Berkshire Museum appoints Jeff Rodgers as executive director

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Berkshire Museum appoints new executive director | The Berkshire Museum of Art in Pittsfield, Massachusetts has appointed Jeff Rodgers as its new executive director. The museum has been looking to fill the position since last June, when former director Van Shields retired. Shields’s tenure was marked by controversy over the sale of a clutch of works from its collection to address a funding deficit. Rodgers comes to the institution from the South Florida Museum in Bradenton, where he serves as provost and chief operating officer.

Elmgreen & Dragset monument vandalised in Berlin | A Berlin monument created by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset to honour homosexual victims of Nazi persecution has been defaced with black paint, ARTnews reports. The memorial – a concrete cuboid, with a carved-out window in which a looped video plays – has been vandalised previously, a few months after it was unveiled in 2008. Berlin authorities are said to be investigating the act, since it is suspected to have been politically motivated.

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum buys Ritz Tower painting | The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe has announced the acquisition of Ritz Tower, Night (1928) – one of a small number of works by O’Keeffe to depict skyscrapers in New York. The purchase was made for an undisclosed sum from a private buyer last October; a month later, the museum sold three works by O’Keeffe at auction for a total of $23.3m.

Kimbell Art Museum names European art curator | Guillaume Kientz has been appointed as the new curator of European art at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Kientz was previously a curator at the Louvre; he also arranged the major ‘Velazquez’ exhibition at the Grand Palais in 2015, and will continue to work on the El Greco show at the Grand Palais, which is due to open in October this year.