Tate signs memorandum to support Shanghai’s new Pudong Museum of Art

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Tate signs memorandum to support Shanghai’s new Pudong Museum of Art | Tate representatives and Shanghai Lujiazui Group – a state-owned developer in China – signed a Memorandum of Understanding yesterday at Tate Modern. The memorandum has formalised their agreement that Tate will offer expertise on strategy and management to the Pudong Museum of Art, which is scheduled to open in Shanghai in early 2021. Tate will also lend artworks from its collection to the museum, with three exhibitions planned so far.

Activists occupy El Museo del Barrio on its 50th anniversary | A group of 15 Latinx activists occupied New York’s El Museo del Barrio during its 50th anniversary celebrations yesterday evening. Wearing t-shirts with the slogan ‘El Museum Fue del Barrio’ (‘the museum left the neighbourhood’), Hyperallergic reports that the protestors read out an open letter known as the ‘Mirror Manifesto’, which was signed by several artists, activists and scholars in March. The letter accuses the museum of abandoning its Puerto Rican and Latinx community roots in favour of more commercially viable Latin American work. The museum responded to the manifesto in April, claiming that it was in the process of ‘expanding [its] curatorial team with the call for a Latinx Curator’.

Guggenheim workers prepare to unionise | Workers at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York have announced they are preparing to unionise for fairer wages and shorter hours. Last week they filed a letter of intent to be represented by the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 30. One employee told Hyperallergic that ‘employment policies like scheduling overtime, wages, and benefits haven’t kept up with other institutions’. The Guggenheim has issued a statement saying: ‘We respect the right of our employees to decide whether they wish to be represented by a union.’