Inés Katzenstein to be first director of Cisneros Institute at MoMA

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Inés Katzenstein to be first director of Cisneros Research Institute at MoMA | The Museum of Modern Art has chosen academic and curator Inés Katzenstein as the inaugural director of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America. Katzenstein, who worked at MoMA early in her career before founding the art department of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, has also been made the museum’s curator of Latin American art. The Institute’s work will build on a gift of works from Latin America endowed by Gustavo Cisneros and Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, conducting research into the art of the region and analysing it in both a local and global context.

Frida Escobedo to design this year’s Serpentine pavilion | Mexican architect Frida Escobedo has been chosen to design this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, the gallery announced on Thursday. Escobedo, 38, founded her practice in Mexico City in 2006, and has since gone on to win several prestigious architecture world accolades. Her pavilion will be pivoted on an axis aligned to the Greenwich Meridian, while also drawing on the distinctive internal courtyards typical of Mexican domestic architecture.

UK government promises crackdown on unpaid arts internships | The British government has sent warning letters to businesses known or reputed to use unpaid interns, reports the Guardian. As part of a drive to crack down on such unpaid positions, HMRC is expected to target sectors including the media and the arts, also issuing guidance to employers explaining when they are legally obliged to pay ‘volunteers’ at least the minimum wage. Although minimum wage legislation has made many forms of unpaid internship illegal, the government admits that no prosecutions have been made since current law was brought into force.

Recommended reading | Following the Pentagon’s decision to deny Guantánamo Bay detainees ownership of works created as part of an art programme at the detention facility, Hyperallergic reports that lawyers acting on behalf of the inmates are protesting that the measure will be counterproductive and advocating the reinstatement of art classes. In the New York Times, Deborah Solomon speaks to Jasper Johns as his retrospective opens at LA’s Broad Museum.  Finally, the LRB blog has published the text of Jonathan Meades’s eulogy for Gavin Stamp, which was read (by Otto Saumarez Smith) at the architectural historian and Apollo contributor’s funeral last month.