Museum Watch Releases

• Petition against the closure of Museum Morsbroich

  

  March 2015. CIMAM wishes to express its support to the Museum Morsbroich in Leverkusen by sharing the petition against its closure and encouraging CIMAM members to sign.

• A public appeal for the dismissal of the Minister of Culture of Croatia

  

  February 2016. The recently established Croatian Government appointed Mr. Zlatko Hasanbegović as minister of culture. Yet he has no experience in the cultural sector and he publicly promotes extreme political views.

• Call on the Saudi authorities to release Ashraf Fayadh

  

  November 2015. We, the undersigned organisations, all dedicated to the value of creative freedom, are writing to express our grave concern that Ashraf Fayadh has been sentenced to death for apostasy.

• CIMAM supports Walid Raad, Andrew Ross and Ashok Sukumaran after the recent ban on their entry to the UAE

  

  May 2015. In recent weeks, The UAE authorities have refused visas to or denied entry and deported a number of artists and academics including Andrew Ross and Ashok Sukumaran.

• CIMAM supports Tania Bruguera

  

  April 2015. CIMAM wants to express its deep concern for the situation of legal vulnerability that Tania Bruguera is currently facing in Havana, following the artist’s initiative in December 2014 to re-stage her performance Tatlin’s Whisper on Havana’s Revolution Square, giving people access to an open microphone for one minute.

• CIMAM supports Hedwig Saxenhuber and Georg Schöllhammer, curators of Kiev’s biennale

  

  March 2015. CIMAM wishes to express its support to Hedwig Saxenhuber and Georg Schöllhammer and their team in their efforts to hold the biennial despite the withdrawal of Mystetskyi Arsenale, which was supposed to serve as key organizer and main venue.

• Artists for Kobanê

  

  December 2014. More than 200,000 people have been displaced by recent IS attacks in Kobanê, Shengal and many other towns and areas in northern Syria and Iraq. All proceeds of this auction will be used to meet the urgent needs of the refugees. The auction will start on Thursday, December 4th and will be open for bidding through December 18th, 2014.

• Support Manuel Borja-Villel, Director of Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid

  

  October 2014. CIMAM supports Manuel Borja-Villel, Director of Museo Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid, and the entire team at the Museum in their opposition to the attempted censorship of a work of art.

• Mardin Biennial Postponed

  

  October 2014. The Third Mardin Biennial that was supposed to open on 17 October on the Syrian border, in the multi-ethnic ancient city of Mardin, Turkey, has just been postponed.

• What happened to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade?

  

  September 2014. MOCAB has been closed to visitors since 2007 for the purpose of undertaking a much-needed reconstruction which today is still far from completion.

• The Izolyatsia Cultural Center in Donetsk, Ukraine, has been occupied

  

  July 2014. On Monday morning 9th June 2014 the premises of the Izolyatsia foundation were forcibly occupied by the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic), a terrorist organization operating illegally and without sovereign authority within the city of Donetsk.

• Support Koyo Kouoh and the Raw Material Company

  

  June 2014. After the opening of the exhibition “Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness” the contemporary art center was vandalized and forced to interrupt the exhibition due to continuous pressure and acts of violence from the religious community.

• Ukrainian Museum Director Destroys Critical Painting Ahead Of President’s Visit

  

  July 2013. Natalia Zabolotna’s primary job as director of the Mystetskyi Arsenal art museum in Kyiv was to oversee the pieces under her roof.

• Turkey: Report on Osman Erden & more

  

  July 2013. Our colleague Osman Erden, Assistant Professor at the Department of Art History at Mimar Sinan University Fine Arts and President of AICA, Turkey, was detained for about six hours. He was beaten by the police before the arrest.

• Brazilian uprising

  

  July 2013. Update on current events in Brazil by Luiz Camillo Osorio. Political demonstrations have shaken Brazilian streets in the past two weeks. Driven by public transport issues, they grew dramatically and gained an amazing scale with a series of overlapping demands.

• Urgent call to Turkish government

  

  June 2013. CİMAM is very concerned about the intimidation of cultural actors and intellectuals and of independent voices in Turkey.

• Support Marta Gili, Director of Jeu de Paume

  

  June 2013. CIMAM wishes to express its support to Marta Gili, Director of Jeu de Paume, and the entire team at the Jeu de Paume who have received threats by groups and individuals who oppose the presentation of Ahlam Shibli’s work.

• QR Codes for Syria

  

  March 2013. Róza El-Hassan, artist and activist born in Budapest, of Hungarian and Syrian origin, was asked to write about the present situation of Syrian museums, artists, art spaces and cultural institutions for CIMAM's Contemporary Art Museums Watch.

• Culture Shut Down — Day of Museum Solidarity

  

  February 2013. CULTURESHUTDOWN has initiated a cultural awareness campaign in reaction to the closure of major cultural institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

• Santralistanbul Museum Moves to Auction off its Collection

  

  February 2013. In the process of decommissioning santralistanbul, formerly one of Istanbul´s most celebrated new cultural institutions, Istanbul Bilgi University has broken faith with the art world by putting the works in its collection on the auction block.

• Museum of Latin America Art, Long Beach (MOLAA)

  

  November 2012. Ms. Fajardo-Hill was not fired. Rather, the board simply eliminated the position, along with three other full-time posts as part of a 15% cut in the budget.

• At War with Contemporary Art

  

  June 2012. By Pascal Gielen. The brusque measures taken by the Dutch neo-liberal government against the cultural sector this year have left many flabbergasted. Even more surprising, though, has been the lukewarm reaction of the sector itself.

• Hungarian Museum System – On the Threshold of Chaos

  

  February 2012. By József Mélyi. After the elections in 2010 there were many who were not only counting on the newly established government, with its two-thirds majority, committing themselves to economic reforms but also to long-awaited reforms in the culture institution system – including the public collections.