Displaying items by tag: program

The organization behind the prestigious Fulbright fellowship is launching a new program to rescue artists from conflict zones. The Artist Protection Fund, a three-year pilot project led by the Institute of International Education and funded with $2.79m from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, offers grants to threatened artists and places them at host universities or art centers in friendlier foreign countries.

“Threats against just one individual artist can have an immediate chilling effect on entire artistic communities,” Allan Goodman, the president of the Institute of International Education, said at a launch event at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

On May 1, Pulitzer Arts Foundation celebrates the opening of its newly constructed galleries with solo exhibitions of Alexander Calder, Richard Tuttle, and Fred Sandback, and the debut of the program series "Press Play."

Presented in the Pulitzer’s light-filled upper galleries, "Calder Lightness" conveys a sense of weightlessness through the artist’s iconic hanging mobiles, standing mobiles, and constellations.

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has launched a grant program to help artists and other creative professionals tackle pressing international and social issues. The Artist as Activist program offers artists, designers and other creative thinkers the opportunity for a two-year fellowship as well as smaller, ongoing travel and research grants. The foundation is now accepting proposals via an open call on its website.

The Rauschenberg Foundation suffered a blow in court last month when a Florida judge awarded $24.6m to three of its trustees following a long-running legal dispute.

In November 2013, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) will unveil its new Paintings Conservation Studio as part of the institution’s initiative to establish a more comprehensive on-site conservation program. Three long-term research projects that will utilize new analytical techniques and technologies will inaugurate the space.

The DMA’s new conservation studio features cutting edge technology including a digital x-ray system and will serve as a center for study and research as well as conservation treatments. The studio, which is enclosed by a glass wall, will be open to visitors so that guests of the museum can observe daily conservation activities.

As part of its efforts to improve its conservation capabilities, the Dallas Museum of Art has embarked on a number of projects with museums and universities in north Texas. The DMA is currently working with the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of North Texas in Denton on various initiatives including the study of ultramarine pigment discoloration, the pigment and medium analysis of a work by Paul Gauguin, and the development of atomic sampling techniques for silverplated objects.

Maxwell L. Anderson, the Dallas Museum of Art’s Eugene McDermott Director, said, “The launch of these new conservation initiatives supports the DMA’s commitment to responsible stewardship of our collection, and the advancement of conservation research and practices in the region and across the museum field. We look forward to strengthening the DMA’s culture of conservation with the opening of this new facility and integrating conservation into the fabric of the Museum experience for the benefit and enjoyment of our community.”

In an effort to connect more directly with the global museum community, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will host the inaugural “Global Museum Leaders Colloquium.” The two-week program is slated to take place in April 2014 and will bring together over a dozen directors from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The colloquium will explore the major challenges that museum directors face including conservation issues and the well-being of the global economy.

The Met has been an international institution since its founding in 1870 and has continued to collaborate with museums across the globe through exhibitions, excavations, training and research projects. In addition, the museum runs a number of programs that bring international curators, conservators and scholars to New York.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Met, said, “I wanted to establish a program that would strengthen our existing ties with our overseas peers and encourage a more focused dialogue between museum leaders.”

The two leading decorative arts institutions in the South are embarking on a new level of collaboration between their organizations. The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg (the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum and the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum) and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) at Old Salem Museums & Gardens have entered a five-year agreement for reciprocal extended loans. The museums have already collaborated on the recently opened exhibition, Painters and Paintings in the Early American South (on view through September 7, 2014) at the Arts Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. With nine major paintings MESDA is the largest single lender to the exhibition, while select objects from the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg are already on display at MESDA.

Many of MESDA’s forty objects on loan to Colonial Williamsburg will be featured in a new, long-term exhibition opening at Colonial Williamsburg’s DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in January 2014. A Rich and Varied Culture: The Material World of the Early South will feature materials made in or imported to the South before 1840. The two museums have already begun discussions on several ways in which they can broaden the collaboration. Ideas include research exchanges, conservation, joint exhibitions and, potentially, joint publications. Further evidence of the collaboration will be seen in Colonial Williamsburg’s 66th annual Antiques Forum, February 14–18, 2014. Tentatively titled “New Findings in the Arts of the Coastal South,” the program will feature multiple speakers from both institutions as well as a number of experts from museums and universities across the nation.

IN ADDITION
This May MESDA honored Richard Hampton Jenrette with the first ever Frank L. Horton Lifetime Achievement Award for Southern Decorative Arts. A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, during the past forty years Jenrette has owned and restored a dozen historic properties. He has retained six of them and furnished each with period antiques, many original to the houses. Threads of Feeling, on view at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, through May 2014, displays the Foundling Hospital of London’s eighteenth century record books that retain textile tokens used to identify babies left in its care. The exhibit and catalogue provide insight into social and textile history and is the only American venue. October 20–22, 2013, Williamsburg will host a symposium to explore the objects in context. For information on the institutions, exhibitions, and symposium, visit colonialwilliamsburg.com and mesda.org.

