Grafton Architects win Pritzker Prize

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Grafton Architects win Pritzker Prize | The Irish firm Grafton Architects have won the Pritzker Prize 2020. Run by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the firm is known for designing buildings such as the Bocconi University in Milan (2008) and UTEC University in Lima (2015), as well as for their civic architecture practice. They received the RIBA Gold Medal last month, while this year has also seen the opening of their first building in the UK, Town House at Kingston University.

More than 2,000 arts professionals endorse Elizabeth Warren | More than 2,000 artists and professionals in the culture industry have signed an open letter endorsing Elizabeth Warren’s bid for the presidency of the USA; they include Catherine Opie, Dawoud Bey, and Aruna D’Souza. Last week, 665 artists announced their endorsement of Bernie Sanders. 

Google launches VR site for Chauvet caves | One of the oldest sites of prehistoric cave painting in the world is now accessible online in virtual reality, via Google Arts & Culture. The website was developed in a collaboration between Google and the Syndicat Mixte de l’Espace de Restitution de la Grotte Chauvet – the public body behind the development of a replica cave, which opened in 2015 in an attempt to preserve the original site while offering visitors an experience of the 36,000-year-old frescoes.

Kurdish artist Fatos Irwen released from prison in Turkey | The artist and educator Fatos Irwen has been released from prison in Turkey, after being sentenced in 2016 for a number of charges including ‘resisting the police’. The Kurdish artist’s work was shown in the Artists at Risk Pavilion exhibition in Helsinki in 2019.

Louvre reopens after closure over coronavirus | The Louvre Museum in Paris has reopened to the public, having been closed since Sunday due to concerns of staff regarding the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Representatives from the staff union met with museum management yesterday (3 March) to discuss the closure.