News

The International Center of Photography in New York will present Daido Moriyama with a recognition for lifetime achievement at the institution's annual Infinity Awards gala this May, it has been announced. Moriyama is the first Japanese photographer to earn the Lifetime Achievement Award, although others including Hiroshi Sugimoto (1999), Tomoko Yoneda (2004) and Lieko Shiga (2009) have been honored in the Art and Young Photographer categories. Also earning recognition at this year's 28th Infinity Awards will be Chinese conceptual artist and activist Ai Weiwei, who will receive the Cornell Capa Award, and media artist Stan Douglas, who will receive the Art Award. The award presentation and gala will be held May 2.

New York powerhouse gallery David Zwirner is expanding to London, it was officially announced in a press release dated Mar 13. Often compared to the multinational Gagosian Gallery and London's White Cube in terms of commercial influence and clout, Zwirner had focused most of its expansion to date on a single block of Manhattan, building up three locations on West 19th St in Chelsea. But now the gallery is establishing a prominent beachhead in the European market, taking over an 18th-century Georgian townhouse in London's Mayfair district. Located at 24 Grafton St, the new address was formerly home to residents including Lord Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and three-time Prime Minister of Britain, and the self-made cosmetics magnate Helena Rubinstein, as well as a private bank. Architect Annabelle Selldorf is overseeing a gut renovation of the five-story building, with primary exhibition spaces on three levels, and almost 10000-sqf of space. The gallery is on track to open during the Frieze Art Fair in October of this year, and will be inaugurated with an exhibition of paintings by Luc Tuymans, the artist's first solo show in London since a 2004 retrospective at Tate Modern.

Zwirner's expansion comes on the heels of the development by White Cube of a massive venue on Bermondsey Street in October 2011, complementing preexisting spaces in Hoxton Square and Mason's Yard. And it would seem that indeed not only in London but also in New York, Zwirner is eager to join the ranks of dealers operating institutional-scale programs, as he is also preparing a new 30000-sqf, five-story exhibition and project space on West 20th St in Chelsea, also scheduled for unveiling in fall 2012 and designed by Annabelle Selldorf. The gallery press release describes the new space as a site for large-scale presentations by the gallery's roster of Minimalist artists and for thematic, historical surveys of work by modern and contemporary masters.

Yoko Ono has been awarded Austria's highest recognition for contemporary art, it was announced at a press conference Mar 2 in Vienna. Named after the expressionist painter and playwright who lived from 1886 to 1980, the Oskar Kokoschka Prize confers a grant of EUR 20,000 to recipients and is administered by the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Led by Gerald Bast, the rector of the university, the jury cited Ono's early works Wall Piece for Orchestra and Cut Piece as among her most noteworthy. In a statement, they commended the artist's "pursuit of artistic innovation with the assertion of art's efficacy in society, which is convincing evidenced in her political engagement for peace and human rights. This is the latest in a string of major prizes for Ono, who was awarded the Hiroshima Art Prize in 2011 and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2009 Venice Biennale, alongside John Baldessari. Previous winners of the prize, awarded biennially since 1981, include William Kentridge (2008), VALIE EXPORT (2000), Agnes Martin (), Gerhard Richter (1985) and Mario Merz (1983).