SAN FRANCISCO—The New Art Trust has named John R. (Jack) Lane its next president and CEO. Lane stepped down as director of the Dallas Museum of Art last May after almost 10 years in the position. He led the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 1987 to 1997 and Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art from 1980 to 1987. He also worked previously as assistant director for curatorial affairs at the Brooklyn Museum and assistant director at the Harvard Art Museum. The New Art Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of technology-based art.

LYON, France—The Lyon Biennial has announced that Catherine David will curate its 2009 edition. David is currently chief curator at the Direction des Musées de France, before which, she was a guest researcher at the Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin from 2005 to 2006. She has led Rotterdam's Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art and was artistic director of Documenta 10 in Kassel. Since 1998, she has been in charge of the Représentations Arabes Contemporaines, a project that fosters contact between the Arab world and the art world. In spring 2008, she received the Bard College Award for Curatorial Excellence.

NEW YORK—Haunch of Venison New York has announced its representation of American artist Brian Alfred. Alfred is known for his multi-media works that bring together painting, collage, digital drawing, and animation. His current projects include a print to be published by World House Editions and an artist's book published by Utrecht; both will be released in conjunction with the upcoming group exhibition "Landscape: How I See the World Around Me" at the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art in Japan. He will have his first solo show at HoV New York in October 2009.

MIAMI—The Miami Art Museum (MAM) has appointed Roger M. Buergel as the museum's first chief curator, deputy director for programs. A curator, professor of art history, and scholar of visual theory, Buergel has received acclaim throughout Europe as organizer of provocative exhibitions that examine aesthetics, politics, and culture. In 2007 he served as artistic director of "Documenta XII," a polemical exhibition praised for its emphasis on the aesthetic experience. Next year, MAM will move into a new 120,000-square-foot building in downtown Miami designed by Herzog & de Meuron. In anticipation of the 2012 opening, Buergel will join the museum in building its permanent collection and expanding its education programs. 

Farewells
French painter and well-known recluse Simon Hantaї, 85, died on September 11 in his apartment in Paris, the New York Times reports today. Born and raised in Hungary, Hantaї left Budapest for good with his wife due to a brief arrest by the Gestapo for a political speech he made. He eventually ended up in Paris, coming to prominence in the 1950s for his enormous, abstract canvases. In the '60s, he went on to develop a method known as pliage, involving the folding and tying of the canvas before applying paint, which results in shots of bold color starkly contrasting with large expanses of white. After representing France in the Venice Biennale in 1982, Hantaї disappeared from the public eye until the late 1990s, when he emerged from his prolonged silence to wide critical acclaim for his series titled "Laissées." Mostly famous in Europe, his work resides in the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and other major European museums; he exhibited at such U.S. institutions as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.

LONDON—Elizabeth Eames, scholar of medieval tiles, died on September 20 at the age of 90, according to the Guardian. Eames was first hired by the British Museum in 1949 on a temporary basis, but she eventually restored the museum's vast collection of tiles, organized an exhibition of them in 1970, and, in 1980, even wrote a catalogue for it that has close to 14,000 entries and is used by students throughout Europe. Eames was elected to the Society of Antiquaries in 1958 and later served on its council. She was vice president of a resurgent British Archaelogical Association, and also served in various capacities on a number of local archaeological societies, including as joint secretary of the Surrey Archaelogical Society.