Briefing

A major earthquake that struck Mexico on Tuesday, claiming the lives of 282 people so far, has lead to the postponement of Gallery Weekend CDMX in the city which was due to start yesterday. A number of galleries announced they would not be opening shows and instead urged people to donate to organizations such as Topos and the Mexican Red Cross that are helping with the rescue and recovery of those missing. The Roma and La Condesa districts where most galleries are based was affected, though most galleries escaped damage. The Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL) has suffered minor damage to its façade; josé garcía, postponed the opening of its new location in Mexico City with an exhibition on Rometti Costales which was scheduled for today.

Gillian Wearing unveiled her design for a statue of Millicent Fawcett, the suffragist leader, due to be erected in Parliament Square in London. The Turner prize-winning artist will be the first person to produce a statue of a female subject for the square. The monument shows Fawcett holding a sign that reads ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere’, taken from a speech Fawcett gave after the death of fellow campaigner Emily Wilding Davison at the 1913 Epsom Derby. Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan and communities secretary, Sajid Javid, are pushing for the statue can be unveiled for the centenary of the Representation of the Peoples Act 1918 in February 2018, which granted some women over 30 the vote for the first time.

Hauser & Wirth are opening a gallery in the new H Queens development in Hong Kong next spring. Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong will occupy the 15th and 16th floors of the building designed by William Lim of CL3, joining galleries such as  David Zwirner, Pace and Pearl Lam who are already there. Architect Annabelle Selldorf, who has overseen the renovation of six Hauser & Wirth galleries in Zurich, London, New York, Los Angeles and Somerset, will design the new 10,000 square foot space. The gallery is also opening offices in Shanghai and Beijing this October. While currently only representing one Chinese artist, Zhang Enli, Ivan Wirth says he plans to add more Chinese and Asian artists to the gallery’s roster.

The Whitney Museum in New York is enquiring into displaying a new permanent work by David Hammons along the Hudson River, near its Renzo Piano-designed home in the Meatpacking district. It follows news that the proposed floating cultural park nearby known as ‘Diller island’ in the Hudson River funded by Barry Diller was withdrawn last week, after facing opposition to its plans from civic authorities. The Hammons installation is expected to feature a ghostlike image of the original Pier 52 building on that site, featuring a minimalist framework of what had originally been there. The Whitney will present the project to the local community board on Oct. 4.

Theaster Gates has been awarded the 2018 Nasher Prize for sculpture, receiving USD$100,000. In its third year, the prize is awarded to living artists who ‘elevate the understanding of sculpture’. Juror Hou Hanru commented: ‘Theaster Gates demonstrates how an artist can take on an incredibly strong social responsibility and translate it into, on the one hand, a social action, and on the other hand, a really extraordinary artistic project that is consisting of architecture, intervention, social organization, and also the production of beautiful objects.’

The Honolulu Biennial has appointed Jens Hoffmann as its artistic director and named Nina Tonga and Scott Lawrimore as curators. The biennial’s second edition is scheduled to run 9 March – 5 May, 2019.