June 15 | London’s ICA strives for success

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It seems that the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London is swelling its ranks, after the appointment of new director Stefan Kalmár in January. The past six months have seen the institute grow sizably — with three new heads of departments and now the election of Wolfgang Tillmans, Delya Allakhverdova and Maria Sukkar to the ICA council.

ICA London appoints Wolfgang Tillmans to its council

German artist Wolfgang Tillmans, Russian collector Delya Allakhverdova, and Lebanese patron of arts Maria Sukkar are to join the ICA Council — the main administrative body of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The three will join a board chaired by Donald A. Moore, former chair of the Morgan Stanley Group Europe.

This boost follows a series of other appointments — including Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey, one half of the artist duo Dexter Sinister, to head of design; Daryoush Haj-Najafi to head of communications; Richard Birkett to chief curator and Katharine Stout to deputy director — in an attempt by ICA director Stefan Kalmár, “to make ICA a truly progressive and radical contemporary arts organization for the twenty-first century.” Details via The Art Newspaper

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (Photo, Karl Kolbitz, 2012) Courtesy of Maureen Paley | © ICA London 

 

 

Jenny Dixon steps down as director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum

After 14 years as the director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in Long Island City, NY, Jenny Dixon has announced that she will retire from the position at the end of the year. The museum’s board of trustees are forming a search committee to find her replacement.

Dixon joined the institution in April 2003, when it was no more than a foundation dedicated to the work of the artist Isamu Noguchi. During her tenure, Dixon transformed the Noguchi Foundation into an organisation that encompassed a public museum, with a full roster of exhibitions and public programs — all related to Noguchi’s work and influence — and a foundation devoted to the preservation and study of Noguchi’s work and life, with resources made available to scholars. She also managed to significantly stabilise the institute’s finances. Details via artforum

 

Noguchi Garden © Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum

 

 

New York’s Marc Straus Gallery to represent Doug Argue

With an artistic career spanning three decades, New York City-based artist Doug Argue is to be represented by Marc Straus Gallery. An inaugural exhibition of the artist’s work is scheduled for early 2018.

Perhaps Argue’s best known work is Untitled (1994) [pictured below]. At approximately 11 feet high by 18 feet wide, the “chicken painting” is the centerpiece of the Weisman Art Museum, in his home state of Minneapolis. The work depicts a massive chicken factory shed filled with thousands of caged chickens, a work prompted in part by a short story by Franz Kafka in which a dog contemplates where the world gets its food.

 

Top: Untitled (1994) | Bottom: New York City 3 (2017) Footfalls Echo In The Memory (2017)

 

 

Warhol’s “first selfie” goes to auction

Andy Warhol’s “first selfie”, the painting which catapulted the pop artist to worldwide fame, will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction in London on 28 June. The Self-Portrait (1963/64) is expected to fetch between £5 million and £7 million ($ 8.9 million).

The image was created using a strip of photographs taken in a New York dime-store photo booth: “the moment when Warhol the icon was born,” commented Emma Baker, contemporary art specialist at Sotheby’s. The hype surrounding the sale has seen Warhol heralded an innovator — “at the forefront of this whole phenomenon [the selfie craze], which has only just caught up to his prophetic way of thinking.” Details via Sotheby’s

 
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait (1963/64)