Mariane Ibrahim wins Presents Booth Prize
The Armory Show’s inaugural Presents Booth Prize has been awarded to Mariane Ibrahim Gallery for its presentation of mixed-media work by German-Ghanaian artist Zohra Opoku.
The award, which was initiated by the fair’s executive director Benjamin Genocchio, recognizes “outstanding and innovative gallery presentation” within Presents, the section of the fair dedicated to younger galleries. Mariane Ibrahim, whose Seattle gallery was founded in 2012, will be awarded $10,000 in prize money. Her gallery aims to provide a global platform for artists from Africa and the diaspora. Opoku, who lives and works in Accra, presented a series of works in which she had woven together photographs of her siblings. Artsy has the full story.
NYC to open art dealer’s paradise?
New York may be about to get a state-of-the-art storage facility with “foreign trade zone” (FTZ) status, which would be due to open for business this summer on 146th street.
Akin to freeport options already in place in Singapore and Geneva, no tax is due on the artwork for as long as it is stored in the facility, although applicable taxes are due in the location where the work eventually ends up for display or ownership. There is no time limit on storage at the new facility, which is currently under construction by storage company ARCIS. The project is being led by Tom Sapienza, the former CEO of art storage and logistics company Crozier Fine Art, and Kevin Lay, an ex-executive at the organization. More information on artnet News.
A rendering of the Arcis art storage facility, a freeport, under construction in Harlem. Courtesy Arcis.
Obituaries
The American collector Spencer Hays, who alongside his wife Marlène donated 600 artworks to the Musée d'Orsay in 2016, passed away yesterday at the age of 80.
The donation, which was the most important received from a foreigner by a French museum since 1945, was estimated at €350 million. Among the gems of the collection were several important Nabi paintings by the likes of Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis. Audrey Azoulay, the France’s Minister for Culture and Communication, said in a statement: “This entrepreneur was a great friend of France, a great friend of the arts and a lover of the Musée d'Orsay.”
An addition to the sea of anti-Trump petitions
Americans for the Arts, an organization dedicated to supporting and sustaining the arts in the US, has launched a petition to demand that President Trump reconsider his plan to scrap the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.
A number of petitions to this effect have been launched over the past month after rumours surfaced that Trump would stop all funding to the NEA and NEH and privatize the Corporation For Public Broadcasting. The Americans for the Arts petition has been particularly successful thus far, garnering 38,000 signatures, nearing halfway to its target of 100,000. The petition stresses the vital cultural importance of putting government money into the arts, as well as the economic benefits brought by the arts sector: “According to the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, arts and cultural industries are a vibrant economic sector contributing 4.23 percent, or $704.2 billion, of the nation's GDP. This is greater than that of several other sectors, including the construction industry, transportation and warehousing, mining and extraction, and agriculture.” Read the petition in full here.
