Exterior of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s Naala Badu (left) and Naala Nura (right) buildings. Photo by Iwan Baan. Courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales.
AGNSW Announces Buildings’ Indigenous Names
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) revealed the Aboriginal name of its new building, Naala Badu, on April 16, approximately one year after it opened. Naala Badu means “seeing waters” in the Indigenous Dharug (Sydney) language, referring to the builidng’s location overlooking the Sydney Harbour and the surrounding waters which nurture local communities. Naala Badu was designed by the Pritzker-winning firm SANAA as a key component of the AUD 344 million (USD 215 million) Sydney Modern Project, the city’s largest cultural development project in recent decades. AGNSW’s original 19th-century gallery building also received a Sydney-language name, Naala Nura, meaning “seeing Country,” as it faces Domain Parklands and the city. Supported by AGNSW’s Board of Trustees, its Indigenous Advisory Group, and staff, the institution extensively consulted key Aboriginal stakeholders and communities on the names, including the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, to recognize and respect Indigenous histories, languages, and knowledge.
Installation view of Frieze Seoul 2022 at COEX Convention & Exhibition Center in Gangnam-gu. Photo by Lets Studio. Courtesy Lets Studio and Frieze.
Korean Art Events Band Together For September
Korea’s Culture Ministry announced on April 22 that it will spearhead the promotion of major South Korean art events through the 2024 Korea Art (“K-Art”) Festival, an initiative scheduled for September. Unlike last year’s Korea Art Week, culture minister Yu In-chon clarified that the ministry will play a bigger role in supporting organizers of major art biennales, museums, and commercial art fairs to synchronize its events and schedules. The art events include the Busan Biennale (August 17–October 20); Korean Art Week (September 1–11); Seoul Art Week (September 2–8); the 15th Gwangju Biennale (September 7–December 1); Frieze Seoul (September 4–7); and Kiaf Seoul (September 4–8). Korea’s global art event Frieze Seoul will host 120 galleries from across the world at COEX Convention & Exhibition Center in the Gangnam district, and is edition will share venues with Kiaf Seoul.
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Prize winners at Riverside Theatres in Sydney on April 23, including (left to right) ZAINAB SYED, HON TONY BURKE, SUSAN TEMPLEMAN, and ADRIAN COLLETTE. Courtesy Asia Pacific Arts Awards.
2024 Asia Pacific Arts Awards Recipients
On April 23, Creative Australia, the arts council of the Australian Government, unveiled five recipients of its inaugural Asia Pacific Arts Awards at Riverside Theatres in Sydney: classical and contemporary Indian dance artist and scholar Priya Srinivasan (awarded in the Impact category); Melbourne-based transcultural artist network Hyphenated Projects (Innovation); Sydney-based queer Filipino-Australian artist collective Club Até (Inspire: Individuals/Collectives/Groups); Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art and the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Inspire: Organizations); and Australia’s leading Asia-themed contemporary arts festival OzAsia Festival (Connect). Chosen by an independent panel of industry advisors, the recipients share a prize pool of AUD 125,000 (USD 82,000). An initiative of the government’s 2023 cultural policy “Revive,” the prizes are dedicated to Australian artists, collectives, and organizations across Asia Pacific.
Exterior of Tate Britain. Photo by Rikard Osterlund. Courtesy Tate Britain.
Turner Prize Shortlist 2024
Tate Britain has revealed the four shortlisted artists of the prestigious Turner Prize 2024, including Filipino visual artist Pio Abad, British figurative artist Claudette Johnson, Scottish Sikh artist Jasleen Kaur, and British-Romani transdisciplinary artist Delaine Le Bas. Abad was nominated for his ongoing exhibition “To Those Sitting in Darkness” (2024) at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum; Johnson for her 2023 shows “Presence” at London’s Courtauld Gallery and “Drawn Out” presented at New York’s Ortuzar Projects; Kaur for her exhibition “Alter Altar” (2023) at Glasgow’s Tramway; and Le Bas for “Incipit Vita Nova: Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning” (2023) at Vienna’s Secession. Coinciding with the prize’s 40th anniversary, an exhibition of the artists’ work will be held at Tate Britain from September 25 to February 16, 2025; the award ceremony will take place at the same location on December 3. The winner will be awarded GBP 25,000 (USD 31,200) with GBP 10,000 (USD 12,500) awarded to the other shortlisted artists.
Photo of repatriated bronze head from a statue of a youth, c. 100 BCE-c. 100. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Museum.
Getty Museum Repatriates Ancient Roman Bronze
On April 24, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles announced that it had returned an ancient Roman bronze head to Turkey. Purchased in 1971 from antiquities dealer Nicolas Koutoulakis, the bronze, along with other items sold to the museum, were found to have been looted. The Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office asserted that the object was stolen in the 1960s from the pillaged Roman-era site Bubon, leading to the museum’s decision. The Turkish government has long demanded the return of looted objects from the Getty Museum, whose director Timothy Potts stated that the institution seeks to continue building a constructive relationship with the Turkish Ministry of Culture to advance cultural heritage preservation. Getty has been returnng art objects since 2011 to Greece, including one purchased from the same disgraced dealer.