Good afternoon and welcome back to even more recaps of the news you need to know today.
The Shaker Museum receives a $1 million gift to build its new home
The Shaker Museum’s planned new home in Chatham, New York, received a major boost today from the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation to the tune of $1 million. Additionally, the foundation also pledged another $100,000 in grants to fund the museum’s operating budget. The Selldorf Architects-designed expansion, first unveiled last June, involves converting a Victorian-era brick hotel in downtown Chatham into an expansive new facility for the museum at an estimated cost of $18 million.
Kelly’s ties to the Shakers run deep; in its announcement, the museum noted that the late artist, who lived and worked just outside of Chatham in the nearby hamlet of Spencertown, began collecting Shaker objects in the 1970s and his vast collection was donated after his passing in 2015.
The Smithsonian’s new National Museum of the American Latino names its first director
Congress authorized the creation of the two new institutions under the Smithsonian umbrella at the end of 2020; the National Museum of the American Latino (NMAL) and the Women’s National History Museum. Now, although neither museum has a formal site on the or near the National Mall picked out yet, the NMAL has appointed its first-ever director to shepherd the project through construction and beyond.
Jorge Zamanillo will step into the role of founding director effective May 2. Zamanillo has previously served at the Smithsonian’s HistoryMiami Museum since 2000 in various roles ranging from curator to chief executive. It is unclear when construction will begin for either museum, as these projects typically have timetables spanning decades.
H/t to The Art Newspaper
The MTA caps NYC subway fares and introduces new perks
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is in such dire straits that, in an attempt to lure riders back to public transportation, it’s doing something rarely seen—lowering fares.
Starting at the end of this month, the MTA will implement a pilot fare program across bus, subway, and Metro-North Railroad (MNR) trains that will grant discounts to frequent riders. Starting on February 28, after 12 OMNY swipes, the rest of the week would be free for subway and bus riders. Monthly Metro-North tickets will also be discounted a further 10 percent, and all LIRR and MNR trains will be off peak through February 28.
The pilot program is expected to run for 4 months.
H/t to NBC New York
Fogarty Finger reveals a Flatiron riff in Queens
Fogarty Finger is giving Long Island City, Queens, its own Flatiron Building. Dubbed The Nova, the 24-story mixed-use tower bears a familiar wedge shape, complete with an upturned central entrance. The tower, which will hold 86 luxury condo units once complete, is currently under construction and slated for a September opening. Where the new building differs from its heavily ornamented inspiration is the facade—The Nova is instead clad in sleek, vertically fluted white terra-cotta panels.
H/t to 6sqft
The first posthumous Virgil Abloh retrospective will debut at the Brooklyn Museum
Virgil Abloh, designer, artist, DJ, and much, much more passed away at 41 on November 28, 2021, but a blockbuster retrospective of his work will come to the Brooklyn Museum this summer. Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech is Abloh’s first posthumous retrospective and will build on the show of the same name that ran at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019, a show that blended architecture with fashion, commentary on capitalism and racial stereotypes, and inimitable cool.
Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech will run from July 1 through January 29, 2023.
H/t to Artnet News
