In the News

Tate today announces two new appointments to its curatorial team. Clara Kim has been appointed The Daskalopoulos Senior Curator, International Art (Africa, Asia & Middle East). Nancy Ireson has been appointed as Curator, International Art. Both will be taking up their positions in the coming months, ahead of the opening of the new Tate Modern on 17 June 2016.

The board of the Roswitha Haftmann Foundation has named Austrian artist Heimo Zobernig the winner of the 2016 Roswitha Haftmann Prize “in recognition of his sustained and diverse production and compelling body of work,” according to a press release. The prize, known as Europe’s best-endowed award, gives a selected artist 150,000 Swiss Francs (about $146,600). Last year, the award, which is given every one to three years, was presented to Lawrence Weiner.

Edgar Arceneaux has won the Malcolm McLaren award, which is presented to a single artist at the end of each Performa biennial. The award was bestowed at the performance art festival's closing party in New York on Sunday, marking the end of 22 days of performances around the city. Arceneaux's Performa commission Until, Until, Until… was his first live work to date. The Los Angeles-based artist is known for his drawings and installations, notably Drawings of Removal, an ongoing project exhibited at the UCLA Hammer Museum in 2003. Five years later, Arceneaux was featured in the 2008 Whitney Biennial and has exhibited work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Kitchen, in New York.

Angus McDowell reports in the Independent that the Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh has been sentenced to death by Saudi Arabian authorities after almost two years of imprisonment. According to trial documents, the main charge against Fayadh is apostasy, or abandoning his Muslim faith. He was originally detained by the country’s religious police in 2013, then rearrested and tried in early 2014. The initial verdict of the courts sentenced him to four years in prison and 800 lashes, but after an appeal another judge ordered a death sentence for him. He has thirty days to appeal the new ruling.