NEW YORK—Alanna Heiss, the founder of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, is retiring from her position as the center's director, the New York Press reports. Heiss founded P.S.1 in 1976 as a space for large-scale visual and performing artworks by established and emerging artists; the center merged with the Museum of Modern Art in 2000. In 2009, Heiss plans to launch Art International Radio (AIR), which will feature artistic, musical, and performance programs, as well as conversations with artists, curators, and academics. A search committee will be formed next year to find a replacement director for P.S.1.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Senate has confirmed artist Barbara Prey to serve on the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body for the National Endowment for the Arts. Prey, a watercolor painter, has artwork in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the White House. She was honored by the New York State Senate with a Women of Distinction Award. Replacing outgoing council member Mark Hofflund, managing director of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, she will serve a six-year term.

PARIS—Andreas Beyer will be the next director of the Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte (German Forum for Art History) in Paris, Artforum reports. Beyer is a former professor at Basel University and an expert in Renaissance art. He will succeed current Deutsches Forum director Thomas W. Gaethgens on February 1.

BONN, Germany—The Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany) has appointed Robert Fleck its new director, reports Artdaily. Fleck has been director of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg since 2004. He served as the federal curator for visual arts in Austria from 1991–93, co-curator of Manifesta 2 – European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Luxembourg in 1998, and from 1998 to '99 was in charge of the international postgraduate program of the School of Fine Arts in Nantes; he was the school's director from 2000 to 2003.

DÜSSELDORF, Germany—Kunstsammlung NRW, the art collection for North Rhine Westphalia also known as K20 and K21, has announced that Marion Ackermann will be its new director, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports via Artforum. Ackerman is an art historian and former curator at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (CK), and she has been director of the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart since 2003. She also sits on the advisory board of the Berlinische Galerie and the Goethe Institute.

Farewells
LONDON—British art historian and former National Gallery director Sir Michael Levey died on December 28 at the age of 81, the Guardian reports. Levey joined the staff of the National Gallery in 1951 as assistant keeper. He rose through the ranks there, becoming director in 1973 and retiring from the position in 1987. He also wrote extensively on art, covering many different schools of European painting as well as penning monographs on Botticelli, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Giambattista Tiepolo; the latter won the Banister Fletcher prize for best art book of 1986. He also wrote two novels and books on a variety of other cultural subjects, and was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He taught art at Cambridge and Oxford; became a fellow of the British Academy in 1983, and was knighted in 1981.

SANTA MONICA, Calif.—Robert Graham, a sculptor of civic monuments across the U.S., died on December 27 at the age of 70, the Associated Press reports. Graham's important works include the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., where bronze panels symbolize the social programs that Roosevelt initiated under the New Deal, and a lifesize bronze figure of Roosevelt sits in his wheelchair at the entrance; a memorial to boxer Joe Louis in Detroit; a monument to Charlie Parker in Kansas City, Mo.; a Duke Ellington Memorial in New York City's Central Park; and a number of prominent works in Los Angeles. Graham was inducted into the California Museum's California Hall of Fame earlier this month.