Art Movements

Visitors at the Museo Rufino Tamayo’s Yayoi Kusama retrospective (photo by Christian Ramiro González Verón/Flickr)

Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.

A theatrical performance in Kabul was attacked by a suicide bomber, killing four. The Taliban denounced the play, in which characters grapple with the aftermath of a bombing, and claimed responsibility for the attack.

Tate has been given 35 days to disclose the sums it received from BP during the oil giant’s 1990–2006 sponsorship of the London institution, an informal tribunal in the UK decided in a case brought by the activist group Platform.

The Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City has had to hire additional security staff and guides to deal with the huge crowds visiting its Yayoi Kusama retrospective. The museum usually receives 5,000 visitors per month but has seen attendance spike to 2,100 per day during the Kusama show.

Workers at the American Museum of Natural History are restoring artifacts in the institution’s Hall of Northwest Coast Indians after a fire broke out in the gallery on December 12.

Loving Vincent, a feature-length documentary from director and artist Dorota Kobiela, will feature animated versions of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings.

Lincoln Castle in Lincolnshire, UK, will close for three months as part of a £22 million (~$34 million) project to build a new vault for the Magna Carta.

The art scene in downtown Newark, New Jersey, is coming into its own with two major art spaces — the Gateway Project and Gallery Aferro — expanding and Rutgers University set to open a new cultural center dubbed “Express Newark.”

Transactions

Mattia Preti, “The Visitation” (1613–19), oil on canvas (courtesy the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment)

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts announced a slew of acquisitions, including Mattia Preti’s “The Visitation” (1613–19), Gilbert Stuart’s “Portrait of Rebecca White Pickering (Mrs. Timothy Pickering)” (1817–18), 84 woodblock prints by Kawase Hasui, and a trove of Russian Constructivist photographs.

Bristol-Myers Squibb, the pharmaceuticals giant, donated N.C. Wyeth’s “Public Health and Morale” (c. 1943) to the Brandywine River Museum of Art.

Transitions

John Elderfield was appointed the first Allen R. Adler, class of 1967, distinguished curator and lecturer at the Princeton University Art Museum.

Dan Byers was appointed a senior curator at the ICA Boston.

Hubert De Witte and Till-Holger Borchert were appointed the new directors of the Bruges Museums.

Dennis McFadden was hired to be the new director of the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland.

Thomas Galante was fired from his position as the director of the Queens Library over his excessive spending.

Susan Talbott announced that she will retire as the director and CEO of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.

Crime

Jeff Koons, “Fait d’Hiver” (1988) (Image courtesy of Christie’s)

The Centre Pompidou removed the Jeff Koons sculpture “Fait d’Hiver” (1988) from his current retrospective there after the French adman Franck Davidovici sued the artist for copyright infringement.

Beatriz Palacios, a former assistant registrar at the Aspen Art Museum, is suing the institution, claiming that she was fired for no reason and in spite of good performance.

Australia’s Attorney General ordered a review of the country’s laws regulating the importing and exporting of cultural objects after the National Gallery launched an investigation into the provenance of 54 Asian artifacts in its collection.