Briefing
Yayoi Kusama to be immortalized in wax; Anicka Yi awarded the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize; Edinburgh's Inverleith House to close
Yayoi Kusama to be immortalized in wax; Anicka Yi awarded the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize; Edinburgh's Inverleith House to close
- The Hong Kong branch of Madame Tussauds has immortalised the 87-year-old Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama in wax, enshrining her figure in a special zone decorated with her infamous polka dots, black and yellow colour scheme, and oversized gourds. In a statement, Kusama said: ‘I was delighted to accept […] I hope everyone who passes through Madame Tussauds Hong Kong can fully embrace the positive energy evoked by the zone.’
- Anicka Yi has been awarded the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize. Yi, the 11th artist to receive the award, was selected from a shortlist of six finalists including Tania Bruguera, Mark Leckey, Ralph Lemon, Laura Owens and Wael Shawky. The jury praised ‘the way Yi’s sculptures and installations make public and strange, and thus newly addressable, our deeply subjective corporeal realities’. In addition to the USD$100,000 prize, a solo exhibition of Yi’s work will open at the Guggenheim Museum in April of next year.
- Inverleith House in Edinburgh, Scotland, will close on Sunday, after 30 years. The decision was made two years after Creative Scotland denied the gallery’s regular application for regular funding – the Scottish Arts Council and Creative Scotland have granted the contemporary art gallery GBP£1.5m since 1994. Simon Milne, the Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden within which Inverleith House is located, said the institution now has to concentrate on their core work of horticulture and botanical studies: ‘These are hard financial times for everyone, and we couldn't afford to sustain it, and at the moment we have to focus on our core programmes.’
- The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris has appointed art historian and critic Jean-Pierre Criqui as a curator of contemporary art. Criqui has served as editor-in-chief of the institution’s publication Les Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne since 1994, having formerly worked as both an independent curator and a contemporary art advisor for the Ministry of Culture.
- Kader Attia has been awarded the 2016 Marcel Duchamp Prize, France’s most prestigious award for the arts. Attia, whose work was acquired by the Contemporary Art Society Collections Fund at this year’s Frieze London, and who last weekend unveiled his new exhibition and event space in Paris, was chosen from a shortlist that also included Yto Barrada, Ulla von Brandenburg and Barthélémy Toguo. In recognition of their achievements, each of the artists will now stage exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
- A new anti-forgery law that is being discussed within the South Korean Ministry of Culture may require galleries to obtain licenses in order to operate. The ruling, which has been made following a spate of forgery cases, will also state that auction houses must employ a professional auctioneer, operate from a physical space, and generate around GBP£150,000 in capital.
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