Dallas Contemporary presents first major US institutional exhibition by artist Rob Pruitt

DALLAS, TX.- Dallas Contemporary announces an exhibition featuring New York artist ROB PRUITT. The exhibition made specifically for Dallas Contemporary will be Pruitt’s first major institutional exhibition in the United States and his largest exhibition to date. Dallas Contemporary Executive Director, Peter Doroshenko said, “It’s an honour to be presenting the first institutional exhibition of Rob Pruitt’s work in the USA. Pruitt has been a seminal figure in the New York art scene since the late 1980s and to have a focused [...]

The Frick Collection presents New Portico Gallery, first addition in 35 years

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Visitors to The Frick Collection will be able to enjoy a new gallery—the first major addition to the museum’s display spaces in nearly thirty-five years. The inspiration for this initiative, which involves the enclosure of the portico in the Fifth Avenue Garden, comes from the intention of museum founder Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) to build an addition to his 1914 mansion for his growing collection of sculpture. The project was postponed in 1917 following the United States entry into World [...]

Qatar Museums Authority inaugurated MIA Park with unveiling of Richard Serra Sculpture

DOHA.- On December 15, in the presence of His Highness the Emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani and more than 700 dignitaries and special guests, Qatar Museums Authority inaugurated the MIA Park, a new cultural destination on Doha’s Corniche. The inaugural ceremony included remarks by Qatar Museums Authority Chairperson Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani and master sculptor Richard Serra, and Hughes de Courson’s The Magic Lutes was performed by the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra in a temporary [...]

Michael Rakowitz collaborates with U.S. Attorney’s Office to facilitate the return of Iraqui plates

NEW YORK, NY.- In cooperation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, artist Michael Rakowitz and public arts presenter Creative Time facilitated the return of dinner plates once belonging to Saddam Hussein to the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Iraq to the United Nations in New York City. The plates were most recently used in an artist-chef collaboration entitled Spoils, featured at New York’s Park Avenue Autumn restaurant from September 28 through November 26 of this year. Return of Saddam Hussein’s Plates is a [...]

Exhibition at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam sheds light on the main elements of Judaism

AMSTERDAM.- This winter, De Nieuwe Kerk and the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam present an exhibition about Judaism. With more than five hundred objects on display, this exhibition tells the fascinating story of three thousand years of Jewish religion, culture, art and history, the chronicle of a world religion that takes diverse international forms but has always held onto its identity. The exhibits come from internationally renowned museums and private collections, and most of them are on display in the Netherlands for the [...]

Long-lost Victorian painting by William Powell Frith nets $782,680 at Christie’s auction

LONDON (AP).- A long-lost Victorian painting by William Powell Frith sold for 505,250 pounds ($782,680) at a London auction, Christie’s auction house said Thursday. “The Derby Day” is an early version of one of the era’s most famous pictures — Frith’s teeming, picaresque image of the crowds at an 1850s horse race, from a rich family in their carriage to gamblers, acrobats and prostitutes. The finished painting hangs in the Tate Britain gallery in London. The 15-by-35 inch (39 centimeter by 91 centimeter) [...]

Ennead Architects to design Penn State’s Veterans Plaza

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Pennsylvania State University has selected Ennead Architects in collaboration with Sculptor Mark Mennin as winner of the design competition for the new Veterans Plaza. The gift of the class of 2011, the memorial will honor Penn State veterans. Ennead partners Richard Olcott and Timothy Hartung will lead the design team. In a pivotal location adjacent to both the University’s Old Main and its quad and Pollack Road, the memorial occupies a culturally and spatially significant spot on campus, sited to [...]

Miami Art Museum to present leading artist Dana Schutz’ “If the Face Had Wheels”

MIAMI, FL.- Even before she reached the age of 30, Dana Schutz was considered one of the leading artists of her generation. Now 35, Schutz’s first ten-year (2001-2011) survey, opening atMiami Art Museum January 15, 2012, was heralded by art critics nationwide when it opened at the Neuberger Museum of Art earlier this year, even landing on the cover of November’s Art in America. The acclaimed exhibition, Dana Schutz: If the Face Had Wheels, will open with an exhibition preview and artist [...]

