Displaying items by tag: Contemporary Art

The British Museum will open a new gallery in 2018 dedicated to a broad swath of Islamic art, the museum announced.

Set in a pair of currently closed galleries in the heart of the museum, the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World will include sections dedicated to Islamic art until around 1500, and to artifacts from three 16th-century Islamic dynasties — the Ottoman, the Mughal and the Safavid. A selection of contemporary artwork will also appear – including works from “The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist,” a series by the American artist Michael Rakowitz in which he recreated artworks looted from the National Museum of Iraq after the American-led invasion of 2003.

The Williams College Museum of Art has received a donation of 68 works of contemporary art from the collection of computer programmer and philanthropist Peter Norton.

WCMA is one recipient in a series of gifts to university and college art museums throughout the country. The art, from Norton’s personal collection, is intended to support the integration of the visual arts in higher education, to connect diverse audiences with contemporary art, and to foster creative museum practice.

The gift to WCMA is part of Norton’s second such philanthropic project, following one in 2000 in which he gave more than 1,000 pieces to 32 institutions.

Shannon Stratton has been named chief curator at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Stratton will assume the new role in June, succeeding MAD’s retiring chief curator, Lowery Stokes Sims. “Shannon brings a bold curatorial vision to MAD, combining energetic new thinking with leadership skills honed over twelve years as the founder of a non-profit art space,” Chairman Lewis Kruger said in a statement, referring to Stratton’s work as the executive director of Threewalls, a contemporary art organization in Chicago.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art on Friday announced a number of new art acquisitions, including Helen Frankenthaler's "Seven Types of Ambiguity" and Robert Rauschenberg's "The Tower," along with a reinstallation of its contemporary art gallery.

The acquisitions, which The New York Times valued at $20 million, join Georgia O'Keeffe's "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1," which sold for a record-setting $44.4 million at Sotheby's in November, more than three times the previous record for a work by a woman artist. The Bentonville museum revealed that it had bought Jimson Weed in an announcement last week.

Phillips will sell a $35-million contemporary art collection at its New York auction house this May, featuring works by artists such as Alighiero Boetti, John Chamberlain, Brice Marden, Giuseppe Penone, Ed Ruscha, and Robert Ryman. The consignment represents a coup for the house and a sign of the clout and art world connections of new chairman and CEO Edward Dolman. The longtime Christie's CEO took over the lead role at Phillips this past summer. The house has salesrooms in New York and London and plans to expand to Hong Kong.

Though Phillips typically holds much smaller contemporary art sales than Sotheby's and Christie's, it has nonetheless carved out a niche and become well known for selling art by younger artists like Alex Israel, Oscar Murillo, and Sterling Ruby.

On Tuesday, March 11, 2015, Thomas P. Campbell, the Director and CEO of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced that David Chipperfield Architects (DCA) has been selected to redesign the institution’s Southwest Wing for modern and contemporary art. The British firm will also potentially redesign the neighboring galleries for the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, as well as additional operational spaces.

The Met’s selection process included an international design competition led by a committee of the museum’s Board of Trustees. According to a press release from the Met, Campbell said, “We based the final selection of an architect on three criteria: vision, experience, and compatibility. David Chipperfield’s global architectural experience and sensibility, along with his commitment to the collaborative aspect of creating architecture, make him a perfect partner on this milestone project.”

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has gifted $5 million to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, to support the development and presentation of exhibitions of contemporary art.

“Thanks to [the] Knight Foundation's visionary support we will be able to expand our ability to commission experimental and scholarly exhibitions by the most significant emerging and under-represented artists of our time,” said Alex Gartenfeld, ICA Miami’s deputy director and chief curator.

A sweeping reinstallation of The Museum of Modern Art’s contemporary collection presents a wide range of artistic approaches to the political, social, and cultural flux that have shaped the current global landscape. "Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection," on view from March 8, 2015, through March 2016, features video, installation, sculpture, drawing, prints, and photography created in the past three decades by more than 30 international artists, with more than half of the works on view for the first time. "Scenes for a New Heritage" is organized by Quentin Bajac, the Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography; Eva Respini, Curator, Department of Photography; Ana Janevski, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art; and Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints; with Katerina Stathopoulou, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography.

The last 30 years have seen remarkable societal and cultural change, as major shifts in geopolitical dynamics destabilized the established world order, new economies emerged to challenge those long dominant, and the Internet radically altered the ways in which we access and generate information.

London’s Trafalgar Square, full of tourists, pigeons and military monuments, has a new occupant — a skeletal horse displaying stock quotes.

German artist Hans Haacke’s “Gift Horse” was unveiled Thursday atop the square’s “fourth plinth,” a major platform for public art.

The work is a skeleton horse with a London Stock Exchange ticker tied to its leg.

The Art Dealers Association of America’s (ADAA) 27th annual Art Show opened to the public on Wednesday, March 4, 2015. The ADAA Art Show’s kick-off marks the beginning of New York City's Armory Week -- a highly-anticipated, multifaceted art event that includes a dizzying array of fairs, gallery exhibitions, and related happenings.

Held at the historic Park Avenue Armory, this year’s ADAA Art Show features thoughtfully curated solo, two-person, and thematic exhibitions organized by 72 of the country’s leading art dealers. Featuring both modern masters and cutting-edge contemporary works in all media, the show allows exhibitors to emphasize their gallery’s vision through these finely curated exhibitions. Highlights include Thomas Colville Fine Art’s (Guilford, Connecticut) presentation of works by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and other artists who were influenced by the late nineteenth-century painter, and Hirschl & Adler Galleries’ (New York, New York) exploration of Jazz Age Modernism, which includes works by Winold Reiss, Romare Bearden, Stuart Davis, and others.