Prix Marcel Duchamp
ADIAF has announced the finalists for the 2017 Prix Marcel Duchamp.
The prize is awarded annually to French artists or artists living in France who are “representative of their generation.” The Centre Pompidou will host an exhibition of the shortlisted artists’ work and the winner will be announced at Paris’ FIAC art fair, which will run from October 19-22. The finalists are Maja Bajevic from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the artist duo Joana Hadjithomas et Khalil Joreige who work between Paris and Beirut, British artist Charlotte Moth and Vittorio Santoro from Zurich. Last year’s winner, Kader Attia, recently opened an arts venue in Paris intended to counter the rise of racism in France. See ADIAF’s announcement here.
Algerian artist awarded Prix SAIMA
Algerian artist Fethi Sahraoui has been named the winner of the Prix SAIMA for contemporary art.
The prize was created to recognize talented young creatives from Arab countries. Using a Smartphone, Sahraoui documents the scenes of everyday life in Sahara. His images provoke a powerful sense of spatial and temporal insularity. His work will go on show in an exhibition entitled “Treasures of Islam in Africa,” at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, which runs from April 13 through July 30. Read the announcement in full here.
Fethi Sahraoui, Escaping the Heatwave, 2016. Courtesy the artist
Hull gets new contemporary arts space
Humber Street Gallery, a new contemporary art space, opens today in Hull, a coastal city in the North of England.
A former warehouse located in the Fruit Market cultural quarter, the gallery opens as part of the Hull City of Culture 2017 program which features a year of art events. The three-story building, which also boasts a rooftop bar, will present a range of contemporary art, design, film, and photography over the course of 2017. Two parallel exhibitions will inaugurate the gallery: a retrospective of the subversive Hull-based collective COUM Transmissions and “Power in Woman,” which shows sculptures by Sarah Lucas which featured in the British Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Artforum has further details.
COUM Transmissions, Keeping Britain Tidy, 1973. © Simon Ford
Guggenheim loses deputy director
Ari Wiseman, the deputy director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, is stepping down from his position to start a design studio. Wiseman, who has held the post since 2010, is heading to Los Angeles to start an independent design studio with his brother, the designer David Wiseman. Wiseman’s departure leaves the museum with two empty curatorial positions. The other empty position emerged when Nancy Spector left the institution after nearly three decades as chief curator to take on the same title at the Brooklyn Museum. The New York Times has more.
Art world appointments
The performance art organization Performa has appointed two new board members — Joyce Liu and Ivan Pun — and has also named current board member Richard Chang as board president.
Liu, a fellow collector, is an arts patron who has helped numerous Chinese artists exhibit their work at ICA London. Pun is a Chinese-Burmese entrepreneur based in Yangon, Myanmar. The appointments are indicative of Performer's ambition to expand globally. Read more on ARTnews.
Sotheby's have announced that Lord Harry Dalmeny has been appointed UK Chairman.
Dalmeny began his career at Sotheby's in 1990 as a graduate trainee. Over the course of his time at the auction house, he played a leading role in many of the landmark British house and single-owner sales. Dalmeny will lead Sotheby's client-focused activities in the United Kingdom and Ireland, driving Sotheby's market strategy. More details available via Yahoo Finance.