Art Basel, the most anticipated art fair in the world, will be held from June 13-16, 2013 in Switzerland. A VIP preview and vernissage were held on June 11 and June 12 respectively and included the $12 million sale of Alexander Calder’s (1898-1976) Sumac (1961) by London’s Helly Nahmad Gallery.

Now in its 44^th year, Art Basel welcomes 304 international exhibitors to Messe Basel, a venue situated at the border of Switzerland, France and Germany. The fair presents the finest works of modern and contemporary art by more than 4,000 artists. Works on view include paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, photographs, video and editioned works. The show is split into eight sectors – Galleries, Feature, Statements, Edition, Unlimited, Parcours, Film, and Magazines – and allows patrons to explore the many facets of modern and contemporary art including museum-quality paintings, curated projects, and site-specific artworks.  

The remarkable roster of exhibitors includes Acquavella Galleries Inc. (New York), Castelli Gallery (New York), Gagosian Gallery (multiple locations), Hauser & Wirth (Zurich/New York), Dominique Levy (New York), and Lisson Gallery (Milan/London).

Art Basel offers a full program of events including symposiums, artist talks, and lectures. Featured participants include Massimiliano Gioni, curator of the 55^th Venice Biennale and Director at the New Museum, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London.    

On June 10, 2013, Bank of America announced the recipients of its 2013 Art Conservation Project. The program provides grant funding to international nonprofit museums to conserve historically and culturally significant works of art that are in danger of deterioration.

This year, Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project will provide funding for 24 works in 16 countries. One of the most significant undertakings is the restoration of Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles. Built between 1921 and 1953, the Watts Towers are an iconic part of the city and have fallen into disrepair. The towers are part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Other projects include the restoration of Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) Number 1A, One, and Echo at the Museum of Modern Art; 13 mural drawings by Diego Rivera (1886-1957) at the Detroit Institute of Arts; four Tudor paintings at the National Portrait Gallery in London; a Rembrandt (1606-1669) study at the National Gallery in Prague; and a Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) photography collection at La Casa Azul in Mexico.    

Bank of America launched its Art Conservation Project in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in 2010. It was expanded to include the Americas, Asia, and Australia in 2012. Including this year’s recipients, Bank of America will have funded the conservation of 57 projects in 25 countries.

The Louvre has been on the hunt for a director since the current chief, Henry Loyrette, announced his resignation in December 2012. Today, April 3, 2013, French President Francois Hollande announced his decision to appoint Jean-Luc Martinez, a French specialist in Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities, as the museum’s new director.

Martinez, who has worked with the Louvre since 2007, is currently helming the restoration of the museum’s famed sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace. He has participated in a number of other projects at the museum including the creation of the Louvre’s outpost in the French city of Lens as well as the museum’s expansion in Abu Dhabi.

Martinez, 49, has signed on for a three-year term and will take over operations in mid-April. Loyrette, who has been the Louvre’s director for 12 years, leaves behind a lasting legacy. During his time at the museum Loyrette nearly doubled the Louvre’s annual attendance. By the end of 2012, approximately 10 million people were visiting the museum each year, making it the busiest museum in the world. Loyrette also implemented the museum’s contemporary art program, employed a policy that relied on crowed-sourced fundraising, and launched a number of successful public campaigns.

The search for a new chief was extensive; for the first time in the museum’s 220-year history the Louvre considered hiring non-French candidates for the role of director.

After twelve years at the helm of the world’s busiest museum, Henri Loyrette announced that he will leave his post at the Musée du Louvre in April of 2013. Before becoming the president and director of the Louvre, Loyrette served as the first curator and then the director of Paris’ Musée d’Orsay from 1994 to 2001 and has served as France’s chief curator of heritage since 1975. Loyrette has already informed the president of France, François Hollande, and the country’s minister of culture of his departure.

The Louvre attracts more visitors each year than any other institution in the world and Loyrette has managed to keep that number on the rise. In fact, the number of visitors has almost doubled under Loyrette’s leadership; 5.1 million patrons were reported in 2001 and by the end of 2012, almost 10 million people will have visited the Louvre this year.

However, Loyrette did much more than increase attendance during his time at the Louvre. He is responsible for implementing the museum’s contemporary art program and has organized exhibitions by Cy Twombly (1928-2011), Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945), and many other renowned modern artists. Loyrette employed a new policy that relied on crowd-sourced fundraising and launched a number of successful public campaigns that asked art enthusiasts to help the museum make important acquisitions. Loyrette also oversaw the opening of the Louvre’s outpost in the northern city of Lens as well as the expansion of the museum’s Islamic art galleries, which opened earlier this year.

Loyrette will no longer be in charge when the Louvre’s outpost in Abu Dhabi opens. The controversial project stirred debate in the French art world as Abu Dhabi has paid nearly $1.3 billion to use the Louvre name for thirty years and to gain access to the museum’s collection during that time. Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, the Abu Dhabi location is slated to open in 2015.