New York City puts out call for designs for black history monuments

Our daily round-up of news from the art world 

New York City invites artists’ designs for black history monuments | The City of New York has invited applications from artists to design two new monuments to recognise the history of African Americans in the city. On Tuesday (22 October), the Mayor’s office announced its intention to put up a monument in Central Park to honour the black community that was evicted in the 1850s so that the park could be built. The second, planning permission for which was granted by the City Council in 2017, will be on the site of a burial ground in East Harlem, where African slaves were interred in the 17th century.

TeamLab to open galleries in Shanghai and Macao | The Japanese collective teamLab has announced that it will open permanent galleries in Shanghai, on 5 November, and in Macao in January 2020. The multimedia artists’ collective opened its first permanent premises, Borderless Tokyo, in June 2018, and proved the most popular single-artist museum worldwide over the year that followed.

Crowds scale Uluru Rock in Australia before ban | Large crowds of tourists arrived today (25 October) at Uluru Rock – previously known as Ayers Rock – to scale the summit of the rock for the final time, prior to a ban that will be begin tomorrow. The ancient heritage site is sacred for the local indigenous Anangu people, who have long argued that tourists’ behaviour on the site is disrespectful.

Recommended reading | In Frieze, musicologist Adam Harper analyses the ‘florid’ score, and moral ambivalence of the low-fi video-game Untitled Goose Game. In the New York Times, Nina Siegel looks at the current reputation of the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ and how the country’s museums use or avoid the term.