Author: Ann Williams

The Dia Art Foundation in New York has announced that Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has won the inaugural Sam Gilliam Prize, along with $75,000 and a public program at one of Dia’s residences. The Sam Gilliam Award was established last year by the late artist’s foundation and his widow, Annie Gawla, as foundation president. Planned to award the award annually for the next decade, the award will be given to “an artist who has made a significant contribution in any medium and works anywhere in the world for whom the award would be transformative,” according to a statement. Related Articles…

ArtEmily SteerView of the Giardini della Biennale, 2019. Photo by Andrea Avezzu. By La Biennale di Venezia.Organizing a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale is a challenge for any curator. From a practical point of view, the unique historical buildings of the Giardini tend to have protected elements; conceptually, the complicated idea of ​​national representation needs careful consideration. Many of this year’s curators are breaking away from traditional structures, in some cases remodeling existing buildings; in others, great work with diasporic groups. Although the concept of each pavilion was announced before the theme of the biennale’s main exhibition, “Foreigners Everywhere,”…

The debate over Morocco’s national pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, after three artists and curators were suddenly replaced in January, has taken another turn: the country will not have a national pavilion at all.It started as good news for the North African country. In July, Morocco’s culture ministry announced that the country would participate with a national pavilion for the first time. Artist and writer Mahi Binebine was appointed curator, and commissioned three artists to participate: Majida Khattari, Safaa Erruas and Fatiha Zemmouri.Majida Khattari is one of the Moroccan artists who created works for Venice © Thomas Lohnes/Getty ImagesThe…

The Broad, the Los Angeles museum founded in 2015 by the late collector Eli Broad and his wife Edyth, is marking its first decade by embarking on a $100 million expansion that will add 55,000 square feet to the institution. The museum has engaged architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), which designed the existing building—with its distinctively designed exterior, dramatic interior spaces, and exposed warehouse—to create the new structure.The new building will increase the museum’s gallery space by 70% and create new amenities such as space for live events and public programming, two elevated outdoor patios and a new…

LOS ANGELES – In 2019, my fascination with experimental music led me to the non-profit Coaxial Arts Foundation at Nikita Gale’s event. EMPTY/OPEN residential exhibition I was fascinated by the immersive, multichannel sound works on display and the interaction with the architecture, and I’ve been following Coaxial’s evolution ever since. As the organization celebrates its ninth anniversary, I discussed its journey and impact with founder Eva Aguila. An artist and community organizer, Aguila decided to move back to Los Angeles from Oregon in 2013. “It was difficult for me to find a place for myself and my art,” he told…

The British Museum has appointed Nicholas Cullinan as its new director. Currently director of London’s National Portrait Gallery, Cullinan now faces the daunting task of helping to run the institution as he continues to deal with the revelation last year that 2,000 items from the museum’s collection were stolen, damaged or otherwise disappeared. Cullinan has been the director of the National Portrait Gallery since 2015. He oversaw a three-year, $53 million redevelopment of the institution that increased the museum’s public spaces by approximately 20 percent. He has also worked as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and London’s…

ArtMaxwell RabbPortrait of Oliver Beer in “Resonance Paintings – Cat Orchestra” by Almine Rech, 2024. Photo by Thomas Barratt. Courtesy of Almine Rech.In 1650, the occult philosopher Athanasius Kircher invented an equally provocative tool: cat piano (or cat organ), in which live cats, arranged according to the pitch of their voices, screamed when the keys of the instrument were struck with their tails. This cruel instrument was first described by Kircher in his book Universal music and later appeared in the 1883 French textbook naturewhere seven cats in cages serve as the pipes of a piano. image of cat piano…

In 2016, American multidisciplinary artist Mike Bouchet hired a German perfume expert to distill the scent of the US dollar and spent almost a year extracting the chemical compounds from the pressed banknotes. Cotton and linen were infused with more than 100 chemicals, including ink, metal and sweat, before Bouchet’s new sculpture appeared at New York’s Marlborough Chelsea Gallery in early 2017. Tender, the “synthesized scent of US bills,” filled every corner of the gallery’s 45,000 cubic feet.When art patron, collector and activist Rachel Verghis read Bouchet’s interview in The Wall Street Journal, she was shocked. “It was like a…

Before the pandemic, Munich’s Lenbachhaus approached Tate with an idea: why not share the crown jewels from each other’s collections in some special exhibitions? As such, Germany gets its first major JMW Turner debut in 70 years and Tate Modern is about to open Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), the artist’s first show since the 1960s.”It’s an incredibly sustainable way of working,” says curator Natalia Sidlina. Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and Blue Rider. “Both in terms of collaboration, which allows us to work with specialists from both sides at a deep level of curation and research, and also in terms…

LOS ANGELES – Austrian conceptual artist VALIE EXPORT engages with the concrete of an urban landscape as if it were a playground. In his “photographic” series Body configurations (1972–76), bends, folds and stretches across the infrastructure of a seemingly desolate city, his body merging with the architecture of a built environment. The MAK Art and Architecture Center installs several photographs and two videos from this series at the Schindler House. VALIE EXPORT: Embodied, director of the center, Jia Yi Gu, curator. In these works, EXPORT heightens people’s instinct to disobey a built environment. In public parks, pedestrians can shun walking…