Hank Willis Thomas to Design Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
In further news: Arata Isozaki receives Pritzker Prize; Performa launches streaming platform
In further news: Arata Isozaki receives Pritzker Prize; Performa launches streaming platform
New York-based artist Hank Willis Thomas is to design a monument to the activists Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King – scheduled to be unveiled on Boston Common next year. The Embrace, produced in collaboration with MASS Design Group, features a set of interlocking hands – the artist was inspired by photographs of civil rights demonstrators walking arm-in-arm. Thomas said: ‘Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King are monumental examples of the capacity of love to shape society. I can only hope The Embrace can be a reminder and a call to action to each of us to never forget what they’ve taught us’.
Japanese architect Arata Isozaki has been announced as the 2019 laureate of the Pritzker Prize, the architecture world’s most coveted award. Isozaki, the 46th recipient of the Pritzker, was described by the jury as a ‘versatile, influential, and truly international architect […] he never merely replicated the status quo but challenged it’. Notable international projects include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 1986, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Art Museum in Beijing in 2008 and the Shanghai Symphony Hall in 2014.
New York nonprofit Performa have launched a new streaming platform, broadcasting performances from the Performa Biennial archive – including pieces by Mike Kelley and Laurie Simmons. Designed by the studio Special Offer, the channel is also streaming footage of work by Julie Mehretu, Shirin Heshat and Adam Pendleton, among others.
In galleries and appointments news: Blain|Southern gallery are heading to New York, opening a third space in the former Chelsea home of Cheim & Read – with an inaugural show by Abdoulaye Konaté; Galerie Lelong & Co. represent artist Leonardo Drew; Pilar Corrias now represents artist Ghada Amer with a London exhibition planned for 2020; artistic director of documenta 14 Adam Szymczyk has been appointed lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna; Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi will join New York’s MoMA as curator in the department of painting and sculpture; and following the departure of director Nicolaus Schafhausen, Croatian collective What, How & for Whom are to lead Kunsthalle Wien.
