Our daily round-up of news from the art world
Texas museums close due to Hurricane Harvey | Museums across Texas’s coastal region have been closed since Friday, when Hurricane Harvey made landfall. Among the institutions to take the precautionary measure were the Menil Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, and the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, the Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, and the San Antonio Museum of Art further inland. Several institutions have since issued statements confirming the safety of their collections, however the Rockport Center for the Arts building is reported to have suffered ‘severe damage’. The Texas Commission on the Arts has issued a statement inviting cultural institutions affected by the storm to contact them immediately. The majority of museums remain closed.
Singapore Art Museum suspends search for new director and CEO | Singapore Art Museum has halted its efforts to fill the vacant positions of CEO and director. The institution had been looking to fill the roles for over a year, following the resignations of director Susie Lingham and CEO Leng Tshua. ‘The museum has been running with no interruption to programming and development plans under the guidance and support of the SAM board executive committee,’ explained a spokesperson for the museum. ‘During this time, there is no intention to continue the search for a museum director’.
Newark Museum to expand American art galleries | New Jersey’s Newark Museum is to expand and rehang its permanent collection of American art, reports Artforum. The initiative has been made possible with a substantial grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, a donation which has also supported a new artist-in-residence programme at the museum, as well as the appointment of 19th-century landscape specialist William L. Coleman as its new associate curator of American art.