Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art wins inaugural Jackson Tang Ceramics Award The new fund, organised by The Contemporary Art Society, is designed to support a major acquisition of ceramic work by one of its members. MIMA has won the first award with its proposal to acquire three large-scale pieces from Italian artist Chiara Camoni’s most recent series, Sisters. It is the first acquisition of her work by a UK museum.
The works are glazed clay forms which support a number of multi-coloured candles. Over time the coloured wax builds up on and around each work as the candles burn down. Individuals from the various communities around MIMA are being invited to take the role of lighting the candles each day during the exhibition period.
Elinor Morgan, senior curator at MIMA, said: “As a constituent-led museum, it is integral that people from our various constituent groups and local communities will light the candles, activating the work and creating a special, communal moment. We feel it’s fitting to show the work as a way of marking the new year and making a nod to all of the ancient and modern traditions and rituals around light in the wintertime.”
Chiara Camoni’s Sisters will be on show at MIMA, 8 January – 10 February 2019.
Dalí lobster telephone to remain in UK after purchase by the National Galleries of Scotland Government ministers had placed an export bar on the famous surrealist artwork after it was sold to a foreign buyer at a Christie’s auction, allowing a UK gallery time to raise the necessary funds.
National Galleries of Scotland (NSG) paid £853,000 for Dali’s piece, announcing that it will immediately go on display this week at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. The Art Fund provided £100,000 for the acquisition with the Henry and Sula Walton Fund giving the rest.
Simon Groom, NSG’s director of modern and contemporary art, told the Guardian: “This major acquisition cements our position as one of the world’s greatest collections of surrealist art. Before this acquisition we had nothing of this kind.”
Dali originally made 11 versions of the artwork in 1938 for Edward James, who was a wealthy patron of surrealist artists. They were made to fit bakelite telephones at his house in Wimpole Street, London, and his country house Monkton in West Sussex.
A red one is owned by Tate Modern and a white one is in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. There are three other red ones and the others are white.
Róise Goan appointed artistic director of Artsadmin Goan succeeds Artsadmin’s founder and co-director Judith Knight MBE who is leaving her role after nearly 40 years; she will join the organisation in summer 2019 during Artsadmin’s 40th anniversary year.
Goan is currently guest dramaturg at Vooruit in Belgium, and a freelance arts programmer in Ireland. She is artistic director of The Local Group, which creates performance projects with communities in off-the-grid locations, including Foyle Punt in 2018.
She was previously director of the Dublin Fringe Festival, which she led for five years and where she established Fringe Lab, a year-round studio and artist-support programme.
Commenting on her appointment, Goan said: “I am both thrilled and humbled to take up this wonderful opportunity to work as artistic director and Co-CEO with Deborah Chadbourn, of Artsadmin. Throughout my career to date as a programmer and producer, the work of Artsadmin, and particularly its visionary founder Judith Knight, has been a touchstone, for its integrity, vision, and innovative approach to supporting artists and presenting new work in new ways.”
Knight added: “Stepping down was never going to be easy, but I couldn’t be happier that it is Róise who will take the baton from me. Not only does she have long-standing experience of working with and nurturing artists at all stages of their careers, but she has a commitment to Artsadmin’s values and vision, and the artists whose work we produce and support. She is a kindred spirit but with a fresh perspective, and I know that Artsadmin will go from strength to strength under her artistic leadership.”
Manifesta announces artistic team for 13th edition The nomadic European biennial, which changes location every two years, has announced the artistic team for its next iteration, which will take place in Marseille from 7 June – 1 November 2020.
The team includes Stefan Kalmar, director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London; Alya Sebti, director of Berlin’s ifa Gallery and curator of the Thirteenth Dak’Art Biennial of Contemporary African Art; Marina Otero Verzier, director of research and development at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam; and Katerina Chuchalina, chief curator at the V-A-C Foundation in both Moscow and Venice.
Commenting on the choice of location, Manifesta director Hedwig Fijen told Artforum that Marseille “seems to always be positioned as an ‘outsider city’ characterised by many contradictions, since many citizens consider themselves first Marseillaise and second French. It is for us maybe the ultimate test of how Marseille, France, and Europe are facing the most important conflicts of our time.”
Strasbourg Biennale postponed following terrorist attack The inaugural edition of the festival had been due to open on 15 December, but has been delayed following the death of three people in a terrorist attack at a Christmas market last week.
The attack was carried out by 29-year-old Chérif Chekatt, who was born in the French city. Following the shooting he was tracked to the residential Neudorf neighborhood, where he was shot dead.
Officals have now said that the biennale will run from 22 December to 3 March 2019, at various venues across the city. Titled ‘Touch Me: Being a Citizen in the Digital Age’, it will focus on ‘our relationship with new technologies and how the internet has profoundly affected our behavior and society’.
Images:
1. Chiara Camoni, Sisters. Image: Kenny Hunter
2. Róise Goan, Artsadmin’s new artistic director and co-CEO
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