A new curator to speak out against Israeli censorship
Doron Rabina has been appointed Chief Curator of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Rabina is an award-winning artist who has previously spoken out against the extreme right’s censorship of art in Israel. In 2004, he represented Israel at the Sao Paulo Art Biennial in Brazil. A writer and curator, he headed the Midrasha College of Art at Beit Berl from 2009 to 2014. For eight years prior to that, he was chief curator of the Midrasha school’s gallery in Tel Aviv. Suzanne Landau, who is currently serving as both director and chief curator, will remain as the museum’s director. More information via Art Forum.
Obituaries
Berlin gallerist Barbara Weiss passed away on December 31, 2016. Her eponymous gallery opened on Potsdamer Straße in 1992, later moving to Kohlfurter Straße in 2011. Among the artists represented by the gallery are Monika Baer, Raoul De Keyser, Harun Farocki, Mary Heilmann, John Miller, Mai-Thu Perret, Collier Schorr, Niele Toroni and Amelie von Wulffen. More information via artnet.
The writer and critic John Berger passed away on January 2, aged 90. Berger’s 1972 BBC television series “Ways of Seeing,” and his book of the same name, gained widespread popularity and are now considered core to the development of art history and feminist theories of visual culture. Lauded as a master of close critical observation, Berger wrote engagingly on both canonical and obscure artists. In the words of the Guardian’s Mark Brown, Berger “helped transform the way a generation looked at and perceived art.” Read Brown’s full obituary here.
Details of Georgian Pavilion in Venice announced
The young artist Vajiko Chachkhiani will represented his native Georgia at the 57th Venice Biennale, set to take place from May 13 through November 26, 2017. Based in Berlin, the artist will present an installation entitled A Living Dog in the Midst of Dead Lions, with the aim of illustrating the impact of social and political conditions on human experience. More information via BlouinArtInfo.
Vajiko Chachkhiani, Father, 2014 performance (c) Vajiko Chachkhiani. Photo: Thomas Kellner
A new director for Istanbul’s SALT
Following the departure of Vasif Kortun — the director of art center SALT (Istanbul) — the institution’s deputy director Meriç Öner has been appointed director general for research and programming.
Öner previously worked as coordinator of exhibitions for the 12th World Congress of Architecture, and has collaborated with Istanbul’s Garanti Gallery. SALT has currently a space in Galata, Istanbul following the closure in January 2016 of their other location in Beyoğlu. These spaces house a cinema, a theatre, an exhibition space, libraries and archives. Artforum has further details.
Jitish Kallat retrospective to open in New Delhi next week
On January 15, the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi opens the most significant retrospective of the Indian artist Jitish Kallat to date.
Organized by Catherine David, the exhibition looks back over the artist’s 25-year career, and follows on from the gallery’s previous exhibitions devoted to Anish Kapoor (Nov 2010), Atul Dodiya (Nov 2013), Subodh Gupta (Jan 2014), Raqs Media Collective (Dec 2014), Mrinalini Mukherjee (Feb 2015) and Sudarshan Shetty (Jan 2016). Entitled “Here After Here,” the exhibition brings together paintings, photographs, drawings, videos and sculptures, the earliest of these dating back to 1992 when Kallat was still a student in Mumbai, known then as Bombay.
Jitish Kallat, Modus Vivendi (1000 people - 1000 Homes) 2002, Mixed media on canvas, 96x216 inches, Collection- Nitin Bhayana
