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Ivan Navarro’s Pink Electric Chair, 2006

Everyone knows The San Antonio Museum of Art has a great collection of Chinese ceramics, but over the past couple years they’ve been acquiring a respectable selection of new contemporary art: over the past couple of years accessions to the SAMA collection include Ivan Navarro‘s Pink Electric Chair, 2006 and Willie Cole’s How Do You Spell America #6, 1993, John Davis, White Out Painting 9, 2005, Ed Saavedra‘s Milk, 2009, and Chuck Ramirez’s Gregory (Piñata Series), 2003.

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft has added newly-minted University of Georgia grad Kathryn Hall to their staff as their new Curatorial Fellow. The three-year position that offers experience in curating and research. Kathryn will work with HCCC Curator, Anna Walker, and Curatorial Assistant, Ashley Powell, to develop exhibitions, conduct research, and install exhibitions. She received her Masters in Art History at UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art in Athens, Georgia, where, despite focusing on Late Renaissance and Baroque studies, her interests included a colloquium on Lady Gaga’s performance art and Takashi Murakmi’s invasion of Versailles.

The Meadows Museum has promoted Nicole Atzbach to the position of Curator, from Assistant Curator, a position she has held since 2010, when she joined the museum from the Kimbell in Ft. Worth, where she was curatorial assistant. She is a 1998 graduate of Brigham Young University’s Art History program. Her self-description on Twitter adds that she is a “mom o’twins, assistant curator lady, and wannabe hoofer.” She will be working on a forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the museum’s permanent collection.

Richardson’s mural was “too political”

In Toronto, a panel of five city staffers with backgrounds in “the arts, urban design, architecture and other relevant disciplines” has been officially set up to decide on issues of the preservation of street art. The panel decides whether a given piece of street art is of sufficient artistic merit to exempt the owner of the property on which it is painted from fines for failing to remove it. As in many cities, in Toronto it is not only a crime to paint other peoples buildings, it is a crime not to un-paint them.

The panel is a nod to the growing respectability and commercial clout of street art in the midst of Toronto’s latest crackdown on graffiti, and offers some relief to property owners hosting legitimate artworks (rather than slumlords allowing urban decay), but none to painters: “Even if it’s Picasso, you’re not allowed to paint on other people’s walls,” says Elyse Parker, a city official who has coordinated several street beautification initiatives.

The panel came about in part in response to an embarrassing incident last May, when zealous city anti-graffiti squads painted over a popular stencil-style mural by Joel Richardson, which he says the city had paid him to paint, and is one of many incidents in Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s war on graffiti, which has irked property owners by targeting them with a flood of city removal orders.

Kellianne Vallee

Kellianne Vallee

Kellianne Vallee has been named Interim Executive Director of the Galveston Arts Center. Ms. Vallee will lead GAC in it’s efforts to return to the historic 1878 First National Bank Building, while continuing to provide art instruction in the community and exhibiting cutting-edge work by Texas artists. Ms. Vallee replaces Alexandra Irvine, who resigned in September.

Artlab at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.. No Art. No Kids. No windows.

The Dallas Museum of Art has received a grant of $94,681 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to build a “Learning Lab,” described as “a new space where young people can connect with mentors and peers, using new media and traditional materials,” the lab “will help young people move beyond consuming content to making and creating it.”

The project is one of 12 funded by the IMLS to create similar labs in museums and libraries around the country. For this venture, the DMA will partner with the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, which will have it’s own lab. The exact connection is unclear, but planning begins in January 2013.

Nicole Stutzman, the DMA’s Chair of Learning Initiatives said the museum aims. “to instigate some cultural shift – opening up our museums to be more social, recreational, and immersive spaces for the teens learning in the 21st century.”

Everybody’s doing it: The Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s Kinder Foundation Education Center, funded by a similar grant, opened in 2011. Both projects are based on a concept packaged as “connected learning,” pioneered by YOUmedia, an initiative of the Chicago Public Library.

Brother Mike Hawkins talks about hanging out, geeking out, and messing around at YOUmedia Chicago.

AMSET Benefactors Dr. Lulu Smith and Dr. Wesley Washburn

The Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont has received a $2 million gift. The Wesley W. Washburn M.D. and Lulu L. Smith, M.D. Endowment Fund was established by the couple to ensure that AMSET remains a prominent educational fixture in Southeast Texas. Smith died on March 1, 2011. She was an ardent supporter of AMSET among other local civic and art organizations especially during her tenure on the Beaumont City Council from 1987 – 2007 when she served as City liaison. She practiced medicine in Beaumont until 1984.

“This dynamic duo truly touched the lives of many people through their philanthropic endeavors,” said AMSET Executive Director, Lynn Castle.  “Through this generous gift, we hope to continue their lifelong legacy of teaching those around them by expanding our exhibition and educational outreach in Southeast Texas.”

Josef Helfenstein, Director of the Menil Collection, announced Friday that independent curator Cuauhtémoc Medina has been chosen as the sixth recipient of the biennial Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement. Established in 2001 in honor of Menil Founding Director Walter Hopps (1932–2005), the award recognizes curators in early to mid-career who have made significant contributions to the field of contemporary art and confers a stipend of $15,000.

