Laura Pye appointed director of National Museums Liverpool

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Laura Pye appointed director of National Museums Liverpool | Laura Pye will become the new director of National Museums Liverpool in August, it was announced today. Pye, who was born and raised in the city, will be responsible for the organisation’s eight museums, which include the Walker Art Gallery, the Museum of Liverpool, and Lady Lever Art Gallery. She is the current Head of Culture at Bristol City Council, responsible for the city’s five museums.

Architects announced for V&A Research and Collection Centre | The New York-based design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) will lead the design of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new Collection and Research Centre, planned for Here East in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The centre will enable access to thousands of objects from the V&A’s collection, and forms part of the V&A East project, along with the new museum planned for Stratford Waterfront. DS+R, who have won the contract in a competition, are responsible for the High Line and the transformation of Lincoln Center’s performing arts campus in New York City.

Luke Willis Thompson wins Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize | Turner-prize nominee Luke Willis Thompson has won the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2018 for his work autoportrait, it was announced today. The New Zealand artist’s 35mm film portrays Diamond Reynolds, who in 2016 used Facebook Live to broadcast the moments after her partner Philando Castile was fatally shot by a police officer in Minnesota. Thomson’s filmic portrait is presented as an installation at The Photographers’ Gallery, and shows Reynolds in private meditation.

German culture minister announces plans for 23 per cent hike in arts funding | German minister of culture Monika Grütters has announced plans to increase national arts funding by over €300m, according to Monopol (German-language article). The proposals would see Germany’s culture budget rise to €1.67bn, an increase of around 23 per cent, and would include a boost of €3.7m for the Humboldt Foundation, due to open in the reconstructed Berlin Palace in 2019.

Recommended reading | In Artforum, Hermann Nitsch, a leading figure of Viennese Actionism in the 1960s, discusses his current exhibition at Massimo de Carlo (London; until 25 May), arguing for a distinction between intensity and shock value in art. In the New York Times, an obituary of the late Tom Wolfe, by Deirdre Carmody and William Grimes, reveals how the writing of this ‘unabashed contrarian’ rubbed the art world the wrong way in the 1970s and ’80s.