The week in art news – Danish and Dutch museums close in lockdowns

On Friday the Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen announced that public venues including museums, art galleries, theatres, cinemas, concert halls and  amusement parks should close on Sunday at 8am. The measure is part of new restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus cases. Of the partial national lockdown, Frederiksen said, ‘Our goal is still to keep as large sections of society open as possible. We need to curb activity. We all need to limit our social contacts.’  Updated on 18 Dec: The Dutch government has announced a strict two-week national lockdown coming into force on Sunday and due to last until at least mid January. All museums are to close during this period.

Earlier this week, The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) announced that it is postponing the March edition of the fair in Maastricht, due to take place on 12–20 March. New dates are still to be announced, but plans for TEFAF New York in May remain unchanged. The decision, the fair said in its statement, was prompted by the unpredictable nature of Covid, the financial risk to both the fair and its exhibitions and the safety of all participants. Salon du Dessin, due to take to place in Paris in March, is also delayed from March to 18–23 May.

The pioneering Black feminist writer bell hooks has died at the age of of 69. In her most famous book Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism (1981), bell hooks argued that working-class and Black women had hithertoo been marginalised in the women’s movement. She went to publish more than 30 books of essays and poetry. She once said, ‘My work is so eclectic; it spans such a broad spectrum.’ From 2004, hooks taught at Berea College, a liberal arts college that does not charge tuition, in the state of Kentucky and in 2010 the school opened the bell hooks Institute at Berea College.

The photographer Sally Man is this year’s winner of the Prix Pictet. Her Blackwater series of tintypes from 2008–12 documents devastating wildfires at the Great Dismal Swamp in south-eastern Virginia. David King, chair of the Prix Pictet jury, said: ‘If ever there was a time for the Prix Pictet to take up the theme of fire, that time is now.’ An exhibition of work by all the shortlisted photographers can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, until 9 January 2022.

And in recent appointments, Denis Weil is to be the new director of the Israel Museum. Weil is currently dean and professor design at the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Lesley Lokko has been appointed curator of the International Exhibition at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, to be held in 2023. The Ghanaian-Scottish Architect has taught at architecture schools all over the world and in 2015 founded the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg.