Elevation of the Frick Collection plan from 70th Street (rendering courtesy Neoscape Inc., 2014, and the Frick Collection)
Nearly 60 top arts figures—including Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, and Richard Prince—have signed a letter urging NYC officials to deny the Frick Collection’s expansion proposal on the grounds that it would damage the intimacy of the “house museum.” One of the most concerning elements of the plan, according to the letter, is that a beloved garden, designed by landscape architect Russell Page in 1977, would have to be destroyed to make way for a new six-story wing. The Frick explained, however, that “the 70th Street Garden will be replaced by a garden atop the new addition that will be open to the visiting public and offer views of Central Park and an outdoor space for contemplation.”
- Seven artists pair up with seven technologists. They have 24 hours to make something—an artwork, a product, or anything they might think of—to be presented the next day in a public conference. Michael Connor summarizes Rhizome’s Seven on Seven. “In the past, participants have launched artworks and startup companies; the potential risk and reward involved in these encounters between leading figures in distinct but overlapping fields is what lends Seven on Seven its particular drama.”
- “When I started using film and video in my work, the camera was used to film the objects and spaces that I built. Now I am building spaces and objects based on what I see though the eye of the camera.” Chris Larson discusses his artistic process with Phong Bui.
- Matthew Offenbacher is using $25,000 he won in an art prize to create a new conceptual work with Jennifer Nemhauser: they’re buying work by local women and queer artists and donating them to the Seattle Art Museum to fill what they see as gaps in the collection. “We don’t like it at all when people say, ‘You’re so generous,'” Offenbacher stated. “The intention of it wasn’t to be generous, really… I’d like it to be understood as an art project that was trying to start conversations and have symbolic value in the community around how artists and artworks are valued, how museums make value.”
- “The most elegant show in Venice“? Slip of the Tongue at François Pinault’s museum, according to Andrew Russeth. Organized by Danh Vo, it features works by David Hammons, Lee Lozano, and Martin Wong (among others), including Statue of Liberty, a direct inspiration for Vo’s We the People project.
- Jane Farver, past head of the MIT List Center and exhibitions director at the Queens Museum, has died in Venice, where she was working with Joan Jonas on her biennial installation. A “curatorial trailblazer,” her work includes 1999’s Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s. “Jane was the kind of invaluable curator and quintessential administrator that always put the artist first—in her exhibitions, writings, and teaching,” said executive director of Prospect New Orleans Brooke Davis Anderson.
- The Herb Alpert arts award winners have been announced, but for the first time ever a recipient won’t be present to accept. Missing when video artist Sharon Lockhart and three others are honored will be Tania Bruguera, who is barred from traveling by Cuban officials. “In choosing Bruguera, the foundation was not trying to make a political statement. It was meant to simply honor an artist who is exploring interesting ideas in her work. Bruguera, in fact, had been a nominee in the past.”
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