Art Movements
New plans for the development of 5 Pointz, new funds for Queens museums, the settlement of the National Arts club lawsuit, the demolition of an ancient pyramid in Peru, and more.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
Following the rejection by the community board of building owner Jerry Wolkoff’s plan to build two residential towers in the place of 5 Pointz in Long Island City, Queens, the plan was altered to add more artist space and affordable housing, as well as places to display art work on the streets. The revisions are now waiting for approval in the office of Borough President Helen Marshall.
In other Long Island City news, MoMA PS1 has been given $3 million by the city budget to acquire an adjacent building. Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer said the new building will either relocate its offices there or expand the amount of gallery space at the museum.
The same NYC budget allocated $600,000 to the Noguchi Museum in Astoria, Queens, for a new generator, and $300,000 for the SculptureCenter in Long Island City for renovations.
The ousted head of the National Arts Club, O. Aldon James Jr., who was there for 25 years of scandalous hoarding and mismanagement of both funds and pet parrots, has settled a lawsuit by agreeing to pay $900,000 to the club, and move out of the club by the end of July.
One of Peru’s oldest archaeological sites, the 4,000-year-old El Paraiso, had one of its pyramids demolished and set on fire by real estate developers.
The estimated $2.85 million alterpiece by Benjamin West, “Devout Men Taking Away the Body of St. Stephen” (1776), can be sold after a ruling from a Church of England court to an anonymous foundation, and is expected to be lent to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
A major exhibition of Greek and Roman art that was scheduled to open in September at the Cleveland Museum of Art was canceled after complaints from Sicilian cultural authorities that the absence of the objects was hurting their tourist economy.
Ellsworth Kelly received the 2012 National Medal of Arts award from President Barack Obama in a ceremony held at the White House this Wednesday.
The late American abstract expressionist Michael Goldberg’s estate is now being represented by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York and the Manny Silverman Gallery in Los Angeles.
The Michelin star restaurant Saul is relocating from Boerum Hill to a space in the Brooklyn Museum.
The San Francisco Museum of Art has released the Rauschenberg Research Project, its first online collection catalogue, with 90 works from the artist that are in the SFMOMA permanent collection.
The Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art launched the WdW Review, an online platform that merges reports from ancient sites and increasingly developed cities like Athens, Bejing, Delhi, Cairo, Istanbul, and Moscow, with the first edition running from June to December of this year.
Jennifer Gross of Yale University Art Gallery, who organized the Richard Artschwager exhibition at the Whitney, was hired as the Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and Chief Churator at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.
The incredibly rare Kimberley Diamond is now on display at the American Museum of Natural History.
George Steinmetz, a National Geographic photographer, was arrested for photographing a Kansas feedlot from a paraglider.
KAWS is redesigning the MTV Video Music Awards Moonman with his trademark dead eyes.
