Ben Uri Gallery announces plans to reinvent itself and sell part of its collection

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Ben Uri Gallery announces plans to reinvent itself and sell part of its collection | The Ben Uri Gallery in north-west London has announced plans to reinvent itself as an institution dedicated to art by immigrants from around the world. Originally founded as a community arts society in 1915 to promote the work of Jewish artists, the gallery has now decided to expand to include artists of all backgrounds. The restructuring involves selling or donating approximately 700 works from the existing collection, which is expected to raise up to £2m in funds for acquiring new art and developing research projects.

Bill Arning resigns as director of Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum | Bill Arning, director of Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, has resigned from his position with immediate effect. Arning joined the museum in 2009 but told ARTnews that his decision came following a ‘tough fundraising year’, during which he felt he wasn’t making the progress that he’d hoped for. ‘Stonewall 50’, a group exhibition curated by Arning, is going ahead next year as planned.

Institut du Monde Arabe receives gift of 1,300 works | The Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris has announced that it is the recipient of a major donation from the collector and dealer Claude Lemand and his wife France. The gift constitutes almost 1,300 works by artists from the Arab world, including Dia Al-Azzawi, Shafic Abboud and Zoulikha Bouabdellah, as well as funds for an endowment to support research, programming and acquisitions.