Art UK to digitise national sculpture collection

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Art UK announces project to catalogue British public sculpture online | Art UK has announced a major three year project to catalogue the national sculpture collection, with the aim of displaying every publicly-owned sculpture in Britain that was made in the last thousand years online by 2020. The initiative, which has partly been made possible by a £2.8m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, will see some 170,000 sculptures in museums, galleries, universities, hospitals and other public buildings across the country digitised and added to the artuk.org website for learning and research purposes.

Ei Arakawa work stolen from Skulptur Projekte Münster | An installation exhibited at Münster’s decennial Skulptur Projekte by the artist Ei Arakawa has been tampered with, with several component parts reported stolen. Entitled Harsh Citation, Harsh Pastoral, Hash Münster, the work consisted of seven digital paintings installed in a meadow. Police suspect the theft may have been planned in detail, as the perpetrators were ‘particularly careful to not damage the work.’

Mass resignations at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art | More than a dozen employees at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art have resigned, accusing the institution’s management of misdirecting funds and violating labour laws. According to the New York Times, ‘five full time staffers, at least two part-time visitor-services workers, and seven contract support staff and educators’ resigned from the museum on 13 June. The museum’s board has released a statement denying the claims of the former employees, stating that ‘there is no basis to the allegations concerning labor law violations and mistreatment of staff’.

Kassel to build permanent Documenta institute | Kassel’s city council has announced plans to construct a permanent ‘Documenta Institute’ that will serve as a research and events centre in the years when the quinquennial art festival is dormant. According to the Art Newspaper, the site has been selected and a budget of €24m agreed, with funds coming from the German government, the state of Hesse and from the city itself.

Sylvie Patry to return to Musée d’Orsay | Sylvie Patry, chief curator of Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation, is to return to the Musée d’Orsay to take up a position as deputy director for curatorial affairs and collections. Patry worked at the Paris institution for more than a decade before leaving for the USA in 2016. Associate curator Cindy Kang will act as interim leader of the Barnes Foundation’s curatorial department until Patry’s successor is named.