Latest News in Black Art features updates and developments in the world of art and related culture
Concept design for Las Vegas Museum of Art. | Kéré Architecture
MUSEUMS
Francis Kéré Designing Forthcoming Las Vegas Museum
Las Vegas, Nev., is getting an art museum designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Francis Kéré. Elaine Wynn, the philanthropist, art collector, co-founder of Wynn Resorts, and board co-chair of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), is partnering with LACMA to establish the Las Vegas Museum of Art. The 90,000 square foot museum is expected to cost $150 million and open in 2028 in Symphony Park, a growing arts district close to downtown. LACMA will travel its exhibitions to the new museum and lend art to the institution, but will have no role in its operations. Wynn has provided funding to get the museum off the ground and said she will continue to contribute what is necessary as an “angel donor.” The project also received $5 million from the Nevada State Legislature last year. Las Vegas is the largest U.S. city without a major art museum. Burkino Faso-born Kéré won the Pritzker Prize in 2022, becoming the first African architect awarded the field’s top prize. His firm is based in Berlin, Germany, and the museum will be his first major project in the United States. According to the New York Times, for the design, Kéré “drew inspiration from the tranquillity of Paul Revere Williams’ Guardian Angel Cathedral, located near the museum site.” (9/4) | New York Times
APPOINTMENTS
Leadership Change Coming to MoMA
Glenn Lowry is retiring from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in September 2025. Lowry has served as director of MoMA since 1995 and over the past 30 years has overseen two renovations, a merger with the P.S. 1 Center for Contemporary Art in Long Island City, Queens, (now known as MoMA PS1), and exponentially increased the institution’s endowment (from about $200 million to $1.7 billion) and annual budget (from about $60 million to $190 million). According to the New York Times, “Lowry has also encouraged MoMA’s efforts to bring more diversity to its exhibitions, acquisitions, governance and staffing. In 2015, he worked with Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, to introduce a joint fellowship program for rising arts professionals. Golden is often talked about in the art world as a potential successor to Lowry.” Golden has served as director and chief curator of the Studio Museum since 2005 and is currently overseeing construction of the museum’s new building, its first purpose-built home. (9/10) | New York Times
Ashley James Will Curate Kingston Biennial
The National Gallery of Jamaica named Ashley James (right) guest curator of the 2024 Kingston Biennial. The associate curator, contemporary art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, James became the first Black curator on staff at the museum when she was hired in 2019. Her parents moved to New York from Jamaica in the 1970s and she considers herself Jamaican American. Featuring more than two dozen artists from the Caribbean and larger African diaspora, this year’s Kingston Biennial is titled “Green X Gold” (referencing the colors of the Jamaican flag and exploring themes of environment, nature, and land) and scheduled to open Dec. 15. (8/23) | New York Times
Shirley Solomon to Co-Lead Bronx Museum
Klaudio Rodriguez, executive director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York has been hired as the next executive director and CEO of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg in Florida, effective in October. When Rodriguez departs, Shirley Solomon, deputy director, and Yvonne Garcia, chief advancement officer, will serve as co-leaders of The Bronx Museum on an interim basis, while a search for a new director is conducted. Rodriguez was previously deputy director of The Bronx Museum. When he was promoted to the top job in 2020, Solomon replaced him as deputy director. Previously, she served as director of government and institutional giving. Solomon joined The Bronx Museum in 2013 as manager of government and institutional affairs. (8/14) | New York Times
MAGAZINES
Deana Lawson Guest Edits Aperture
The fall issue of Aperture magazine is guest-edited by photographer Deana Lawson. Titled “Arrhythmic Mythic Ra,” the issue explores notions of “family, social history, and the astrophysical.” Aperture Issue 256 features work by more than 30 photographers and coincides with an exhibition and two-day symposium (Oct. 10-11) at Princeton University, where Lawson is a professor of visual arts. (9/5) | More
Aperture Issue 256, Fall 2024 | Cover Image: Lieko Shiga
GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS
2024 Joan Mitchell Fellows Announced
The Joan Mitchell Foundation announced 15 recipients of 2024 fellowships. Each artist was awarded $60,000 in unrestricted funds over five years along with support to bolster their practices through networking and skills development. The fellows include Michaela Pilar Brown (Columbia, S.C.), André Leon Gray (Raleigh, N.C.), Yvonne Wells (Tuscaloosa, Ala.), and Sandy Williams IV (Richmond, Va.), among others. Recipients are nominated and selected based on whether they contribute “to important artistic and cultural discourse, are deserving of greater recognition on a national level, and for whom the receipt of this award would be meaningful and impactful.” (8/14) | More
Curators of Color: AAMC Announced 2024 Fellows
The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) announced a new cohort of 10 Professional Alliance for Curators of Color (PACC) Fellows. The 10-month PACC program for emerging curators is designed to address “issues of isolation, racism, inequity, and limited access that curators of color often face” and provides support through workshops, mentorship, and networking. The 2024 fellows include Carla Forbes (Brooklyn Museum), Jordan Horton (Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, N.J.), Kabila Kyowa Stéphane (Museum Am Rothenbaum, Hamburg, Germany), Hyashi Wilder (Portland Art Museum, Portland, Ore.), among others. (8/15) | More
Artist L.V. Hull in front of her home-studio, 2002. | Photo by Bruce West
MORE NEWS
L.V. Hull House Added to National Register
The Kosciusko, Miss., home-studio of late artist L.V. Hull (1942-2008) was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 21. The distinction is the first for both a Black female visual artist and for an African American art-environment creator,” according to Yaphet Smith, who purchased Hull’s home in 2021 and is making a documentary about the artist. The home (including the yard) was her canvas, where the dense display of artworks included paintings, assemblage pieces, and installations composed of found, bought, and gifted objects. Dots were her signature. A concerted effort is underway to preserve Hull’s work and legacy. Last year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation put Hull’s home on the list of Most Endangered Historic Places and the L.V. Hull Legacy Center is set to open in 2025. (8/16) | Art Newspaper
Seniors at Cooper Union Getting Free Tuition
Upon returning to campus for the fall semester, seniors at Cooper Union Advancement of Science and Art in New York learned their tuition for the year would be free. Founded in 1859, Cooper Union operated on a free tuition model for more than 150 years until a decade ago when the school ran into financial troubles and started charging students. The New York attorney general worked with Cooper Union on a plan to shore up its finances and restore full-tuition scholarships for undergraduate students by 2028. A surprise $6 million gift donated by three alumni over the summer made it possible to move the timeline up for seniors. Cooper Union alum include artists Firelei Báez, Kevin Beasley, Roy DeCarava (1919–2009), Awol Erizku, Palmer Hayden (1890-1973), Leslie Hewitt, Whitfield Lovell, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Wangechi Mutu, Augusta Savage (1892-1962), Frank Stewart, Sam Vernon, William Villalongo, and Jack Whitten (1939–2018). (8/3) | New York Times
CT
TELEVISION | RHONY Season 15 Trailer: Curator, collector, and model Racquel Chevremont will appear on the next season of Real Housewives of New York, joining a cast that includes former J. Crew Creative Director Jenna Lyons. Chevremont served as an art consultant for “And Just Like That…,” HBO’s Sex and the City reboot and, with her former partner, artist Mickalene Thomas, co-founded Deux Femmes Noires, a curatorial platform focused on bringing attention to female artists of color. The new season of RHONY premieres Oct. 1. | Video by Bravo
