The Met and the Brooklyn Museum turn down Saudi funds for upcoming projects

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

The Met and the Brooklyn Museum turn down Saudi funds for Middle East programmes | Following the international uproar over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the New York Times reports that the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum are refusing Saudi funding for upcoming Middle Eastern art programmes. A symposium titled ‘Collecting and Exhibiting The Middle East’ is due to open at the Met, however the museum’s CEO and President, Daniel Weiss, has said that ‘in light of recent developments we have decided that the museum will itself fund this event.’ Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Museum has refused Saudi funds for an exhibition about Syrian refugees. Also in New York, Columbia University has postponed a talk with Saudi artist Ahmed Mater due to take place on 22 October.

Glasgow’s Winter Gardens is to shut indefinitely for repairs  | BBC reports that Glasgow’s popular venue, The Winter Gardens, will close indefinitely from the end of 2018, due to vital repairs that may cost up to £7.5m. Allegedly, the closure comes after safety concerns, with a spokesperson from Glasgow City Council saying: ‘A full report of the plans will be submitted to elected members and the relevant committee in due course.’ The council are said to be trying to ensure that the People’s Palace museum stays open.

Simone Leigh awarded the Hugo Boss Prize | The American artist Simone Leigh has won the 2018 Hugo Boss Prize. Founded in 1996, the biennial prize comes with prize money of $100,000 as well as a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim in April 2019. Leigh is the 12th artist to receive the prize, and was praised by the international panel of judges for her ‘unwavering commitment to addressing black women as both the subject of and audience for her work.’

Diedrick Brackens wins $50,000 Joyce Alexander Wein Prize | Los Angeles-based artist Diedrick Brackens has been awarded The Studio Museum’s Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, which comes with $50,000. The annual prize, in the memory of longtime trustee George Wein’s wife, Joyce Alexander, is awarded to an African-American artist who creates work demonstrating ‘great innovation, promise, and creativity.’

Niels Van Tomme leaves de Appel Museum for Argos Centre for Art and Media | Art News reports that Dutch curator and critic Niels Van Tomme will resign from his post as Director of the de Appel Museum in Amsterdam where he has worked since 2016. In November, he will take up a new position at the Brussels-based Argos Centre for Art and Media, specialising in audiovisual arts.

Recommended Reading | In The New York Times, Martha Schwendener discusses what it means for Sarah Lucas’s work to be surveyed at the New Museum, New York in the age of the #MeToo movement. Tom Ravenscroft at Dezeen surveys Herzog & de Meuron’s new designs for Berlin’s Museum of the 20th century, a vast building that will occupy the remaining undeveloped land of Berlin’s cultural district.