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Weekly News Roundup: November 22, 2024
By THE EDITORS
Two of the winning photobooks: (left) TAYSIR BATNIJI, Disruptions (2024) and (right) TSAI TING BANG, Born from the Same Root (2024). Photos by Daniel Salemi. Courtesy Aperture, New York.
Taiwanese, Palestinian Artists Win Major Photobook Awards
Paris Photo and Aperture Foundation have announced the recipients of their 2024 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards. Among the four winners of the top prizes for their respective photobooks are Taiwanese artist Tsai Ting Bang and Palestinian photographer Taysir Batniji. Tsai clinched the USD 10,000 First Photobook Prize for his self-published title Born from the Same Root (2024), an intimate series of family photographs reflecting on the artist’s older brother and their shared childhood trauma. Batniji won Photobook of the Year for his publication Disruptions (2024), which visualizes the violent repression of Palestinians through digitally distorted images of Whatsapp video calls with his family in Gaza taken between 2015 and 2017. Now in its 12th year, the Paris Photo-Aperture PhotoBook Awards is a joint venture between the New York-based nonprofit publisher Aperture and Paris Photo, the world’s biggest international art fair dedicated to photography.
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, Monogram, 1955-59, oil, paper, fabric, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel, and tennis ball on canvas with oil and rubber tire on Angora goat on wood platform mounted on four casters, 106.7 × 160.7 × 163.8 cm. Courtesy Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York.
Centennial of Robert Rauschenberg’s Birth to be Commemorated with International Exhibitions
Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), a pioneering figure in American postwar avant-garde art, will be commemorated by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in a series of exhibitions coinciding with the centennial of his birth. The global tour will kick off in Germany in April 2025 at Munich’s Museum Brandhorst, followed by an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York in September; that same month The Menil Collection in Houston will exhibit Fabric Works from the 1970s. Presentations of Rauschenberg’s iconic works will also be held at Madrid’s Fundación Juan March from October 2025, Hong Kong’s M+ Museum (with a particular focus on his connections to Asia), and will conclude at Kunsthalle Krems in Austria in October 2026. Alongside these major retrospectives, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation will also offer grants related to programming, scholarship, and restoration. The foundation’s executive director, Courtney J. Martin, said that “through these celebrations, our vision is to move his ethos forward and reinforce his relevance to artists, change makers, and communities today and in the future.”
Portrait of NATASHA TONTEY. Photo by Leandro Quintero. Courtesy the Han Nefkens Foundation, Barcelona.
Indonesian Artist Natasha Tontey Wins Video Art Production Grant 2024
On November 19, the Han Nefkens Foundation announced Indonesian artist Natasha Tontey as the recipient of the 2024 Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant, presented in collaboration with seven partner institutions: Art Hub Copenhagen; ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur; Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; MAXXI, Rome; MoCA, Taipei; MOT, Tokyo; and Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Tontey was selected by the directors and curators of each institution for her “unique insight into ritual and tradition in the era of a fast-changing technological present.” She will receive USD 15,000 for the production of a new limited-edition work, to be completed by the end of July 2025. The Han Nefkens Foundation – Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant supports emerging contemporary artists who are of Asian nationality or currently residing in Asia, and working with screen-based video art. The nonprofit Han Nefkens Foundation will receive a long-term loan of Tontey’s produced work for presentation at art institutions worldwide with whom the Foundation collaborates.
Installation view of BROOK ANDREW’s The Space Between, 2018, site-specific installation, cotton, polyester, paint, fan blower, and metal, dimensions variable, at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2018. Courtesy the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi.
Nikhil Chopra, HH Art Spaces to Curate Sixth Kochi-Muziris Biennale
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale, South Asia’s largest contemporary art event, is gearing up for its sixth edition from December 12, 2025, to March 31, 2026. The biennale will be curated by Nikhil Chopra, a renowned Indian artist known for his interdisciplinary practice exploring India’s colonial history, alongside HH Art Spaces, an artist-run movement and collective he co-founded. Bringing together 60 contemporary artists from India and abroad, the curatorial vision aims to foster dialogue around human experiences in locations at the crossroads of ancient, modern, and contemporary influences. Since its inception in 2012, the Biennale has strengthened Kerala’s cultural identity, forging connections between Indian and international art communities. Amid restructuring within the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) and increased financial support, this edition seeks to secure its future impact on cultural development and tourism. As KBF President Bose Krishnamachari noted, Chopra’s visionary approach promises a “remarkable chapter” for the Biennale.
Key visual of the Tanoto Art Foundation’s upcoming symposium, "Soul of a New Organisation." Courtesy the Tanoto Art Foundation, Singapore.
Tanoto Art Foundation to Launch in Singapore
The Singapore-based private Tanoto Art Foundation (TAF) is set to open with an inaugural symposium on January 14, 2025, ahead of Singapore Art Week. Led by trustees Belinda Tanoto and Anderson Tanoto, as well as artistic director Xiaoyu Weng, the nonprofit establishment is dedicated to “nurturing dialogues around the experience of contemporary art in Southeast Asia” by “creating a space where artists, audiences, and diverse voices can come together.” For its debut, the TAF will launch a one-day symposium, titled “Soul of a New Organisation,” which will bring together art historians, artists, and curators to discuss the creative process behind building an organization “with a soul.” Additionally, the event will feature performances by acclaimed Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo and Chinese interdisciplinary artist Chang Yuchen.