Medina, a prolific Mexico-city based critic, curator and historian is  a full-time researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). From 2002-2008 he was the first Associate Curator of Art, Latin American Collections, at Tate Modern in London, and has written a column of art criticism, titled El Ojo Breve, for the Reforma newspaper in Mexico City since 2000. Most recently, Medina was Head Curator of the Manifesta 9 Biennial in Belgium in 2012.

Nac Film Theory, a group of filmmakers based in Nacogdoches, Texas has released the sixth episode of “Caballero,” in which a lone hero tackles human trafficking and the sometimes deadly pursuit of the American dream. The latest 3-minute installment of the mud, blood, and drama saga is now in circulation on multimedia websites such as Comcast’s Houston’s Voice channel (also featuring Is it Art Yet? is a program produced monthly highlighting the Fine Arts Departments at HCC!) and Youtube.

Nac founders Gabriel Carmona and Branden Selman work to unite artists with interests in cinematography, screenwriting, and film production. Their new series follows the somewhat more tongue-in-cheek social activism of their documentary on “Librotrafficantes,” smuggling banned Mexican American history books into Tucson schools.

Google has outfitted cars, vans, trikes and snowmobiles to collect imagery of places like Antarctica, the Amazon and the Great Barrier Reef, and, a few weeks ago, sent a team of intrepid photo-mappers down the Bright Angel Trail and out the South Kaibab Trail to collect 360-degree imagery of America’s big trench using a backpack-mounted multi-camera.

Artist Alex Rubio and poet Carmen Tafolla at SACA’s Recent Huevos Rancheros Gala

San Anto Cultural Arts has a new Executive Director: Harvey Mireles, former board treasurer for the San Antonio Community arts organization, and former Associate Director for The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, assumes leadership of an unsteady ship: since the untimely death of San Anto’s beloved founder Manny Castillo in 2009, the nonprofit has had two short-lived directors and three even shorter-lived interim directors.

In addition to a new Executive Director, SACA also added two new managers for its main programs: John Medina will head SACA’s Community Mural/ Public Art Program and Mari Hernandez will oversee the El Placazo Community Newspaper and Mentor Program.

The org also added three new board members: Ernesto Rubio, former Executive Assistant at the Office of Cultural Affairs for the City of San Antonio; Roxanna Salas, Director of Public Relations for Boss Creative, will be SACA’s new Public Relations Board Chair; and Adriana Garcia, former Adjunct Instructor at the International Academy of Design and Technology brings experience as an artist and educator.

According to a report  by Elda Silva in the San Antonio Express-News, in September, the organization’s board issued an open letter acknowledging concerns about San Anto voiced at a community meeting — a laundry list of issues including financial mismanagement, a high staff turnover rate and lack of leadership. The new Director and staff seem to represent the beginnings of a new era of stability.

Photo: Billy Farrell/PatrickMcMullan.com

The New York Times reports that in a recent lawsuit mega-dealer Larry Gagosian revealed that he frequently represented both the seller and buyer in multimillion dollar art deals without disclosing his double-agent status to either party. The dispute arose over the sale of a Roy Lichtenstein painting: collector Jan Cowles claims that Gagosian sold the painting without authorization, AND that he let it go too cheaply, to another of his clients, for $2 million, pocketing a $1 million commission for himself on the deal.

Documents made public by the case include a sales pitch offering the Lichtenstein to collector Thompson Dean, a managing partner of a private equity firm, as a bargain: “Seller now in terrible straits and needs cash,” said one e-mail to Mr. Dean from the gallery. “Are you interested in making a cruel and offensive offer? Come on, want to try?”

In defense, Gagosian claims that the painting was offered for consignment by art dealer Charles Cowles, Mrs. Cowles son, who was in financial straits and lied about his permission to sell his mother’s painting. Things can get mixed up when you’ve got eleven galleries in different cities across the globe- last May, British collector Robert Wylde sued Gagosian for selling him another of Jan Cowles paintings, The Innocent Eye Test by Mark Tansey, again via Charles Cowles. Gagosian and Cowles overlooked the fact that the Metroplitan Museum of Art was a part owner of the work. The Met sued Wylde to get their painting back, Wylde sued Gagosian, and so it goes . . .

Saudi Prince Waleed bin Talal (center), his wife Princess Amira al-Taweel (left) and Azerbaijan’s first lady Mehriban Aliyeva attended the opening of the Louvre’s new wing last month.

The Business Insider reports on the new, $125 million Islamic art wing at the Louvre in Paris as part of an effort by museums internationally to educate western viewers on Muslim cultures as an antidote to relentless negative news since 9/11. $20 million for the Louvre’s 10-year  project came from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Likewise, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Islamic collection is getting a $40 million facelift.

Last week both the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Dallas Museum of Art announced significant upgrades in their Islamic art programs.

Hi-res scans reveal the master’s tricks!

The Kimbell Art Museum has become the second Texas institution to go online as part of the Google Art Project, a part of the company’s push for total free global information access. Kimbell Director Eric M. Lee is delighted: “We are thrilled to participate in Google’s Art Project; Google’s commitment to making art freely accessible to all audiences, both locally and internationally, is shared by the Kimbell Art Museum.” he said.

71 of the Kimbell’s 350 works were put online, including including new acquisitions like Michelangelo’s fantastic Torment of Saint Anthony, and Poussin’s Sacrament of Ordination, and some old favorites: Caravaggio’s Cardsharps, and Goya’s Portrait of the Matador Pedro Romero, but, alas, not Ensor’s darkly humorous Skeletons Warming Themselves.