In Brief: Richard Long knighted in New Year Honours list

Sculptor Richard Long knighted in the New Year’s Honours list for ‘services to art’ Artist working in stone, slate, flint and mud, is best known for A Line Made by Walking, a piece of land art made by walking backwards and forwards in a field in Wiltshire. He also recently created a 60-metre-long wall painting in mud for Lisson Gallery’s 50th anniversary show, ‘Everything at Once’, in London’s Strand.

Other arts and culture figures to be recognised include: Jane Hamlyn, the daughter of the philanthropist Paul Hamlyn and director of the Frith Street gallery in London, and Martin Green, the chief executive and director of the Hull UK City of Culture 2017. Both received a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire).

OBEs (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) were also awarded to Fiona Bradley, the director of Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket gallery, and London-based dealer Victoria Miro. The arts broadcaster Melvyn Bragg was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour.

Artists respond to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to seek a fourth term Alexander Donskoy, a former mayor of Arkhangelsk who faced criminal investigation on charges including abuse of office and who then went on to open a museum of erotica and become a contemporary artist, has sponsored an exhibition called ‘Superputin’ at Moscow’s Ultra Modern Art Museum. The display includes sardonic paintings, sculptures and comics depicting Putin as Santa Claus, showing him petting animals and performing heroic feats.

Artist and activist Tim Rollins dies aged 62 Pittsfield-born Rollins was known for launching the Art and Knowledge education workshop in the Bronx in 1982. He began his career as the assistant of the artist Joseph Kosuth, earning a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1980. His work with students, some of whom had emotional and learning difficulties, in the South Bronx workshop prompted him to found the collective K.O.S. (Kids of Survival) which he continued to lead for more than three decades.

Italian art crime investigators recover stolen Hans Hofmann works Art Recovery International in Venice has announced that it has recovered five works by the abstract expressionist, more than a decade after they were stolen. Collectively, the paintings are estimated to be worth $500,000.

Artists build holocaust memorial next to house of right-wing German politician Björn Höcke, a senior leader of the right-wing AfD party, had criticised the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin calling it a ‘monument of shame’ and saying that Germany needs to make a ‘180-degree turn’ in how it addresses its World War II history. In response, the artist collective Center for Political Beauty built a replica of the monument next to his home.

Tibetan filmmaker flees to United States after being jailed in China Dhondup Wangchen was imprisoned for making a documentary about Tibetans living under the rule of China. He was first detained in 2008 after footage from his film Leaving Fear Behind, for which he interviewed Tibetans across five months in 2007, was smuggled out of the country and shown at international film festivals.

Images:
1. Richard Long, River Avon Mud Circle, 2011. Installation view as part of ‘Berlin Circle’, Nationalgalerie at Hamburger Bahnhof, 2012. Photo: Alex Evans

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