Moritz Wesseler appointed as director of Fridericianum in Kassel

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Moritz Wesseler appointed as new director of Kassel’s Fridericianum | Moritz Wesseler, former director of the Kölnischen Kunstvereins in Cologne, has been appointed to direct the Fridericianum in Kassel. Wesseler succeeds Susanne Pfeffer, who now heads up the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt. Wesseler will take up his post at the museum, which every five years serves as a key venue for the Documenta exhibition, on 1 November.

Dominic Willsdon named new director of ICA at VCU | Dominic Willsdon has been named the new director of the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Willsdon comes to the museum, which opened this past spring, with 12 years’ experience as curator of education and public practice at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Prior to that he was curator of public programmes at Tate Modern. Willsdon replaces Lisa Freiman, who resigned unexpectedly in January.

Glenstone Museum sued by contractors for $24m | Hitt Contracting has filed a lawsuit against the foundation behind the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland, which is set to open a major $200m expansion in October. The company, which was contracted to carry out the project in 2014, is seeking $24m in damages over ‘disorganised’ management resulting in repeated delays and additional expenses. 

New York gallery cancels exhibition featuring alleged neo-Nazi | An exhibition featuring controversial musician and artist Boyd Rice, who has been accused of being a neo-Nazi, scheduled to open this week at Greenspon gallery in new York, has been cancelled following criticism and alleged threats directed at the gallery. The claims that Rice is a Nazi sympathiser are partly based on a photograph, first published in Sassy Magazine in 1989, of Rice in the company of white supremacist Bob Heick, founder of the American Front. According to ARTnews, Rice has consistently denied allegations that he is a Nazi.

Recommended reading | In the New Yorker, Paul Bloom compares a new book by Ellen Winner, which answers philosophical questions about art by assessing the results of various psychological tests, with Eric Kandel’s Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, which argues that there are common methodologies found in both neuroscience and abstract art. In the Guardian, Renaissance researcher Jill Burke offers her opinion on the Royal Academy’s new gender quota for the exhibition of nudes. The Financial Times reports on private banks that now offer advice on fine art investment.