Okwui Enwezor (1963–2019)

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Okwui Enwezor (1963–2019) | It has been announced that the curator, art historian, teacher, and former director of the Haus der Kunst, Okwui Enwezor, has died at the age of 55. Born in Calabar, Nigeria, Enwezor moved to New York in 1982 to study political science, before becoming a curator and critic in the 1990s. In the course of his distinguished career Enwezor is the only curator, apart from Harald Szeemann, to have been artistic director of both Documenta (in 1998) and the Venice Biennale (in 2015).

Sheela Gowda awarded Maria Lassnig Prize 2019 | The artist Sheela Gowda has been named the recipient of this year’s Maria Lassnig Prize, a biennial award for mid-career artists. Gowda is known for her work in sculpture and installation, using locally sourced materials from her home country of India. The prize, now in its second edition, comes with €50,000 and a solo exhibition to be presented at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau in Munich in spring 2020.

Lee Wen (1957–2019) | The Singaporean performance artist Lee Wen has died at the age of 61, reports Artforum. In much of his work, such as his well-knownYellow Man series, begun in the early 1990s, Lee explored themes of social identity and stereotypes. In 2005 he was awarded Singapore’s prestigious cultural award, the Culture Medallion.

Recommended reading | Alina Tugend at The New York Times poses the pertinent question that seems to be on the art world’s lips ‘Can Art Help Save the Planet?’In The Los Angeles Times, Christopher Knight considers the new curatorial approach of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and its plans to set up a non-departmental art museum.