Several Paris museums close amid Yellow Vest protests

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Several Paris museums close amid Yellow Vest protests | Several museums, art galleries and auction houses were closed in Paris over the weekend to avoid being targeted by Yellow Vest (or Gilets Jaunes) protestors. These include the Jeu de Paume, the Grand Palais, Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Some institutions and monuments have been damaged – the windows of the Jeu de Paume were broken and the Arc de Triomphe was broken into and vandalised, with rioters smashing the face of a statue portraying Marianne, symbol of the French Republic. The rioting broke out on Saturday afternoon, and is part of ongoing demonstrations against fuel taxes and president Macron’s government. So far 133 people have been injured and at least 400 have been arrested, according to Sky News.

Staff members at Whitney Museum demand action over vice chair’s ties to tear gas production | Almost 100 members of staff at New York’s Whitney Museum have demanded action in response to a Hyperallergic article revealing that vice chair of the museum’s board, Warren B. Kanders, owns Safariland, a company that produces tear gas. Photos posted on Twitter by the journalist Patrick Timmons showed Safariland canisters deployed against unarmed migrants at the US-Mexico border last week. The demands, which include a public statement from the museum and ‘a clear policy around Trustee participation’, were made in an open letter, also published by Hyperallergic.

Raqs Media Collective to direct 2020 Yokohama Triennale | Japan’s Yokohama Triennale has announced the New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective as the artistic director of the 2020 edition. The collective’s members – Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta – plan to consider Yokohama’s politics and past in their curation.

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation announces two art education funding initiatives | New York’s Helen Frankenthaler Foundation announced two new art education funding initiatives on Friday. The first initiative will provide grants worth a combined $5m to M.F.A and Ph.D programs in art and art history at U.S. universities over the next two years. Secondly there will be the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative, which plans to donate ten of Frankenthaler’s prints to ten university-affiliated museums, along with $25,000 to go towards their study and exhibition at each institution.