Briefing
Michael Jordan donates $5m to a new museum of African American culture; Chilean filmmakers call for the British Museum to return a stolen sculpture
Michael Jordan donates $5m to a new museum of African American culture; Chilean filmmakers call for the British Museum to return a stolen sculpture
- Basketball legend Michael Jordan will donate USD$5 million (and a jersey from the 1996 NBA Finals) to the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is scheduled to open in Washington D.C. this coming September. A single room in the new building’s Sports Gallery will be renamed ‘The Michael Jordan Hall’ in recognition.
- British artist Liam Gillick has been named artistic director of the inaugural Okayama Art Summit in Japan. The festival, which opens on 9 October across numerous venues in the city, will draw together 31 artists from 16 countries, to address Gillick’s chosen theme: 'development’.
- The family of Norman Rockwell claim that Deborah Solomon’s 2013 biography of the artist, American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell, is fraudulent, and are urging the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts to remove it from their shelves. ‘Were Norman Rockwell alive’, the artist's granddaughter Abigail Rockwell writes, ‘this book would be libelous, Deborah Solomon would be sued, and his Museum would not endorse or sell the book under any circumstances.
- Seattle-based architects Olson Kundig have been awarded first prize in a competition to design a new children’s museum in Berlin. Their concept, which was inspired by the story of Noah’s Ark, features an amphitheatre, a ‘rainbow gallery’, and an exit slide. The second prize was awarded to Staab Architekten GmbH, Berlin; third prize to Michael Wallraff ZT GmbH, Vienna.
- A group of Chilean filmmakers have launched a campaign for the British Museum to return a sculpture that was removed from Easter Island in the 19th century and has been displayed in the London institution for the last 100 years. The object, named Hoa Haka Nana’ia, or ‘hidden or stolen friend’, is one of 4,000 objects that campaigners believe have been stolen from the remote Chilean island.
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