Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.
The Swiss Institute’s New Home
The Swiss Institute in New York City is acquiring a new permanent home at 250 Bowery, just across the street from the freshly renovated New Museum. The organization tapped architectural firm Johnston Marklee to renovate the space, which will open next spring with The Environment, a group exhibition inspired by a participatory project led by filmmaker Bud Wirtschafter in the 1960s Lower East Side. It’s a milestone moment for the Swiss Institute, which will own its location for the first time in its four-decade history.
Seattle Art Museum’s New Chief Curator
Frank Feltens was named the new chief curator of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), which includes the Seattle Asian Art Museum and the Olympic Sculpture Park in addition to SAM’s downtown headquarters. Feltens previously spent a decade at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, where he was associate director for curatorial affairs and curator of Japanese Art. His appointment to the Pacific Northwest’s largest cultural institution comes just weeks after workers at the museum voted to unionize in a landslide election calling for better wages and job protections.
What Else Happened?
- The African American Museum in Philadelphia acquired four works from La Vaughn Belle’s series How to Survive Colonial Nostalgia (2023).
- The contemporary art gallery Lyles & King in downtown Manhattan is closing after an 11-year run. Read more at Hyperallergic.
- Untitled Art released a list of 95 exhibitors in its upcoming Houston edition, taking place October 2–4.
- Sara O’Keeffe is joining the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania as its director and curator of Public Engagement and Research.
- Sarah Cain is now represented by Galerie Lelong in New York.
- Guim Tió is now represented by François Ghebaly gallery.
- The Center for Book Arts announced its 2026 Artists-in-Residence: Tatiana Arocha, Nneoma Njoku, Ashton Reeder, Sok Song, and kathy wu.
- The Studio Museum in Harlem, which opened its revamped and expanded building last fall, appointed Sherrese Clarke and Jamila Justine Willis to its board of trustees. Anita Blanchard — who is also a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago and a member of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art Advisory Board — was named vice-chair.
Raymond Pettibon and Abdelkader Benchamma Team Up on NYC Mural
Villa Albertine, the charming bookstore and cultural center run by the French Embassy on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, is getting a monumental new artwork. The Upper East Side gem, housed in the landmarked Payne Whitney Mansion steps away from The Met, has commissioned artists Abdelkader Benchamma and Raymond Pettibon to design a new ceiling mural for its iconic Ballroom.
Benchamma described the forthcoming installation, “Stella Terrea,” as “a vast mural in perpetual motion” that will engage celestial and cosmological motifs.
“From this idea emerges the installation: to reintroduce a poetic force into the sky at a time when outer space is increasingly becoming a territory to control, exploit, and colonize,” the French-Algerian artist said in a statement.
Pettibon will collaborate on additional figurative elements for the piece, which is slated to be unveiled in September.
