It's a good thing the art world likes change. The trustees of the
Brooklyn Museum have voted to change the name of the institution
to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, effective immediately. The decision
was prompted by a recent audience survey that showed many visitors
to the museum think it is a natural history museum or a Brooklyn
history museum. "Where's the dinosaurs," say many first-time
visitors. The museum begins an 18-month-long celebration of its
175th anniversary on Feb. 21 with the opening of "Mistress of the
House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt."
LANNAN ART TO MOCA
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has released the
list of 105 works by 53 artists transferred to the museum by the
Los Angeles-based Lannan Foundation, which is ending its art
collecting operations to concentrate its grant programs on social
issues. Among the trove are 14 collages by Wallace Berman, Chris
Burden's Big Wheel (1979), seven works by Robert Irwin, four
"Monkey Island" paintings by Mike Kelley, seven works by Charles
Ray and two sculptures by Kiki Smith. With the gift, MOCA obtains
its first works ever by Siah Armajani, Jo Baer, Bernd and Hilla
Becher, Lynda Benglis, James Coleman, Jay Defeo, Keith Haring,
Ralph Humphrey, Alfred Jensen, Bridget Riley and John Wesley,
among others.
GOING TO BASEL?
First time exhibitors from New York at the next Basel Art Fair,
June 11-18 (vernissage June 10), are Gavin Brown's Enterprise,
Howard Greenberg, Friedrich Petzel and Andrea Rosen. The
"Statements" section of solo shows by emerging artists is to
feature Elisabeth Peyton (Gavin Brown), Darron Lago (Annely Juda,
London) and Dan Peterman (Helga Maria Klosterfelde, Hamburg).
Approximately 250 galleries will participate in the fair, which
has been scheduled to coordinate with the Venice Biennale, June
15-Nov. 4 (vernissage June 11-13), and Documenta X in Kassel, June 21-Sept. 29 (vernissage, June 19-20).
HOUSTON BREAKS GROUND
The Houston Museum of Fine Arts has broken ground for a new $70
million, 185,000-square-foot facility, named the Audrey Jones Beck
Building, across the street from the present museum building.
Designed by architect Raphael Moneo, the new structure will more
than double exhibition space and allow increased educational
programs. So far the museum has raised $88 million of its $100
million capital campaign. The MFA also announced the acquisition
of 18 works by Jackson Pollock (four paintings, 12 drawings and
two sculptures) from the Pollock estate.
POP MUSIC AT DIA
The Dia Center for the Arts is presenting a three-day conference
on popular music, titled "Stars Don't Stand Still in the Sky:
Music and Myth," on the weekend of Feb. 14, 15 and 16, 1997.
Organized by Karen Kelly and Evelyn McDonnell, the conference is
to be held at Dia's main facility, 548 West 22nd St. The keynote
address, by Greil Marcus, is scheduled for Fri. Feb. 14 at 7 p.m.
For more info go to Dia's web site
WEXNER CD-ROM
The Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, Columbus,
has released an interactive CD-ROM by installation artist Ann
Hamilton. The museum's first venture into digital publishing is
titled the body and the object: Ann Hamilton 1984-96 and grows out
of a show of the same name at the center May 18-Aug. 4, 1996. The
CD-ROM package includes an old-fashioned 92-page illustrated book,
and is available for $45 (call 614-292-1807 for mail order).
DORM FOR ART INSTITUTE
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago has acquired the
landmark Chicago Building at State and Madison Streets in the Loop
for conversion into a dorm for art students. The 15-story, 92,000-square-foot building, designed by Holabird and Roche in 1904, will
house approximately 195 students in fully furnished loft-style
apartments. Renovation should be completed in Aug. 1997.
ALICE YANG, 1961-1997
Alice Yang, 35, art historian who had just been appointed curator
at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, L.I., was killed by a
hit-and-run driver at Canal and Varick Streets in Manhattan on
Feb. 8. Her husband, the architect Gerald Szeto, was injured in
the accident. Yang came to the U.S. at age 15 and graduated from
Yale. She had been assistant curator at the New Museum, organizing
exhibitions of Alfredo Jaar and "The Final Frontier," a group show
about global emigrations.
PAUL CUMMINGS, 1933-1997
Paul Cummings, 64, adjunct curator of drawings at the Whitney
Museum from 1975 to `87, died in Manhattan on Feb. 7 from
complications from a stroke suffered on Jan. 24. Cummings was
director of the oral history project of the Archives of American
Art (1968-78); in 1969 he founded the Print Collectors Newsletter
and in 1979 founded the journal Drawing, which he edited until
1995. He was also editor of The Dictionary of American Artists and
ran Catchword Papers press, which published poetry by Gregory
Corso, Allen Ginsburg and others.
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