Comings and Goings

This month:

 

Elizabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders will co-curate 2012 Whitney Biennial

The Whitney Museum of American Art has announced that its 2012 biennial will be co-curated by Elisabeth Sussman (pictured) and Jay Sanders. Sussman is curator and Sandra Gilman curator of Photography at the Whitney. Most recently she co-curated “Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective” and “William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008”. Her show “Gordon Matta-Clark: 'You Are the Measure'” was awarded the AICA award for best monographic show in New York (2007-2008). She has organised many other exhibitions at the Whitney, including its 1993 Biennial exhibition. Sussman has also curated exhibitions for The Drawing Center, The Jewish Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She was a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation at the Rockefeller Study and conference Center in Bellagio, Italy in 1999 and a fellow at the Getty Research Institute in 2003. Sanders is an independent curator who, from 2005 until recently, was a gallery director at Greene Naftali in New York where he organised many major exhibitions, including ones of Tony Conrad and Paul Sharits. Sanders recently put together a ten-day continuous screening installation as part of the exhibition “Film Programme” at International Project Space Birmingham. He curated 2008's “Looking Back: The Third White Columns Annual” and co-curated “Change our fates, hobble the plague, start with time” with Paul Chan at the 2007 Lyon Biennale. In addition to curating, Sanders has also staged performance, music, and film exhibitions around the world, including at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan and MUMOK in Vienna.

Ai Weiwei and Seung H-Sang to be co-directors of Gwangju Design Biennale

Chinese artist and architectural designer Ai Weiwei (pictured) and Korean architect Seung H-Sang have been named co-directors of the 4th Gwangju Design Biennale. The exhibition will be broken down into six themes, with eight curators and two designers appointed to interpret the themes. Ai Weiwei currently has the exhibition "Sunflower Seeds" on show in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. The artist and social activist's work has also been exhibited in the Venice Biennale, Documenta, and the Guangzhou Triennial, among others. And he served as a creative consultant to architectural firm Herzog & De Meuron for their Beijing Olympic Stadium - “bird's nest” - project. Seung H-Sang has completed many projects, including the Paju Book City in Korea, the Guggenheim Pavilion in Abu Dhabi, Commune by the Great Wall, the Chao-Wei SOHO project in Beijing, Korea's DMZ Peace-Life Valley, and the graveyard of late President Roh Moo-hyun. He was also a commissioner of the Korean Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2008 and operates the architectural firm Iroje, which he established in 1989. The Gwangju Design Biennale will be held from 2 September – 23 October 2011.

Shenzhen & Hong Kong Biennale of Urbanism-Architecture names Terence Riley chief curator

Curator and architect Terence Riley has been named chief curator of the 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Biennale of Urbanism-Architecture. He will be the first international curator of the biennale, which started in 2005 and explores the role the city plays in contemporary culture. Riley is a founding partner of Keenen/Riley, an architecture studio known for designing museums and galleries. Most recently, he was the director of the Miami Art Museum and led the organisation through the design phase of its major expansion. Before that, he was the Philip Johnson chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York where he organised exhibitions of the work of Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. In addition to his work with museums, Riley has also served on many architectural juries and was the chairman of the jury for the 2002 Venice Biennale and the jury for the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Mark Polizzotti named publisher and editor-in-chief at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has snatched Mark Polizzotti from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he has been publisher and director of intellectual prop­erty since 1999, appointing him publisher and editor-in-chief at the New York museum. Polizzotti has worked as a freelance French translator and editor of major exhibition catalogues for the Metropolitan since 1995, editing titles such as The Private Collection of Edgar Degas (1997), Cézanne to Van Gogh: The Collection of Doctor Gachet (1999), Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard (2006), and Pierre Bonnard: The Late Still Lifes and Interiors (2009). He is also the author of six books and the translator of more than 30.

ICA/Boston adds to curatorial team

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has announced two new appointments on their curatorial staff. Jenelle Porter (pictured) will take over as senior curator in January 2011 while Pedro Alonzo is now an adjunct curator. Porter will join the ICA/Boston from the ICA Philadelphia where she organized numerous exhibitions including “Dance with Camera” (2009) and the first U.S. Museum show of Trisha Donnelly (2008). Prior to joining the ICA, Porter worked with Artists Space, New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Whitney Museum. Alonzo is an independent curator based in Boston who has organized a number of exhibitions including “Viva la Revolución: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape”(2010) at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, “Generations UsA” (2007) at the Pinchuk Arte Centre in Kiev and “Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand” (2009) at the ICA/Boston. Concentrating on urban and street art, Alonzo is now working on an upcoming exhibition of the artist Swoon, which will open at the ICA/Boston in summer 2011.

Andrew Walker to join Amon Carter as director

Dr. Andrew J. Walker has been appointed director designate of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. Walker will join the museum at the end of January and officially becomes director on 1 April 2011, the retirement date of current director Dr. Ron Tyler. Walker has spent the last six years as assistant director for curatorial affairs and curator of American art at the Saint Louis Art Museum. In this position he has overseen eight curatorial departments and organized five special exhibitions, including examinations of American artists George Caleb Bingham and Joe Jones. Walker has also held curatorial positions at the Missouri History Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago in his museum career.

Polish artist Artur Zmijewski to curate Berlin Biennale

Polish artist Artur Zmijewski has been selected to curate the Seventh Berlin Biennale in 2012. Zmijewski, who represented Poland at the 2005 Venice Biennale, works primarily in film and photography. A member of the Polish political movement “Krytyka Polityczna” (Political Critique) and art director of the party magazine, Zmijewski often addresses political themes in his work.

New Museum promotes Massi­miliano Gioni to newly created position

At the New Museum, curator Massi­miliano Gioni has been promoted to the newly created position of associate dir­ector and director of exhibitions. Gioni will now effectively lead the museum’s curatorial department, while previous chief curator Richard Flood will take on a more removed role as director of special projects and curator-at-large.

Artist Michal Rovner named a Chevalier of France's Order of Arts and Letters

Israeli artist Michal Rovner was recently made a Chevalier of France's Order of Arts and Letters at a ceremony in Jaffa, Israel. Rovner has had over fifty solo exhibitions during her career, including a mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 2002. She also created a permanent video installation for the opening chapter of the Historical Museum of the Holocaust at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem in 2005. She lives and works in New York and Israel and has been represented by the Pace Gallery since 2003. Next year will see yet another solo show for Rovner, this time at the Louvre. France's Order of Arts and Letters was founded in 1957 and every year a limited number of artists are nominated to the order by the Minister of Culture and Communications to honour their outstanding contributions to the fields of art and literature.

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