In Brief: Tania Bruguera wins Tate Modern Turbine Hall commission; Edinburgh’s Ingleby gallery to open new space

Tania Bruguera wins Tate Modern Turbine Hall commission Tate Modern has announced that Cuban performance artist Tania Bruguera will undertake the 2018 Hyundai commission, which will open in October 2018.

Tate owns the Bruguera work Tatlin’s Whisper #5 (2008) a performance piece that requires two mounted police officers, one on a black horse, the other on a white horse. They use crowd control techniques that might be used at a football match or a political demonstration to corral gallery visitors. It was last seen at Tate when it opened Switch House in June 2016.

Tate Modern director Frances Morris said: “I am delighted that she will be undertaking this year’s Hyundai commission and I look forward to seeing how she activates the public forum of the Turbine Hall.”

Bruguera is known for her political works and in 2014-2015 was detained several times by the Cuban authorities who cited charges of ‘resistance and disrupting the public order’ and confiscated her passport. In 2012 she was shortlisted for the Artes Mundi Prize.

University lecturers strike over pension plans Lecturers from several art colleges across the UK have joined tens of thousands of University and College Union (UCU) members in the first two days of ‘the most serious strike disruption to higher education in the history of British Universities’, which is aimed at safeguarding university lecturers’ pensions.

The dispute is with Universities UK who intend to change the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) from a defined benefit scheme to a defined-contribution scheme. This would make all lecturers’ final pension dependent on investments, rather than having the current security of a fixed-sum payment. UCU have stated that this could leave the average lecturer £10,000 a year worse off in retirement.

Universities taking part in the strike on 22 and 23 February include Courtauld Institute of Art, University College London and Goldsmiths University. Students have been showing their support for the lecturers by staging their own demonstrations while also demanding compensation from their universities for lost teaching time due to the strike action.

There are more strikes planned over the course of four weeks and Ruskin College will join the strike in week three if it continues without resolution.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of UCU, said: “We deliberately announced these strike dates to give universities time to come back round the table with us and get this mess sorted out. They have refused to do so and want to impose their reforms on staff. Unsurprisingly staff are angry and significant disruption on campuses across the UK now looks inevitable.”

UCU will meet on 2 March to consider the universities’ response to their demands.

Charlie Schaffer becomes first artist to win Botting Prize twice Margate-based artist Charlie Schaffer has won the £5,000 Brian Botting Prize for an outstanding representation of the human form, one of four prizes in this year’s Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize open competition.

The Central St Martins and the University of Brighton graduate won the prize for his oil painting Head of Thandi. He was also the prize winner in 2016, and was awarded the competition’s Young Artist Prize in 2014. His portrait will be exhibited at the Mall Galleries in London, from 5–17 March 2018, as part of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize exhibition.

Commenting on his approach to painting, Schaffer said: “I’m half concentrating on the painting, half on the talking. Without talk, it’s like a still life. People are interesting because they’re people, not because of how they look.”

The competition was created in 2005 by The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers and The Lynn Foundation. The overall winner of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, worth £15,000, will be announced on 5 March along with the second prize and young artist prize, each worth £4,000. The People’s Prize of £2,000 will be announced on 31 March.

Collective announces details of opening programme at new site The Edinburgh gallery has announced ‘Affinity and Allusion’, a series of artists’ presentations and projects at its City Observatory site in late spring 2018. Six artists will be exhibiting a range of sculpture, installation, performance, audio work and text. They include: Dineo Seshee Bopape, James N Hutchinson, Alexandra Laudo, Tessa Lynch, Catherine Payton and Klaus Weber.

Work on the £4 m project is now entering its final phase with an opening date set to be announced shortly. The site will feature a purpose-built exhibition space with a panoramic viewing terrace, plus a new restaurant.

Santiago Sierra criticises decision to remove his work from Arco art fair in Madrid The Spanish artist’s work Political Prisoners in Contemporary Spain features photographs of the deposed Catalan vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, and two leading figures in Catalan pro-independence groups, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez. All three are currently in prison awaiting charges over their role in Catalonia’s failed bid for independence.

The Guardian reports that Sierra responded by saying: “I don’t exhibit very much – if at all – in my city and the one time I do, I get censored. It’s the law of the jungle, a tyrannical act from other times far worse than these.” The decision also prompted Manuela Carmena, mayor of Madrid, to boycott the fair’s launch in “utmost defence of freedom of creation, expression and exhibition in Madrid”.

Frieze art fair to launch Los Angeles edition The first edition will take place at the Paramount Pictures Studio, 14-17 February, 2019. Its executive director will be Bettina Korek, whilst Ali Subotnick will act as its curator. With 60 international exhibitors, it will be considerably smaller than the existing annual New York and London editions, which have 190 and 160 exhibitors respectively.

Edinburgh’s Ingleby gallery relocates to new space at Meeting House of Glasite Church In 2016 the gallery, which represents 26 artists including Charles Avery and Alison Watt, sold its home for the last eight years at 15 Calton Road in central Edinburgh.

Ingleby Gallery‘s new location is a historic building dating back to 1835 which has been renovated by Helen Lucas Architects. An exhibition of works by painter Callum Innes, who participated in the gallery’s first-ever show in 1998, will open the new space on 12 May 2018.

Artists including Marina Abramovic and Laurie Anderson call for reinstatement of Beatrix Ruf at Stedelijk Museum Artists, gallerists and art world professionals have signed a petition calling for Ruf’s reinstatement at the Amsterdam institution. Ruf resigned last October after questions were raised in the Dutch media about a conflict of interest between her role at the museum and her external art advisory service. Other signatories include Rem Koolhaas, Sadie Coles, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Philip Glass.

Images:
1. Tania Bruguera, Tatlin’s Whisper #5, at Tate Modern 2016. Photo: (c) Tate Photography
2. Charlie Schaffer, Head of Thandi, oil on canvas, 41 x 41, 2016.
3. Dineo Seshee Bopape, sa ____ ke lerole, (sa lerole ke ___), 2016, mixed media sculpture. Courtesy: the artist

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