Briefing

The Film London Jarman Award, which champions moving image artists in the UK, has announced this year's shortlist. Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Oreet Ashery, Adham Faramawy, Melanie Manchot, Charlotte Prodger and Marianna Simnett will all be commissioned by Channel 4 to produce new films, and the winner will receive GBP£10,000. The artists’ works range from gallery installations to web series, and cover an array of themes, from global warming to death in the era of social media. Adrian Wootton OBE, Chief Executive of Film London and the British Film Commission, called the shortlist for the Jarman Award 'its most diverse yet', in a press statement. 'These artists work in a world that is fast-moving, innovative and ever-changing, and their work reflects this.' An exhibition of the shortlisted artists will tour from this October, with a weekend of events planned at the Whitechapel Gallery including an award ceremony on 20 November. The award is supported by Arts Council England; previous winners include Heather Phillipson and Marvin Gaye Chetwynd.

The new Canadian art museum, Remai Modern, will open to the public on 21 October in Saskatoon. The 11,500 square metre building is designed by Canadian architect Bruce Kawabara. The inaugural exhibition, ‘Field Guide’, will draw on the museum’s collection, which has inherited works from the former Mendel Art Gallery, and includes a comprehensive selection of Picasso linocuts. ‘Field Guide’ will also feature new commissions, including an on-site project by Thomas Hirschhorn and a collaboration between Tanya Lukin-Linklater and Duane Linklater. The concept for the exhibition revolves around a series of questions, ‘Can art confront reality? What is urgent and why? How will indigeneity shape the future?’ said executive director and CEO Gregory Burke in a press statement.

Arts Council England has launched its new grant programme to 2022, which sees a decisive shift away from London towards the regions. National Portfolio grants, which go towards local arts organizations, will total GBP£409 million per year from 2018 to 2022. An additional GBP£213 million a year will go towards other grants for arts organizations. Those who have lost out include the Arnolfini gallery in Bristol which has had its entire grant withdrawn because it was ‘financially unviable'; the University of Oxford Museums have seen a cut of 10%, but English National Opera has returned to the national portfolio. To balance the overconcentration in London, regional spending over the next four years will rise from 56% to 60%. Four of the biggest arts venues – the Royal Opera House, Southbank Centre, the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company – have all accepted a public funding cut of GBP£2.5 million between them in order to redress the imbalance for smaller organizations in the regions.

The first edition of Condo New York kicked off on Thursday, 29 June. Condo draws in 16 Manhattan galleries to help host 20 other galleries from across the world, with a pop-up model ethos and a spirit of collaboration. It will run until 28 July. Vanessa Carlos, director of the Carlos/Ishikawa gallery in London, launched Condo in the UK in January 2016. Dealers Simone Subal and Nicole Russo are handling the New York iteration. Read our profile of Condo’s London edition over here. 

The VIA Art Fund has announced its grantees for the first half of this year, totalling USD$310,000. It will support visual arts projects involving over 50 artists, writers, curators and organizations, including Los Angeles Nomadic Division for a Jose Dávila installation and documenta 14 for Pope.L’s Whispering Campaign. Incubator grants which total USD$45,000 have been awarded to small to mid-size nonprofits including Independent Curators International and Triple Canopy. VIA President Bridgitt Evans said in a press statement: ‘We are thrilled to fund over USD$300,000 in grants to support new work by groundbreaking artists and independent organizations for projects that may not otherwise have come to fruition given the current state of public funding for the arts.’ You can see the complete list of VIA Art Fund spring 2017 grantees over here.

Chicago has announced a new USD$1 million public art initiative which will commission murals and sculptures in all 50 city wards, as part of the city’s ‘Year of Public Art’ project. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that investment would support local artists to ‘share their work with the world’.

The Yinchuan Biennale has named Marco Scotini as the curator of next year's edition. Scotini is the artistic director of Milan’s FM Center for Contemporary Art, and has also served as head of the Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies Department at NABA in Milan since 2004. The second edition of the Biennale will take place from June to September 2018 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, the first contemporary art museum in China’s northwest. The inaugural edition of the Yinchuan Biennale caused controversy when an invitation was extended to Ai Weiwei and was then later withdrawn because of his political activities.

Shanghai’s Himalayas Museum has named curator, artist and critic Wang Nanming as its new director, succeeding Yongwoo Lee. The museum was established by Shanghai Zendai Group in 2005; its latest focus is the Shanghai Project. Wang has served as editor-in-chief of Art Focus and Art Time and has played a pivotal role in China’s cultural criticism scene; he has also taught at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.