Jakarta Police Cancel Art Event

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Activists Fear for Freedom of Expression as Indonesia Bans Art Event | Cultural and Human Rights activists have expressed outrage and concern after police placed a ban on an arts event scheduled to take place at Jakarta’s Taman Ismail Marzuki cultural centre on Tuesday. According to the Jakarta Post, the police cited practical reasons of security as their reason, rather than any question of political censorship. Jakarta Arts Council chairman Irawan Karseno has nonetheless described the ban as an ‘arbitrary act of state’.

Ex-Lecturer Spared Jail After Allegedly Trying to Sell Forged Prints | Sheridan Tandy, a British collector and former lecturer at the University of East London has been spared jail after he attempted to sell 16 forged linocuts through an auction house. The prints, which were rejected by Sotheby’s and Bonhams, were eventually accepted by Lawrence’s, an auction house in Somerset. Tandy has been given a suspended six month sentence, but the court has ordered him to repay £4,500 plus £450 costs to Lawrence’s. Tandy’s plan was reportedly foiled when experts smelled fresh turpentine on the works.

Cumbrian Museums Damaged by Severe Flooding | Several museums in the northwest of England have been forced to close their doors following the severe floods that have swept the region in the past week. In Cumbria, Abbott Hall Art Gallery in Kendal was been flooded, and its coffee shop ‘destroyed‘, and staff are assessing the damage to artworks; while the Wordsworth House & Garden in Cockermouth has escaped inundation, but its gardens and cellars have been flooded with ‘a sea of mud and silt’, according to a communications officer.

Korean Artists Protest Appointment of New MMCA Director | Korean protest group petition4art has protested the appointment of Bartomeu Mari, who has been named as the new director of Seoul’s National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, reports The Art Newspaper. The contention stems from Mari’s time at Barcelona’s MACBA, where he cancelled an exhibition that featured a graphic statue of the late Spanish monarch Juan Carlos. The affair prompted Mari’s resignation and, as previously reported in Art News Daily, many art world figures accused Mari of ‘censorship’.

RIBA Announces New Global Architecture Award | The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced a new award to find the world’s best new building. The award, which will be open to any practising architect, will be judged by figures including Richard Rogers, Kunlé Adeyemi, and Philip Gumuchdjian.

Rachel Whiteread Gets Major Transatlantic Retrospective | Who said the YBAs had fallen from grace? Rachel Whiteread is to be the subject of a joint exhibition between Tate Britain and Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art. The exhibition will open in London in 2017 before transferring to the NGA in 2018–19.

JW Morrice Masterpieces Donated to National Gallery of Canada | 50 paintings by Canadian artist James Wilson Morrice from the collection of AK Prakash have been donated to the National Gallery of Canada in honour of the artist’s 150^th birthday. The National Gallery – already in possession of the world’s largest collection of Morrice paintings – will be significantly bolstered by the donation.

The Art Fund Announces Jurors for 2016 Museum of the Year | The hunt is on for Britain’s museum of the year. The Art Fund today revealed its jurors for the 2016 award, namely Augustus Caseley-Hayford, Will Gompertz, Cornelia Parker, and Ludmilla Jordanova. Place your bets now…

Editor’s note: The second story in this post, ‘Ex-Lecturer Spared Jail After Allegedly Trying to Sell Forged Prints’ was amended on 17 May 2017.