Briefing

An LED panel from an Ei Arakawa work installed for the recently-opened Skulptur Projekte Münster has been stolen. Harsh Citation, Harsh Pastoral, Harsh Münster (2017) is situated in a field near the manmade lake Aasee, and consists of seven existing paintings (by various artists from Gustave Courbet to Atsuko Tanaka) reimagined as LED compositions. Over the weekend, one of these pieces – based on a work by Jutta Koether – went missing. Watch our recent frieze film in which artistic director Kasper König takes us on a unique tour of Skulptur Projekte Münster, exploring the changing meaning of sculpture in public space today.

Irish artist Richard Mosse was arrested while observing an anti-refugee protest on the Greek island of Chios. Mosse told The Art Newspaper that he was arrested last Thursday by undercover police while watching a local rally, and held overnight. Mosse’s video installation Incoming (2017), which investigates the refugee crisis, was recently on show at London’s Barbican Centre – you can read Christy Lange on Incoming from our March issue over here: ‘a rare glimpse through the mechanized tools of surveillance used by states and militaries to view us’.

London's Victoria and Albert Museum will open its new Exhibition Road Quarter which features a courtyard, foyer and gallery for temporary exhibitions, on 30 June. The project, designed by Amanda Levete Architects, seeks to respond directly to the original building and its collections, with a courtyard lined with 10,100 porcelain tiles – the first of its kind in the UK.  The courtyard is entered through an original 19th century collonade designed by Sir Aston Webb. It's the V&A's biggest construction project for over a century. 

The Samdani Art Foundation – the Dhaka-based art trust – has unveiled the shortlist for the Samdani Art Award. The biennial award is open to Bangladeshi artists aged 22 to 40, and the 11 shortlisted artists will show new commissions at the Dhaka Art Summit next February, where the winner will also be announced. The award will be presented by Tate director Maria Balshaw and selected by a jury consisting of artists Sheela Gowda, Runa Islam, Subodh Gupta and Mona Hatoum. The winner will receive a three-month residency at London’s Delfina Foundation.

In New York three men have been charged with selling fake Damien Hirst prints. The ‘limited-edition' counterfeits were sold for more than USD$400,000 to online art buyers across the world. The group responsible include Vincent Lopreto who has previously been charged with selling fake Hirsts. ‘The art market’s demand for limited editions can lead to fake pieces with little value,' Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., said in a statement. 'In this case, the alleged fraud went beyond plain imitation, and the defendants are charged with deceiving a multitude of buyers into purchasing counterfeit arts that was falsely passed off as genuine.' The Guardian has the story.

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage has announced its 2017 grants which support Philadelphia’s cultural life. Fifty three grants for artists and organizations in the Philadelphia region, totalling over USD$10.3 million, will fund 12 new Pew Fellowships, 39 project grants and two advancement grants. This year’s fellowships, which provide direct support to local artists, include choreographer Nichole Canuso, scholar Brenda Dixon Gottschild, filmmaker Moon Molson and landscape architects Anuradha Mathur and Dilip Da Cunha. Project grants include the Franklin Institute’s ‘Terracotta Warriors of the First Emperor’ which presents an ancient burial ground through augmented reality. You can see the full list over here.

The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) has announced that its director Sarah Glennie will be leaving at the end of the year. Glennie will become director at Dublin's National College of Art and Design in January 2018. Glennie has been in the role of director at IMMA since 2012, overseeing a programme of new commissions including those by Duncan Campbell, Jaki Irvine and Emily Jacir. Minister for Culture Heather Humphreys T.D. said in a press statement: 'IMMA is in a very strong place as a result of [Glennie’s] Directorship, with significantly increased visitor numbers, greater opportunities for Irish artists, and a strong international reputation.’