1998 in art

Events from the year 1998 in art.

Events

 * April – Fans of Newcastle United F.C. decorate the newly erected Angel of the North sculpture with a giant replica of Alan Shearer's no. 9 shirt. Police remove the shirt after about twenty minutes.
 * 3 December – 44 governments participating in the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets approve the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art (or "Washington Declaration"), requiring efforts to be made to restore looted art to its original owners or their heirs.
 * Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (in the Kulturforum), designed by Heinz Hilmer and Christoph Sattler, opens.

Exhibitions

 * 1 November – Jackson Pollock retrospective opens at MoMA.

Awards

 * Archibald Prize – Lewis Miller, Portrait of Allan Mitelman No 3
 * Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester Artist of the Year – Wendell Castle
 * Gran Prix d'Antoine Pevsner – Constantine Andreou
 * Hugo Boss Prize – Douglas Gordon
 * Turner Prize – Chris Ofili

Works



 * Mark Calderon – Floribunda (bronze, Portland, Oregon)
 * Alan Collins – Legacy of Leadership (bronze, Berrien Springs, Michigan)
 * Michael Condron – Martian tripod (Woking, England)
 * Martin Creed – Work No 200: Half the air in a given space
 * Anthony Gormley – Angel of the North
 * David Hockney – A Bigger Grand Canyon
 * Alexander McQueen – Joan (fashion collection and show, London, February 25)
 * Mary Miss – Framing Union Square in the 14th Street–Union Square station in New York City
 * Ron Mueck – Ghost
 * Chris Ofili – No Woman No Cry
 * Valerie Otani – Folly Bollards (bronzes, Portland, Oregon)
 * Stephen Robin – Federal Triangle Flowers (sculptures, Washington, D.C.)
 * Piotr Uklański – The Nazis
 * Rachel Whiteread – Water Tower (New York City)

Publications

 * A hoax biography, launched on 1 April.
 * A hoax biography, launched on 1 April.

Deaths

 * 23 January – Victor Pasmore, English artist and architect (b. 1908)
 * 29 January - Karin Jonzen, British sculptor (b. 1914)
 * 7 March – Karen Holtsmark, Norwegian painter (b. 1907)
 * 12 March – Beatrice Wood, American artist and ceramicist (b. 1893)
 * 13 March – Bill Reid, Canadian artist (b. 1920)
 * 3 April – Wolf Vostell, German painter and sculptor (b. 1932)
 * 7 April – James McIntosh Patrick, Scottish landscape painter (b. 1907)
 * 25 April – Wright Morris, American novelist, photographer, and essayist (b. 1910)
 * 3 May – Otto Bettmann, German American image archivist (b. 1903)
 * 6 May – Sybil Connolly, Welsh-Irish fashion designer (b. 1921)
 * 18 May – Enid Marx, English textile designer (b. 1902)
 * June – Kali, Polish-American portrait painter and Polish Resistance agent during World War II (b. 1918)
 * 8 October – Zhang Chongren, Chinese artist and sculptor (b. 1907)
 * 25 October – Dick Higgins, English composer, poet, printer and early Fluxus artist (b. 1938)
 * 3 November – Bob Kane, American comic book artist and writer (b. 1915)
 * 13 November – Claude Serre, French cartoonist (b. 1938)
 * 2 December – Brian Stonehouse, English painter and Special Operations Executive agent during World War II (b. 1918)
 * 30 December – Joan Brossa, Catalan poet, playwright, graphic designer and plastic artist (b. 1919)