Briefing

Collector Agnes Gund has awarded USD$500,000 to the Parrish Art Museum in New York to create a social justice initiative. The new Dorothy Lichtenstein ArtsReach Fund will support projects aimed at social change. Dorothy Lichtenstein, on the museum’s board of trustees, has also put forward an additional USD$100,000 for the fund. Last month, Gund made headlines when it was confirmed that she had sold Roy Lichtenstein’s 1962 Masterpiece for USD$150 million to fund criminal justice reform.

David Zwirner announced its new outpost in Hong Kong last year – the blue-chip gallery's fourth location and first Asian branch will be based in the Central district as a 'gallery and lifestyle tower'. Now the gallery has revealed further details for its inaugural exhibition there, set for early 2018 (before Chinese New Year): a show of new works by Belgian painter Michaël Borremans, which extend his ‘Black Mould’ series.

Istanbul’s Rampa gallery has closed after seven years. Its final exhibition was a Selma Gürbüz show which finished this April. In an email shared by Belgian collector Alain Servais, Rampa director Esra Sarıgedik Öktem wrote: ’The aim of RAMPA was always to put up rigorous and thoughtful exhibitions, to build artists' careers internationally, and to do so with passion and steadfast belief in the work.' Rampa was founded by Arif Suyabatmaz and Leyla Tara Suyabatmaz, and it became a major institution in the city’s gallery scene, with an artist list that included Nevin Aladağ (who showed at this year’s Venice Biennale and Documenta), Gülsün Karamustafa and Nilbar Güreş.

The Gwangju Biennale Foundation has named Kim Sun-jung as its new president. Kim will lead the Foundation for a three-year term and develop the Bienniale into ‘a platform for learning and connecting with local and global audiences’, Art Asia Pacific reports. Kim Sun-jung is currently director of Seoul’s Art Sonje Center. Launched in 1995 the Gwangju Biennale caused controversy in 2014 after the censorship of a satirical painting of former Korean president Park Geun-hye in an associate show, which led to the departure of then-president Yongwoo Lee. 

Multi-disciplinary artist Charles McGill has died at the age of 53, following a battle with cancer – the news was confirmed by his gallery, Pavel Zoubok. The US artist originally trained as a figurative painter, but was best known for his sculptural work which repurposed vintage golf bags, deploying these potent cultural symbols in commentaries on race and class.

A new initiative ‘We Dream Under The Same Sky’ launches with a week-long programme on 16 September at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, celebrating the work of 5 NGOs (Migreurop, Anafé, La Cimade, Centre Primo Levi and THOT) that work with refugees in France. The week will consist of panels, performances, and an exhibitions of donated works from more than 25 artists – including pieces by Nairy Baghramian, Mona Hatoum, Glenn Ligon and Rirkrit Tiravanija – that will be auctioned to fund the NGOs. The programme has a dual purpose, ‘raising awareness among the general public about the refugee crisis and raising funds in order to finance 5 recognized and complementary NGOs that are involved in day-to-day work on the terrain’, the initiative said in a statement.