Multiple new appointments at London’s ICA

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Multiple new appointments at London’s ICA | The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London has appointed three new council members and two new department heads, the Art Newspaper reports. High-profile additions include German-born artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who joins the institution’s governing body along with Delya Allakhverdova, a Russian collector, and Lebanese patron Maria Sukkar. Also announced today is a US-focused patronage programme, The American Friends at the ICA. This wave of announcements comes during a concentrated period of change at the ICA, following the arrival of new director Stefan Kalmár in January this year. For our recent analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing the institution, see here.

Record $9 million bequest for National Museum of Women in the Arts | Washington D.C.’s National Museum of Women in the Arts has received a bequest of $9 million – the largest individual gift in the institution’s 30-year history – from the estate of California business woman Madeleine Rast, it was announced yesterday. Rast, who died in January of this year aged 92, was a founding member of the museum as well as an annual donor and member of its advisory board. When the bequest was established in 1986 it was valued at $2 million; according to a report in the Washington Post museum officials ‘did not know until this year that it had grown to more than four times’ this amount.

UK’s National Campaign for the Arts chair issues post-election statement | Samuel West, chair of the UK’s National Campaign for the Arts, has issued a statement following the reappointment of the secretary and minister for culture after last week’s election. Both culture secretary Karen Bradley and minister for culture Matt Hancock have been kept in place by Theresa May in her reshuffled cabinet. In his statement West renews his call, at what he called ‘a challenging time for the country’, for a sustained focus on arts funding, education and access, asserting that ‘the arts should have a huge role to play in the cultural, educational and economic health and well-being of the United Kingdom’. The statement also casts particular scrutiny on the Conservatives’ proposed cultural development fund.

Blaffer Art Museum appoints Toby Kamps as new director | Toby Kamps, modern and contemporary art curator at the Menil Collection in Houston, has been chosen to direct the nearby Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston. Kamps succeeds former director Claudia Schmuckli, now curator-in-charge at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, who oversaw an award-winning expansion of the Blaffer in 2012.

Edit DeAk (1950–2017) | New York art critic, poet and co-founder of 1970s art periodical Art-Rite Edit DeAk has died. Art-Rite, which was published from 1973 to 1978 by DeAk along with artist-critic Walter Robinson and writer Joshua Cohn, featured cover designs by famed artists including Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys and Pat Steir.