Director of Institute of Contemporary Art, Richmond, steps down

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Director of Institute of Contemporary Art, Richmond steps down | Virginia Commonwealth University has announced that Lisa Freiman has stepped down with immediate effect as director of its new Institute of Contemporary Art, just months before its official opening this April. The New York Times reports that Freiman, who has led the institute as since its inception in 2013, will remain as a tenured faculty member of the VCU School of Arts. Freiman says that she is leaving in order to pursue other projects, including a monograph on Claes Oldenburg.

Rhizome awarded $1m grant by Andew W. Mellon Foundation | Rhizome, an organisation dedicated to the preservation and promotion of digital arts and culture, has received a $1m grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The money will go towards the development of its ‘Webrecorder’ platform, an initiative described by Artforum as ‘the only free-to-use, open-source, web archiving platform of its kind, that allows users to create archival copies of websites’.

Michael Ellis appointed culture minister | As part of the wider reshuffle that saw Matt Hancock promoted to the head of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Michael Ellis has been named as the new Under Secretary of State at the ministry, with a brief covering the arts, culture, and heritage. Ellis replaces John Glen, who has moved to the Treasury.

Justin Maciejewski appointed director general of National Army Museum | The National Army Museum has appointed Justin Maciejewski as its next director general, replacing outgoing head Janice Murray. Maciejewski, who joins from McKinsey and Company, served in the British army for nearly 30 years, and was awarded a DSO for service in Iraq.

Recommended reading | In the NYRB, J. Hoberman writes on the Imperial War Museum’s ‘Art in a Time of Terror’ exhibition, and describes it as ‘sobering, serious stuff’. In the FT, Gareth Harris speaks to Steve Lazarides about his new gallery in Mayfair, discussing Banksy, curatorial elitism and the art of lying on a CV. At ArtNews, meanwhile, the editors have compiled an exhaustive list of entry fees at more than 200 American museums. Finally, the Guardian’s Nadja Sayej has written a piece in which she considers artist Christoph Büchel’s ‘problematic’ project to categorise the prototypes for a proposed US-Mexico border wall as ‘land art’.