October 28, 2014: Germany’s Venice Biennale Artists Announced, Affordable Housing Jeopardizes Street Art in Paris, and a Slew of Art Prizes
Opening
In New York …
“Picasso & the Camera” opens at Gagosian; “Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe: Floating Chain (High-Res Toni)” and “Gibb Slife: Mockingbird” open at Marlborough Chelsea; “El Anatsui: Metas” opens at Mnuchin Gallery.
Closing
In London …
“One Man’s Trash (Is Another Man’s Treasure)” closes at the Danjuma Collection.
In Paris …
“Mickalene Thomas: Femme au divan I” closes at Galerie Nathalie Obadia.
In Berlin …
Christian Philipp Müller closes at Galerie Nagel Draxler.
Today’s Notable News
Curator Florian Ebner, the Commissioner of Germany’s contribution to the 56th Venice Biennale, has chosen the artists who will grace the country’s pavilion at the 2015 fair: Hito Steyerl, Tobias Zielony, Olaf Nicolai, Philip Rizk, and Jasmina Metwaly. (via Artforum)
Plans to build a complex of affordable housing units, a community center, and a daycare in Paris’s 20th arrondissement threaten to destroy one of the city’s longtime centers for street art. (via Hyperallergic)
Harlem’s Studio Museum has presented Samuel Levi Jones with the Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, a $50,000 award given by the museum each year to an innovative African-American artist. (via ARTnews)
Independent Curators International has named Paris-based emerging curator Eva Barois De Caeval as the winner of their 2014 Independent Vision Curatorial Award. (via New York Observer)
The New School has awarded the Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics to Abounaddara, an anonymous Syrian filmmaking collective whose work was recently shown at the New Museum’s “Here and Elsewhere” exhibition. The award celebrates the group’s “emergency cinema” in the midst of Syria’s ongoing civil war. (via The New York Times)
Best of Instagram
Via @newmuseum: “Chris Ofili's ‘Afro Waves’ (2002-03) is now up on our lobby windows #ChrisOfili #NightandDay opens on Wednesday!”
Good Reads
“A Capital of the Arts Is Forced to Evolve” (via The New York Times)
“How Easy Is It to Get an Art-Backed Loan?” (via Forbes)
Artist of the Day
Notorious for his depictions of grotesque, malformed figures, his candid observations on painting and the despair of the artist, and the recent mega-success of his work at auction, postwar painter Francis Bacon was born on this day in 1909. Drawing from sources as diverse as film pioneers Eadweard Muybridge and Sergei Eisenstein and Baroque court painter Diego Velázquez, Bacon engaged with the history of art in a manner distinctive for his time, pursuing figural representation in an atmosphere increasingly dominated by abstraction.
Want to catch up with the rest of this week’s news? Review past Daily Digests here.
