Chiara Parisi to direct Centre Pompidou-Metz

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Chiara Parisi to direct Centre Pompidou-Metz | The Italian curator Chiara Parisi is set to become the new director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz in north-east France. According to reports, the official appointment of Parisi, who has been contemporary art curator at the Villa Médicis in Rome since 2017 and was previously head of programming at the Monnaie de Paris, is scheduled for 28 November. Parisi replaces Emma Lavigne, who has been appointed president of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. 

Iraq Pavilion at Venice Biennale closes in solidarity with youth protests | The Iraq Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, which features the Iraqi-Kurdish artist Serwan Baran’s exhibition ‘Fatherland’, has been closed early with the artist’s approval (the Biennale’s closing date is 24 November). The decision was made by the Ruya Foundation, the commissioner of the exhibition, which has published a statement calling for cultural institutions in Iraq to strike ‘[i]n solidarity with the popular youth uprisings that have erupted in Iraq against state corruption and deteriorating economic and living conditions’. The non-profit organisation’s Ruya Shop in Baghdad has also been closed. 

Ted Cullinan (1931–2019) | The architect Edward (‘Ted’) Cullinan, who in 2008 was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, has died at the age of 88. Cullinan was one of the first architects to take into consideration the environmental impact of his work, as in his design for his own home in Camden – described by Cullinan Studio as ‘an early example of a passive-solar house’. A statement released by the practice pays tribute to Cullinan’s ‘holistic vision for the practice of architecture that he described as a social act’.

Creative United releases Future of the Art Market Report | Creative United has released ‘The Future of the Art Market’, a report commissioned and published in partnership with Creative Scotland, Arteïa and DACS. The report, by the curator and consultant Lucy Rose Sollitt, considers the past 15 years of change to the market in order to make predictions about future trends – such as the potential for growth in the field of digital art. A free digital version of the report can be downloaded online.

Gillian Jagger (1930–2019) | The artist Gillian Jagger died in October at the age of 88. Jagger was born in London in 1930 but moved to Buffalo, New York as a child and later to New York City.  Over her career she developed a body of sculptural work made using natural materials such as lead, dead trees and even animal carcasses. After 1978 she lived on a farm in Ulster County with her partner, and later wife, Connie Mander.