24 Latin American Art Scholars Named ISLAA Fellows
New leaders at the Portland Art Museum and Storm King Art Center, a West Coast art magazine closes, and more in this week's Art Movements.
Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other art-world happenings. Today, we report on a new cohort of fellows at ISLAA, the bittersweet closure of a West Coast arts magazine, Mamdani's plans for Elizabeth Street Garden, and new leaders at SFMOMA, the Portland Art Museum, and more.
Institute for Studies on Latin American Art Announces 2026 Fellows
The curatorial practices of the Bienal de La Habana, neográfica in Mexico, women printmakers in Buenos Aires, and a Chilean artist’s experiments with early artificial intelligence: These are just some of the areas and topics that 24 scholars will delve into as 2026–27 fellows at the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA).
The New York City nonprofit this week announced the cohort of 16 Latin American scholars and eight US-based PhD researchers for this year's program, a record size for ISLAA's fellowship. They are Gonzalo Aguilar, Amaury A. García Rodríguez, Daniel Link, Isabel Plante, Sebastián Vidal Valenzuela, Mónica Amieva Montañez, Fernando García, Lucía Laumann, Farah Beatriz Leyva Batlle, Ayelen Pagnanelli, Julián Sánchez González, Torrivilla, Ana Inciarte, Letícia Asfora Falabella Leme, Danila Desirée Nieto, Pedro Edgar Rizo Peña, Pablo Guarín Robledo, Leandro Martínez Depietri, Michelle Patiño-Flores, Doreen Ríos, Jana Soler Libran, Natasha Tiniacos Ferrer, Henry Neim Osman, and Cristalina Parra.
Each fellow will spend two to four weeks accessing ISLAA’s Research Center in Tribeca, which houses over 1,000 archival collections, artist files, and primary sources on modern and contemporary art in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ariel Aisiks, founder of ISLAA, told Hyperallergic that an initial pool of 13 recipients was expanded to 24 “in response to the strength of the applications.”
“The response to this call revealed the depth of the research now taking place across the Americas,” Aisiks said.
The Portland Art Museum Has a New Director
Michael J. Anderson has been appointed to lead the Oregon institution starting October 12. Anderson, currently president and CEO of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, succeeds Brian Ferriso, who stepped down to lead the Dallas Museum of Art last summer.
SFMOMA Names Head of Painting and Sculpture
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) announced that Anna Katz will be its new senior curator and head of Painting and Sculpture. Katz will be the first person to hold the position, which was recently endowed by the family of Doris and Donald Fisher. She heads to SFMOMA after an 11-year tenure at from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, where she notably curated the first full-scale survey of the Pattern and Decoration movement, among other shows.
A West Coast Art Magazine Says Goodbye
Variable West, a nonprofit publication founded in 2020 by Portland-based writer and editor Amelia Rina with support from Critical Minded, is shutting down. In a heartfelt statement this week, Rina acknowledged the present challenges plaguing the media landscape and said she no longer had the capacity to maintain the site alongside her full-time job. Both she and Associate Editor Ella Ray “manage different, comorbid disabilities that make life difficult in many ways,” she said.
“For me, one particular challenge in this context has been the social and in-person requirements that seem to be necessary for networking and fundraising. It never felt easy for me and was often extremely draining, which led to feelings of frustration and inadequacy,” Rina wrote. “I suspect this is difficult for others as well.”
What Else Happened?
- The Joan Mitchell Foundation announced the 15 recipients of its 2026 fellowships. Read about them in Hyperallergic.
- The Storm King Art Center announced the appointment of Anne Reeve as senior curator, effective November 1.
- The South London gallery Sid Motion will shutter in October after a decade of programming, the Art Newspaper reports.
- Gallery Kendra Jayne Patrick now represents Antonio Darden.
- Emily Mello was named executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia.
- Art Toronto revealed the 105 exhibitors for the fair's 27th edition, taking place October 29 to November 1.
Will Mamdani Save an Embattled Sculpture Garden?
After a decade-long saga involving lawsuits, community activism, and advocacy by celebrities like Patti Smith and Robert De Niro, Mayor Zohran Mamdani will likely scrap a plan to turn the beloved Elizabeth Street Garden in Lower Manhattan into affordable housing, the New York Times reports. Sources told the paper that the Mamdani administration is in talks with the developers, who sued the city after the property was designated as "parkland," to settle the dispute.