Crocker Art Museum to celebrate 50th anniversary of Studio Glass Movement with new exhibition

SACRAMENTO, CA.- Next summer, the Crocker Art Museum will be one of more than 120 museums nationwide to mark the 50th anniversary of the studio art-glass movement in America. “Red Hot and Blown: Contemporary Glass from the Crocker’s Collection” brings together more than 20 works by some of America’s most well-known glass artists, including Dale Chihuly, Marvin Lipofsky, Therman Statom, and Nancy Mee. The exhibit will be on view March 17 through September 23, 2012. Dale Chihuly, Macchia Seaform Group, 1984. Blown Glass, [...]

Photos of conflicts and disasters by Stanley Greene in “Black Passport” at Foam

AMSTERDAM.- Foam presents Black Passport, a project by and about the American conflict photographer Stanley Greene (New York, 1949). Black Passport shows photos of conflicts and disasters combined with photos of Greene’s private life. The result is a revealing portrait of a photographer who is addicted to the adrenaline rush of being on the move, but at the same time realises the sacrifices he makes in his personal life. Stanley Greene has photographed in regions such as Chechnya, Iraq, Rwanda and Sudan [...]

PowerHouse Books announces Here We Are by Panos Kokkinias

BROOKLYN, N.Y.- Here We Are is an anthology of Panos Kokkinias’ widely exhibited fine-art photography, from 1994 through 2007. The monograph consists of four sections, each representing different bodies of work linked by a common theme: Kokkinias’ personal, ongoing obsession with existential subject matter. Home (1994-1995), was produced during a difficult personal period for Kokkinias, marked by an eating disorder. To help overcome his troubles, Kokkinias turned the camera onto himself. Gradually his physical presence in the pictures gave way to [...]

Best-known graphic work of Spanish artist Francisco Goya at Malmo Konsthall

MALMO.- The best-known graphic work of Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746–1828) is Los Desastres de la Guerra, known in English as The Disasters of War. Its message remains just as relevant today. Goya’s etchings depict for the first time war from the viewpoint of the civilian population’s suffering, without any attempt to soften the impact. We are ruthlessly presented with the brutality of war and the inhumanity of mankind. The etchings are an intense visual report of a barbaric behaviour that [...]

Socrates Sculpture Park appoints New Museum’s John Hatfield as new Director

LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y.- Socrates Sculpture Park announces the appointment of its next executive director, John Hatfield. Hatfield will assume directorship of the Park on January 18, 2012, following seventeen years at the internationally acclaimed New Museum of Contemporary Art in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. There, Hatfield served in the capacity of Deputy Director since 2008 and held various positions from 1992 to 2002 and from 2004 to 2011. He succeeds Alyson Baker, who served as Director from 2000 to [...]

Current museum curator John Peter Nilsson appointed Director of Moderna Museet Malmö

STOCKHOLM.- John Peter Nilsson has been appointed director of Moderna Museet Malmö. He currently works as a curator at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and will take up his new position on 1 March, 2012. John Peter Nilsson (born 1957) has worked at Moderna Museet in Stockholm since 2004, where he has been responsible for some of the museum’s most acclaimed exhibitions, including Dalí Dalí featuring Francesco Vezzoli, which broke the visitor record in 2009, and Klara Lidén, who received an honorary mention [...]

“The Persistence of Geometry” works from la Caixa Foundation and MACBA collection

MADRID.- The secretary general of ”la Caixa” Foundation, Luis Reverter; the director of the MACBA Foundation, Ainhoa Grandes; the director of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Bartomeu Marí, and the director of ”la Caixa” Foundation Contemporary Art Collection and curator of the exhibition, Nimfa Bisbe, inaugurated The Persistence of Geometry. Works from ”la Caixa” Foundation and MACBA collections at CaixaForum Madrid. This is the second exhibition —and the first in Madrid— to come from the cooperation agreement signed in July 2010 [...]