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Tuan Andrew Nguyen tapped for High Line commission, PAIN’s Megan Kapler heads to Housing Works, the Whitney Biennial, and more.
A rendering of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s commission for the High Line Plinth, “The Light That Shines Through the Universe” (image courtesy the artist and the High Line)
Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.
Move Over, Pigeon
While we’ve loved admiring Iván Argote’s 2,000-pound “Dinosaur” perched on the Manhattan High Line for the past year, it’s time to let him take flight. For the next Plinth commission, the High Line has tapped Ho Chi Minh City-based artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen to recreate one of the Bamiyan Buddhas, the pair of irreplaceable circa-6th-century reliefs destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. “The Light That Shines Through the Universe,” to be unveiled in March, will feature a 27-foot sandstone Buddha as a reminder that “cultural treasures — and shared history — can transcend physical destruction,” said curator Cecilia Alemani.
Two Art Funding Titans Join Forces
United States Artists and Artadia have announced a multi-year partnership to “empower artists nationwide,” which I hope is a euphemism for “hand over cold, hard cash.” (Given that the collaboration’s launch event was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Miami Beach, it’s looking promising!)
Please Join Us in Congratulating …
Megan Kapler (photo courtesy Kapler)
As a key member of PAIN, photographer Nan Goldin’s influential art and advocacy group, Megan Kapler helped expose the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma’s toxic philanthropy and their role in creating the opioid crisis. Kapler is now joining Housing Works, the beloved NYC organization that has served around 30,000 unhoused and low-income individuals living with HIV/AIDS to date, as director of Advocacy Communications. “Housing Works has inspired advocates all across the world and lifted people up when they needed it most,” Kapler told us. “I’m eager to honor their history, while helping to shape campaign messaging for these dark times we face.”
Also:
- The Whitney Museum of American Art revealed the 56 artists who will be part of the 2026 Whitney Biennial, opening March 8. Read more at Hyperallergic.
- The New York State Council on the Arts announced over 2,400 grants totaling more than $63 million to arts organizations and individual artists.
- April Sunami received the Aminah Robinson Artist Fellowship awarded by the Columbus Museum of Art and the Greater Columbus Arts Council.
- Wong Ping and Heidi Lau are the joint winners of the Sigg Prize 2025 from the M+ contemporary art museum in Hong Kong.
- Cornelia Stokes was named the inaugural assistant curator of Art of the African Diaspora at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the African Diaspora. The curatorial role has a three-year term; here’s to hoping it becomes permanent!
- The Photography Show released a list of exhibitors for its upcoming 45th edition in New York City, opening April 22. The fair will also debut a new section, Focal Point, dedicated to artists who are “redefining lens-based practice,” which sounds like something my optometrist would say.
Upstate Art Weekend Expands
Barry Hazard’s “walk-in painting” as part of the outdoor exhibition ENDS WELL at Upstate Art Weekend 2024 (photo Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)
Upstate Art Weekend (UAW), the annual event dedicated to art spaces in the beloved New York region, is launching a new initiative: UAW Open Studios, meant to spotlight local artists in the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains. If the model is similar to the original UAW — where organizations pay a few hundred dollars to be featured on an online map and other promotional assets — I do wonder how many artists will participate. More info on registration is expected next month, so we’ll see how it plays out.
JFK Turns in His Grave
A board chaired by President Trump, whose members were largely appointed by President Trump, has voted to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” the Washington Post reports. More seriously, Representative Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex officio member of the board, claimed she was muted during a vote held via video call when she tried to oppose the move.
