Guggenheim to return Kirchner painting to heirs of Alfred Flechtheim

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Guggenheim agrees to return Kirchner painting to heirs of Alfred Flechtheim | The Guggenheim Foundation will return the Kirchner painting Artillerymen (1915) to the heirs of Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim. Flechtheim was forced to abandon the work when he fled the Nazis for Switzerland in 1933, after becoming the target of aggressively anti-semitic press. The Guggenheim Foundation acquired the painting from MoMA in 1988, but it first travelled to the United States in 1948 when it was consigned to New York’s Weyhe Gallery by the mother of Nazi collector Kurt Feldhäusser.

Theaster Gates’ Rebuild Foundation receives $300,000 from JPMorgan Chase | Artist Theaster Gates’ Chicago-based nonprofit the Rebuild Foundation has received $300,000 from JPMorgan Chase, as part of the bank’s plans to invest $40m in the city. The Rebuild Foundation provides artist residencies, arts education and programming with a focus on the Chicago’s South Side black community.

MacArthur Foundation awards 2018 ‘Genius’ grants | The MacArthur Foundation has awarded its 2018 MacArthur Fellows Program or ‘Genius’ grant to 25 recipients, including the artists Julie Ault, Titus Kaphar and Wu Tsang.

José Esparza Chong Cuy appointed executive director and chief curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture | José Esparza Chong Cuy has been named the new executive director and chief curator of New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture. He was previously an associate curator at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and has other times served as a contributing editor to Domus magazine and a research fellow at the New Museum. Esparza Chong Cuy begins the role in November.

Vera List Center names Chimurenga winner of 2018–20 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice | The Vera List Center has named South African art collective Chimurenga as the winner of the 2018–20 Jane Lombard Prize of Art and Social Justice. Chimurenga was founded in 2002 by the Nigerian journalist Ntone Edjabe, and uses various media platforms, including the journal Chronic and the exhibition space Pan African Space Station, to highlight African culture and challenge traditional assumptions about the continent’s history,

Recommended reading | In The Art Newspaper, Anny Shaw reports on the debate surrounding the nomination of Luke Willis Thompson for this year’s Turner Prize. In the Financial Times, Griselda Murray Brown interviews Kerry James Marshall, who has a new show at David Zwirner in London, about painting, race and the Western canon.