Weekly News Roundup: February 18, 2022

India Will Open the First Museum of South Asian Visual Culture in Bengaluru

​​The first museum of South Asian visual culture, the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), will open in Bengaluru (Bangalore) in late 2022. The project is initiated by industrialist and philantropist Abhishek Poddar, whose collection comprises 20,000 items ranging from modern and contemporary art, folk and tribal art, to graphics, textiles, and photography. The founding director of MAP is Kamini Sawhney, who was previously the head of the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation in Mumbai. The 4,100-square-meter, three-story building is designed by Matthew & Ghosh Architects, and is located on the Kasturba Road in the city’s museum district near the Venkatappa Art Gallery and the Government Museum. To attract young visitors and make the experience accessible, entrance will be free of charge, except for specially curated exhibitions. In December 2020, the museum launched its online initiative, which features exhibitions that utilize VR, AR, animation, and video, and also offers online workshops.

Vancouver Welcomes the Country’s First Chinese Canadian Museum

The Wing Sang building, a historic landmark in Vancouver’s Chinatown, will be transformed into the first Chinese Canadian Museum, slated to open in 2023. The new museum will include space for exhibitions and events as well as a learning space. The two-story, Victorian-era Italianate building was acquired in 2004 by the real-estate marketer and art collector Bob Rennie, who spent CAD 22 million (USD 17.3 million) on the five-year renovation with local architects. The Rennie family also announced a CAD 7.8 million leadership gift. Since 2009, the building has housed the Rennie Museum, the family’s art collection, and the Rennie corporate offices. The Wing Sang building was originally built by Yip Sang, who was once the unofficial mayor of Chinatown, in 1889, three years after the city’s establishment.

Sohrab Mohebbi Named SculptureCenter’s New Director

On February 15, New York’s SculptureCenter appointed Sohrab Mohebbi as its new director, beginning in March. Since 2020, he has been SculptureCenter’s curator-at-large, and previously served as the nonprofit’s curator from 2018 to 2020. As director, Mohebbi will oversee the institutional strategies and develop exhibitions and programs at the SculptureCenter. The current interim director Kyle Dancewicz will serve as deputy director. While leaving his position as the Kathe and Jim Patrinos curator at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art, Mohebbi will continue to lead the 58th Carnegie International until the quinquiennial exhibition opens in September.

2022 Aotearoa Art Fair postponed to November

The 2022 Aotearoa Art Fair, New Zealand’s annual contemporary art fair, will be postponed to November 16–20 in light of the latest Covid-19 restrictions imposed by the government of Aotearoa New Zealand. Due to the transmission of the Omicron strain in the community, the latest public health measures—the so-called “Red Traffic Light setting”—restrict public gatherings to 100 people. Originally scheduled for March 3–6, the fair will feature 40 galleries with new work by more than 180 artists at The Cloud in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. In 2021, galleries at the fair sold NZD 10 million (USD 6,700,000) worth of art and the fair attracted more than 10,000 visitors. The postponement is supported by New Zealand’s Event Transition Support Payment scheme, which removes all payment triggers for large-scale events scheduled between December 17, 2021 and April 3, 2022.

• Bengaluru
• Vancouver
• New York
•  Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland