NVA in Scotland to close in September

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

NVA in Scotland to close by end of 2018 | The NVA, one of Scotland’s most respected arts organisations, has announced that it is to close in September. According to the Herald Scotland, the organisation has now had to abandon its plans to reclaim St Peter’s Seminary in Cardross, throwing the landmark brutalist ruin’s future into doubt. Having had its application for financial support rejected in Creative Scotland’s recent round of grants, the NVA unsuccessfully attempted to develop an alternative proposal for the seminary. The result ‘reinforced the many financial and structural challenges facing the company,’ it said in a statement. NVA’s final presentation, a collaboration with artist and filmmaker Rachel Maclean, will take place this summer.

Southbank Centre receives certificate of immunity from listing | The Southbank Centre in London has been turned down for listing and issued with a certificate of immunity (COI) by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, preventing the complex, which comprises the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, from being considered again for protected status in the next five years. This is the fourth time since 1992 that the government has ignored expert advice from Historic England (and its predecessors) that the buildings be listed. The Twentieth Century Society intends to challenge the decision.

Artists organise major political billboard project | The political action committee For Freedoms, run by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, has announced a new $1.5m initiative that will see a number of artists – including Marilyn Minter, Theaster Gates and Trevor Paglen – contributing to a series of political billboards to be installed across the USA. The billboards are intended not to support individual candidates but rather to involve the public in cross-partisan political debate. The project will be funded through 52 separate Kickstarter campaigns (one for a billboard in every US state plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico) with the aim of raising $3,000 for each campaign.

Irving Sandler (1925–2018) | The art critic and historian Irving Sandler has died in New York at the age of 92. Sandler is best known for his writing on the Abstract Expressionist movement, on which he penned the first authoritative study, the four-volume Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism (1970). As well as contributing regular criticism to Art News and the New York Post, Sandler also published books on artists including Alex Katz and Judy Pfaff and co-founded the non-profit gallery Artists Space in New York.