June 1, 2015: Richard Serra Gets France’s Highest Honor & Qatar to Build Massive New Museum

Opening

In New York ...

“Robert Irwin: Excursus: Homage to the Square3” opens at Dia:Beacon; “Teresita Fernández: Fata Morgana,” part of Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art program, opens in Madison Square Park.

Today’s Notable News

Today at New York’s French Embassy, Richard Serra will be granted France’s highest honor, les Insignes de Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur. The award, which in this case recognizes the American artist for his collaborations and artworks within France, as well as his influence on other artists from the country, was first established by Napoleon in 1802. (via The Art Newspaper)

Qatar intends to transform a flour mill on Doha’s waterfront into a massive art space known as the Art Mill, which could break ground as early as 2017. Today, Qatar Museums began an international competition in search of an architect for the space, the winner of which will be announced next spring. (via The Art Newspaper)

In Dresden, an outdoor installation by artist Nezaket Ekici has recently been reinstalled after being vandalized and then taken down by police. The work, on display on the façade of the city’s State Courthouse until July 5th, features nearly three dozen oriental rugs hung together as a memorial to Egyptian Marwa El-Sherbini, who was murdered in the building six years ago. Although the remounted piece covers the graffiti, Ekici has stated, “We have not swept the issue under the carpet,” referring to the social tensions in the city about which the installation is intended to create a dialogue. (via artnet News)

The Tate will be granted £6 million above its usual government funding, to be put toward the Tate Modern, which is currently undergoing a £215 million expansion. Amidst widespread cuts to arts funding, the additional budget allocation comes as a “vote of confidence” for the English museum, which welcomes two times as many visitors as New York’s much larger Museum of Modern Art. (via The Art Newspaper)

Despite recently losing its planned building site to LinkedIn, Google has found a new place to build its Silicon Valley HQ, which will be designed by Thomas Heatherwick’s Heatherwick Studio and Bjarke Ingels’s BIG, as originally planned. The new campus will be located in the Charleston East, a building the company has leased since 2007 and which is near its present headquarters. (via Dezeen)

Best of Instagram

Via @hyperallergic: “An impressive roster of 60 museums directors, curators, editors, and other leading art world figures have written a letter to the art institutions and development organizations involved with Saadiyat Island, where franchises of the Louvre and Guggenheim Museums will open in the coming years. The directors of some of the world’s most important art institutions, including Tate’s Nicholas Serota and the Museum of Modern Art’s Glenn Lowry, have added their names to a letter asserting that ‘artists and academics should be allowed free passage to conduct research and work that is done in a peaceful and productive manner.’”

Via @tmagazine: “‘Outsider’ work is finally being welcomed into major institutions, but the sense of difference with which we used to approach it might offer valuable lessons in how to look at all art…”

Via @kasmingallery: “Opening this Friday, June 5, Iván Navarro will be included in Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim.”

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