Displaying items by tag: institutions

Art Basel announced today that Noah Horowitz has been appointed to the new position of Director Americas for Art Basel, starting in August 2015. Based in the United States, Horowitz will direct Art Basel's Miami Beach show moving forward, further strengthen Art Basel's relationships with galleries, collectors, artists, museums and institutions from the Americas, and promote them throughout Art Basel's activities worldwide. Horowitz joins Art Basel's Executive Committee – led by Marc Spiegler at a global level – alongside Adeline Ooi, Director Asia; Marco Fazzone, Director Resources and Finance; and Patrick Foret, Director Business Initiatives‎.

On Wednesday, December 10, Google announced that it has established a platform that allows museums to share their exhibitions with smartphone users. The Google Cultural Institute, which is dedicated to preserving and promoting culture online, partnered with eleven museums and institutions in Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Nigeria, to launch the pilot project. The apps are available for free on the Google Play Store.

The platform helps museums bring their exhibitions into the digital realm by assisting in the creation of smartphone-accessible mobile applications -- Google handles coding and app development and provides participating institutions with tools such as the 360 Indoor Street View and YouTube.

After just one edition in Paris, the New York institution Outsider Art Fair (OAF) already feels at home in France—and it's no surprise. Paris, home turf of art brut father Jean Dubuffet, is natural territory for the genre. These days outsider art is supported year-round by galleries and institutions like the Halle Saint Pierre and such foundations as Bruno Decharme's abcd (art brut connaissance & diffusion) and Antoine de Galbert's La Maison Rouge. The art world's current frenzy of interest in the genre─epitomized by Massimiliano Gioni's "Encyclopedic Palace" exhibition at the 2013 Venice Biennale─doesn't hurt either. No wonder OAF is settling in so well.

The internationally regarded Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) opens tomorrow with an exciting month-long calendar of more than 40 exhibitions, special events, performances and tours across 30 of the city’s museums, galleries and institutions, as well as artist-run, temporary and pop-up spaces. In its 11th year, the festival brings together over 100 leading and emerging Scottish and international artists and features the return of its annual, city-wide commissions programme, including a major presentation by leading Indian artist Nalini Malani as part of 14-18 NOW’s LIGHTS OUT and WWI Centenary Art Commissions. As part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, and during the year of Homecoming Scotland, the 2014 programme also sees the presentation of a major international group exhibition Where do I end and you begin programmed by Edinburgh Art Festival in collaboration with City Art Centre.
 
Edinburgh Art Festival also features a daily programme of events for all ages, featuring one-off artist performances, live musical events, film screenings and festival tours, as well as talks by some of the world’s leading artists and curators.

The American Folk Art Museum in New York received a $1.6 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation that will help fund a major traveling exhibition of works from its collection. Since moving to a smaller location in 2011, the Folk Art Museum has only been able to display a portion of its collection. The traveling exhibition will allow for a more comprehensive experience.  

The Henry Luce Foundation grant will enable Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum to visit 5 American cities over the course of 3 years. It will go on view at the American Folk Art Museum from May 13-August 17, 2014 before embarking on its journey. The show will feature over 100 works including quilts, paintings, drawings and sculptures.

Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc., established the Luce Foundation in 1936. One of the Foundation’s missions is to strengthen international understanding and foster innovation in a variety of arenas including the arts. Since its founding, the Luce Foundation has given grants totaling over $145 million to approximately 250 institutions through its American Art Program.

The Michigan state Senate has taken measures to protect the Detroit Institute of Arts’ (DIA) works from being sold as a means to help revive the city’s grim economy. On Tuesday, June 4, 2013, the Senate’s General Government Committee approved a bill that aims to codify the ethical standards implemented by the American Alliance of Museums, which bans institutions from selling artworks for any reason other than the enhancement of its collection.

The Senate decided to take action after Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr asked for an appraisal of the DIA’s collection. Orr was considering whether the museum’s multi-billion dollar collection could be considered an asset to Detroit, which could potentially be sold to help cover the city’s $15 billion debt. Orr’s inquiry sparked an immediate reaction and DIA hired bankruptcy lawyer Richard Levin of Cravath, Swaine & Moore to protect the collection from any possible losses.

DIA is a unique public museum as Detroit retains ownership of its building and collection while a separate nonprofit institution manages its day-to-day operations. DIA’s collection includes major works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Many of these masterpieces were donated by the city’s finest collectors, some of who have put restrictions on the works stipulating what DIA or the city can do with the works.

The bill, which was approved on a 5-0 vote, will now move to the full state Senate where it will be reviewed later this week.

Unhappiness over jobs, pay, and pensions has led workers at numerous museums, galleries, and heritage sites across the UK to go on strike. The walkout has affected some of the country’s biggest art institutions including the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and Tate Liverpool. The National Portrait Gallery released a statement apologizing to patrons and explaining that it was “necessary for some gallery rooms to be closed” due to the strike.

Walkouts are expected to continue through the weekend. Employees of the Natural History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum are expected to participate in the strike but the institutions will remain open to the public. Workers at national heritage sites, including Stonehenge, are planning to take action on Sunday, June 2, 2013.

The nationwide strike is part of a three-month campaign over an ongoing dispute about workers’ rights. The PCS union, the largest civil service union in the UK, is planning a national strike to take place at the end of June.

In honor of Art Museum Day, approximately 180 art institutions across the United States will offer free entry or reduced admission rates on May 18, 2013. The event, which is in its 4^th year, was planned by the Association of Art Museum Directors and is meant to unite the organization’s members. Many institutions will also offer special events and programming in honor of Art Museum Day, which coincides with International Museum Day for countries outside of the U.S.

Participating institutions include some of the most renowned museums in the country such as the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), the Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.), the High Museum of Art (Atlanta), the Art Institute of Chicago, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Frick Collection (New York). A full list of participating museums can be seen here.

This year’s Art Museum Day theme is museums (memory + creativity) = social change.

Following the lead of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and PBS, Google will launch a series of monthly digital “Art Talks.” The project aims to bring gallery and museum collections to life through virtual hangouts with curators, museums directors, historians, and educators from the world’s most distinguished cultural institutions. The talks will explore various arts-related topics including the curating process, popular themes throughout art history, art education, and the significance of specific masterpieces and artists.

The first Art Talks hangout will take place at 8PM on March 6, 2013 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Deborah Howes, the museum’s Director of Digital Learning, will join a panel of artists and students to discuss the process of teaching art online.

Upcoming Art Talks include Caroline Campbell and Arnika Schmidt from London’s National Gallery discussing depictions of the female nude throughout art history (March 20, 2013) and a panel discussion of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s (1525-1569) Tower of Babel featuring Peter Parshall, curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (April 2013). Additional talks are planned for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico.

The talks will be posted on the Google Art Project‘s YouTube channel after they air.

The latest update to Google’s browser-based map service allows visitors to navigate museums across the world with their smartphones. While sprawling institutions made up of various wings and galleries can appear cumbersome, Google hopes to alleviate confusion by making virtual floor plans for dozens of museums and libraries in nine countries available to users.

The recent update includes interior views of shopping malls, airports, train stations, and convention centers, but the presence of museum layouts is particularly welcomed. While 30 museums in the United States are currently mapped out, museums that are not already included can upload their own floor plans if they wish to be included in the project.

Maps of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Art Institute in Chicago, the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, the British Museum in London, the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, and the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Japan are currently available.