China: The Hong Kong-based Asia Art Archive has teamed up with New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to launch Materials of the Future: Documenting Contemporary Chinese Art from 1980-1990, which charts the rise of Chinese contemporary art. An accompanying book published by MoMA features artists’ manifestos and analytical essays.
www.china1980s.org
Egypt: Cultural consultancy Lord Cultural Resources will be responsible for the project management of exhibitions at the Grand Egyptian Museum, the world’s largest Egyptian antiquities institution, which is set to open in Cairo by 2013. The museum will house more than 50,000 artefacts, including King Tutankhamun’s mummy. Meanwhile, the Museum of Islamic Art has opened in Cairo following an eight-year, $10m refurbishment.
France: Lille’s museum of modern art has reopened as Lille Métropole Museé d’art Moderne, d’art Contemporain et d’art Brut following a €30m, four-year renovation. It houses the largest outsider art collection in France, including works by Carlo Zinelli and Michel Nedjar.
Italy: The director of Vatican Museums, Antonio Paolucci, has said the sweat, dust and dandruff deposited by more than 15,000 daily visitors to the Sistine Chapel are damaging works by Michelangelo and Botticelli. He added that new temperature and humidity controls were required.
Norway: The appointment of the former director of the Bergen Opera, Stein Olav Henrichsen, as director of Oslo’s Munch Museum, has been criticised by cultural commentators. Artist Jan Christensen said it was “ridiculous” as his “background is in administration”. Henrichsen plans to install a contemporary art space in the museum.
Spain: The ministry of culture has appointed five new national museum directors as part of a “process of renewal”. Andrés Carretero Pérez takes the reins at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. The Nacional Colegio de San Gregorio Museum in Valladolid, the Sefardí Museum in Toledo, and Sorolla Museum and Lázaro Galdiano Museum, in Madrid, are also under new leadership.
US: One of Miami’s most important private collectors, Marty Margulies, has donated $5m to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The decision is a blow to the new director of Miami Art Museum (MAM), Thom Collins, who hopes to win the backing of the city’s private patrons before MAM’s move to a new $200m home by 2013.
Seen in the Art Newspaper, La Repubblica, Le Journal des Arts, Agence France-Presse and El Pais
