work on the fair with Independent Brussels founder Laura Mitterand and projects director Goedele Bartholomeeusen.

In a statement, Independent founder Elizabeth Dee said, “Vincent brings a strong vision and track record of exhibitions that go beyond the traditional brick-and-mortar format. We’re looking forward to delivering a truly unique context for future art experiences.”

Hayward Gallery.

VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Vincent Honoré and Cliff Lauson have been appointed senior curators of the Hayward Gallery at London’s Southbank Centre. The pair will start at the museum later this fall following the departure of Stephanie Rosenthal, who is leaving her post as chief curator to become director of the Martin-Gropius Bau museum.

Since 2007, Honoré has been the chief curator at the David Roberts Art Foundation. He has helped oversee the foundation’s public programming and has curated solo shows for Fiona Banner, Huma Bhabha, and Rosemary Trockel, among others. Prior to that, Honoré was an assistant curator at the Palais de Tokyo and Tate Modern. He was also recently made the artistic director for the 13th Baltic Triennial, which opens in May 2018.

Lauson has been a curator at the Hayward Gallery since 2009. In that time, he has organized solo exhibitions for a number of artists, including Martin Creed, Ernesto Neto, Tracey Emin, and David Shrigley. Lauson was previously an assistant curator at Tate Modern, and is currently a member of the British Council Collection Acquisitions Advisory Group.

In a statement, Hayward Gallery director Ralph Rugoff said that “it is a very exciting period in the gallery’s history,” referring to the 50th anniversary and the re-opening of the space following a two-year refurbishment. The occasion will be marked with the curators’ first outing at the gallery: a solo exhibition of work by Andreas Gursky, which opens in January 2018.

COURTESY PARIS INTERNATIONALE

Last year, Paris’s FIAC got into the satellite fair game, launching (Off)icielle, which focuses on younger dealers. This year, (Off)icielle returns with FIAC, but it is joined by a newcomer fair, Paris Internationale, which has been started by five local galleries: Galeries Crevecoeur, High Art, Antoine Lévi, Gregor Staiger, and Sultana.

Paris Internationale opens tomorrow and runs through October 24 at a historic hôtel particulier located between the Palais de Tokyo and Arc de Triomphe in the center of Paris. It is modestly sized, with just 41 exhibitors—34 galleries and 7 nonprofits from 14 countries—but they are a closely watched group, including Lulu (Mexico City), Chapter (New York), 1857 (Oslo), and Croy Nielsen.

Announcing the fair, the founders said their aim is “fostering new advanced initiatives in contemporary art,” blurring the line between fair and exhibition and establishing an event that is a hybrid of a commercial initiative and an art project. It also includes a robust talk series and a performance program curated by Vincent Honoré of the David Roberts Art Foundation and U.K.–based artist Zoe Williams.

In an email interview—lightly edited and condensed, and published below—the fair’s managing director, Silvia Amon, and its five founding galleries detail their ambitious plans for Paris Internationale.

ARTnews: How did the idea for Paris Internationale come about?

Paris Internationale: Last July, some of us were thinking about doing something during the Paris Art Week since [it was in] a few months, and it naturally came to merge and join forces so as to organize something meaningful. Things developed very quickly.

In your announcement, you mentioned developing a model for “fostering new advanced initiatives in contemporary art.” Why do you think such a project is necessary, and what are your goals for successfully achieving this?

We do this for Paris. As gallerists, we travel the world all year long, we meet people, we discover new artists, new situations, there is the thrill and the fascination to bring those novelties to the Parisian and French eyes; the mere pleasure to share this with everyone, to welcome, to host in our town.

How did this ethos inform your selection of the participating exhibitors?

Many of them are friends, or in the least we closely follow their programs and our routes sometimes cross. We aim to become an epicenter of a generation of exhibitors, though not tastemakers.

You have also conceived the event as an art fair that is as much a commercial venture as it is an alternative artistic project. What is your definition of “alternative,” and how does it relate to the way you’ve gone about establishing this atmosphere for the fair?

The locus was fundamental; we looked for a place that naturally gives a certain attitude. The double abandoned townhouse in the heart of Paris is more orientated towards a rupture with the classical schemes of art fairs, thought it is not a revolution because we tried to mix rough derelict Haussmannian architectures with more rationalist “white-cubesques” interventions. This is why we also wanted to collaborate with Emilie and Nicolas from Dorval-Bory Architectes bureau—they have a very interesting vision of the space interiors and highly practical logistical skills.

In terms of the projects you have organized for the fair, you’ve themed them around “Paris (from the ’70s).” What inspired you to evoke this era?

Well, many, it is difficult to list them but what naturally comes to mind is the vivid, strong, and effervescent creativity from this epoch, not only in art, but in the cinema, the music, the literature, the theatres; the ’70s idea of Paris is certainly one that we all keep in mind in our common memories. Along with the exhibitors, the performance designed by Vincent Honoré and Zoe Williams will highlight those concepts, the ghost of something that does not exist but we all think about even in its clichés.

In a similar nostalgic vein, did this inform your choice of venue for the fair? More specifically, is there anything special/historical about the hotel?

The hotel has lived many lives, way before we all were born. When we visited it, it was obvious to us that this was the perfect place in all its beautiful contradictions.

With the strong international presence and the mandate you’ve set, what is your vision for expanding the fair in the future?

We’ll see, we have ideas growing constantly and the group of brains we form is an infinite source of dreams, perspectives, and visions. However, we want to focus on this first event [to ensure we] respectfully [handle] the trust the participants have given us. We’ll surely have to set parameters differently next year, some fine settings, but the basis is here, the attitude is the right one.