NEW YORK—William Morrish has been named the next dean of Parsons The New School for Design's School of Constructed Environments, which encompasses the school's architecture and interior, lighting, and product design programs. He was previously the chair in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning at the University of Virginia. He is an urban designer whose ideas have been implemented through the Phoenix Public Art Works program, the THINK team's World Trade Center proposal, and in efforts to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He starts at Parsons on July 1.

LONG BEACH, Calif.—The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) has announced the appointment of Cecilia Fajardo-Hill as vice president of curatorial affairs and chief curator. From 2005 to 2008, she was director and chief curator of the Cisneros Fontanals Arts Foundation and the Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection in Miami. She worked as general director of the alternative contemporary-art space Sala Mendoza in Venezuela from 1997 to 2001. She starts at MOLAA on August 17.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand—Natasha Conland has been named curator of the fourth Auckland Triennial, which will run from March 13 to June 20, 2010, reports Artforum. Conland’s previous accomplishments include co-curating the Cafe 2 project for the Busan Biennale in South Korea in 2006; joint-curating the 2006 SCAPE Biennial of Art and Public Space in Christchurch, New Zealand; and curating New Zealand’s exhibition at the 2005 Venice Biennale with Commissioner Gregory Burke. She has worked as a curator of contemporary art at Auckland Art Gallery since 2006, where she organized the 2007 international group show “Mystic Truths.” She was also one of 12 international “curatorial comrades” appointed to the 2008 Sydney Biennale by Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev.

NEW YORK—The Association of Art Museum Curators has announced its selection of John Ravenal of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts as its fourth president. He will succeed George T.M. Shackelford of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Ravenal has worked at the VMFA since 1998 as the curator of modern and contemporary art. Before that, he served as an associate curator of 20th-century art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Among the exhibitions he has curated are “Artificial Light,” showcasing light-based installations by young international artists, in 2006; a survey of Robert Lazzarini’s sculptures in 2004; and “Outer & Inner Space” in 2002. He published a book, Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in 2007. The AAMC executive committee also elected Carol Eliel, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Helen Evans, curator of Byzantine art at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, to serve two-year terms as joint vice presidents.

Farewells
TUSCON, Ariz.—Prominent African-American painter Robert Colescott died on June 4 at his home in Tuscon at the age of 83, the New York Times reports. Colescott, who had battled Parkinsonian syndrome for many years, is best known for his paintings exaggerating and making fun of racial and sexual stereotypes, most notably his George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page From an American History Textbook. Colescott began to mature as an artist in 1949, when he lived in Paris for the year and studied with French cubist Fernand Léger. His career was celebrated when he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1997, becoming the first African-American to do so. Colescott’s relatively early embrace of racial issues in his art paved the path for contemporary African-American artists such as Ellen Gallagher and Kara Walker. His work is in several major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.