On July 10, the passing of On Kawara, a Japanese-born painter and conceptual artist, was confirmed by David Zwirner, the gallery which represented the artist since 1999, with an announcement posted on its website. He was 81 years old.

Three young Australian gallerists will launch a new art fair in Melbourne this August as a direct rival to the long established Melbourne Art Fair (MAF), which will run concurrently during the same month.

On July 9, the Whitney Museum of American Art announced the appointment of Christopher Y. Lew as its new associate curator. Assuming the role this summer, Lew will contribute to the Whitney’s contemporary program.

On June 10, Khin Maung Yin, one of the most admired and influential leaders of Burma’s modern art movement, died at the age of 76 from throat cancer. The painter was famous for his colorful paintings and portraits, as well as his eccentric character. In a 2010 biography, author Ma Thanegi describes Khin Maung Yin as: “more artist than man. He dismisses luxury or material possessions as superfluous.” Khin Maung Yin is considered to have led Burma’s modern art movement, together with artists including Win Pe and Paw Oo Thet and Khin One.

On June 12, New Delhi-based artist Amar Kanwar was named winner of the 2014 Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, an annual award that recognizes artists whose practice promotes social consciousness and an engagement with causes that advance equity and justice. The internationally acclaimed artist and social activist is known for his intricate video essays, which are developed from documentary practices and explore critical socio-political issues of the Indian subcontinent.

Melissa Chiu, current Director and Senior Vice President for Global Arts and Cultural Programs at Asia Society Museum in New York, has been named as director of The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, after museum’s previous director, Richard Koshalek, announced his resignation over a funding controversy one year ago.

On June 7, Seoul-based architect Minsuk Cho received  this year’s prestigious Golden Lion award at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale 2014 for the Korean Pavilion. 

Hong Kong-based artist Adrian Wong was announced last Friday, May 9, as the winner of this year’s Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Previous recipients of the decade-old award  have mostly engaged with more conventional mediums, therefore making Wong’s selection somewhat surprising. Wong himself, who creates conceptually rigorous sculptural works, often in reference to Hong Kong’s history, both real and imagined,  remarked, “I had long thought that the prize was one that was reserved for painters—so I was honored even to be nominated. Winning the prize was not something that I had mentally prepared for.” 

Berlin-based Anselm Franke has been appointed chief curator of the tenth edition of the Shanghai Biennale. Franke, who currently works as the Head of Visual Art and Film at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, says the Biennale will explore notions of subjectivity and creative process as it exists in contrast to “the logic of modernization, its rationalizations and standardizations” in an age of technological mediation.

On March 24, Japanese architect Shigeru Ban was announced as the 2014 laureate for the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize. The self-proclaimed “paper-architect” is recognized for his humanitarian practice, and innovative use of low-cost recyclable materials such as bamboo, fabric, fiber and paper tubes.

On March 26, the renowned abstract painter Chu Teh-Chun died in Paris at the age of 93. Following closely after the passing of his friend and fellow proponent of the Chinese Modernist movement Zao Wou-ki (1920–2013), last year, as well as Wu Guangzhong in 2010, Chu’s death marks the end of generation of Chinese painters living in Europe whose works continue to offer salient cross-cultural perspectives.

Sydney’s 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art has elected Edmund Capon as its new chair of the board. A London native, Capon brings with him 33 years of arts experience gained while working at Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, where he was director and chief curator since 1978.

The future of the Biennale of Sydney (BoS) has been thrown into question after last Friday, when its board capitulated to pressure from participating artists to sever ties with its founding partner and major sponsor Transfield, the contractor which manages Australia’s immigration detention facilities, currently on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea.

On March 5, the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) unveiled its plans to transform the historic Doha Fire Station into a new artist residency program. Fire Station: Artists in Residence is set to open to the public in November, by which time it will already have welcomed its first guests.