Artangel – the British public art commissioning organisation – has appointed Mariam Zulfiqar as its new director – Zulfiqar has been heading up the National Arts Programme at Forestry England with a focus on art and ecology; previously she has also worked as an independent curator for Chiswick House and Gardens and deputy director and chief curator for UP Projects. James Lingwood and Michael Morris, longtime Artangel co-directors, stepped down earlier this year after thirty years. Zulfiqar will take up the new role in January 2022. Zulfiqar said in a statement: ‘I have been following the work of Artangel since I went to see Michael Landy’s Breakdown in Oxford Street in 2001. At the time, I was studying Public Art at Chelsea College of Art. Since then, Artangel’s work has continued to exemplify what ambition and excellence looked like in this area of the arts. To be appointed director of an organisation I admire greatly is an honour, and I am excited to bring my focus on social and environmental issues to its future programming.’
Christopher Y. Lew is leaving his role as curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, after seven years in the post. Lew – who previously worked at MoMA PS1, and organized the 2017 Whitney Biennial with Mia Locks – is joining a yet-to-be-named nonprofit and start-up.
The Inuit performance artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory – whose work engages with Indigenous history and tradition, including Greenlandic mask dance – is the recipient of the 2021 Sobey Art Award, which comes with a prize of USD$80,000. The award’s other shortlisted artists are: Lorna Bauer, Rémi Belliveau, Gabi Dao and Rajni Perera. Bathory said in a statement: ‘In a time when we recognize that this Canadian soil bears the small bodies of many thousands of Indigenous children, in an era when we work through colonial institutions to keep our families safe in the pandemic and at a moment when the Arctic city I live does not have potable water coming from the taps, I am proud to be recognized as I tell you the story of a momentous experience my family had on the land’.
