Angel Otero, Splintered (2019), via Lehmann Maupin

Currently on view at Lehmann Maupin, artist Angel Otero’s Milagros, marks a new trajectory for the artist, a series of recent, large-scale tapestry-like oil paintings that hang entirely free from a stretcher bar and which twist and pull the notion of the composed canvas through a series of rigorous conceptual and formal exercises. Working with the history of painterly abstraction and the fusions of sculptural and painterly form that have wound through this history, the artist’s works draw on a mixture of collage and composition. (more…)

For the third time, President Trump’s proposed annual budget has pushed to cut funding to the NEA. “The Administration believes audiences and aficionados are better than the Government at deciding what art is good or important,” the budget states. (more…)

At this year’s Venice Biennale, the island of Giudecca will launch an official Art District, including 11 art galleries and three national pavilions— Estonia, Iceland, and Nigeria. “The island of Giudecca has an incredible legacy as a platform for nurturing contemporary art and we are thrilled to placing all of its current galleries and future projects under one umbrella of Giudecca Art District,” says director Pierpaolo Scelsi. “We want to give Venice back to Venetians and art lovers around the world by creating one united art quarter that is a go-to destination for anyone visiting the city.” (more…)

Thanks in part to The Met’s new admissions fees, New York’s Department of Cultural Affairs has been able to earmark $2.8 million to 175 arts organizations throughout the city.  “This agreement has allowed the Met to thrive while giving us a unique opportunity to increase cultural investment in our underserved communities—allowing us to support the diversity that makes our city great at no additional cost to taxpayers,” Mayor Bill de Blasio says. (more…)

Fearing protest, the Sackler Trust has abandoned a donation of $1.32 million to London’s National Portrait Gallery.  “It has become evident that recent reporting of allegations made against Sackler family members may cause this new donation to deflect the National Portrait Gallery from its important work,” a spokesperson says. “The allegations against family members are vigorously denied, but to avoid being a distraction for the NPG, we have decided not to proceed at this time with the donation. We continue to believe strongly in the gallery and the wonderful work it does.” (more…)

Yukinori Yanagi, Ground Transportation (1987/2019), via Blum & Poe

Currently on view at the Blum & Poe flagship in Los Angeles, the gallery has taken on a particularly compelling and eye-opening investigation of the landscape of Japanese Contemporary Art during the 1980’s and 90’s.  Curated by Mika Yoshitake, Parergon is a striking look at the history and culture of the nation as it experienced a turbulent period of economic boom and bust, and sought to work through the cultural, political and historical traumas of the decades before.   (more…)

LACMA has collapsed two major departments into one this year, combining its American and European holdings into a single department as part of director Michael Govan’s plan to gradually arrive at a more fluid museum structure, LA Times reports.  (more…)

Lehmann Maupin will open a new office and viewing room in London, with Isabella Kairis Icoz taking on the position of senior director. “Isabella is a longtime collaborator and important international perspective for the gallery,” says Rachel Lehmann. “She was key in identifying a London space which would suit our present needs, and where we will have the ability to showcase our program and explore a new phase of the business.” (more…)

A $12.5 million Renoir sold at TEFAF this week, marking one of the fair’s major sales during a strong week.  The fair’s first VIP preview drew 5,000 visitors, with many more expected in the nine days to come. (more…)

Sotheby’s will offer Claude Monet’s Meules from 1890 at its May 14th auction in New York, an impressive work carrying a $55 million estimate.  “It is a privilege to present one of Claude Monet’s defining Impressionist paintings in our Evening Sale this May,” says August Uribe, Sotheby’s head of Impressionist & Modern Art. “Monet’s Haystacks series has long served as an inspiration to countless artists since its creation in the early 1890s, and continues to inspire anyone who has viewed one of these canvases first hand.” (more…)

The LA Times has a piece on Klaus Biesenbach’s love affair with the architecture of the MOCA. “Everyone said, ‘Do you like the building?’ ” he says of his first notes on the beauty of the building. “I said, ‘This is such an important piece of architecture, we need to let it shine.’ ” (more…)

Curator Okwui Enwezor, the critically-precise, adventurous curator who up until recently served as the head of the Haus der Kunst in Germany, has passed away at the age of 55 after a long battle with cancer. “He was one of the leaders of, let’s call it, the free curatorial world—one of the people who believed in intelligence and scholarly research and passion and the power of the curatorial,” says Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the director of the Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy, and curator of Documenta 13 in 2012.  (more…)

The Art Newspaper charts the damage and financial cost of the recent government shutdown faced by federal museums and arts institutions. “I think that’s the biggest loss—the public-facing piece,” says Melissa Chiu, the director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. (more…)

The New York Times spotlights the upcoming Frieze New York sculpture show set to open next month at Rockefeller Center in the run-up to Frieze New York.  “The plaza gets half a million people through it every day,” says Loring Randolph, the artistic director of the Americas for Frieze Art Fairs. “There couldn’t be a better place for the artists to have better exposure.” (more…)

The NYT sits painter Stanley Whitney down with theater director Joe Mantello to discuss their respective arts and visions this week. “A signature style is a very odd thing now,” Whitney says. “It’s not something people really think is a good idea anymore. They feel it’s a limitation.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on a Willem de Kooning work stolen in 1985 and recovered in 2017, stating that it will be shown off before being sent for restoration. “The F.B.I. has kept this an open case,” says Olivia Miller, the University of Arizona Museum of Art’s curator of exhibition. “The painting has been at the museum but it was still considered evidence, so it wasn’t allowed to leave until this past November.” (more…)

A piece in The Art Newspaper looks at recent moves by collector Budi Tek in Los Angeles, and asks if the collector might be branching out towards new exhibition ventures. The collector recently posted a photo of himself online looking at a raw space on Chongming Island.  (more…)

Curator Larry Ossei-Mensah is profiled in the NYT this week, as he reflects on his current curatorial vision and interests in artists working today. “People who are looking to instigate a conversation that might not be in the mainstream, voices that might not always have a platform. Because I look at a lot of art all the time, I see a lot of shows, but then there are the things that stimulate me because it’s historic or an artist who is trying to break the form,” he says. (more…)

Artist Eric N. Mack has claimed that his work Halter (2019), a large-scale sculpture featuring patterned fabrics draped over a disused gas station near the Salton Sea for the Desert X show, has disappeared. “As I process the loss of this artwork that I and many others worked tirelessly to realize, I am only pacified by knowing that many visitors experienced and appreciated it as it was,” the artist said. “While the violence and hate enacted on this installation is astounding, I will not allow for this disregard to become a gesture that obstructs nor defines this work of art.” (more…)

Ian Cheng, BOB (Detail), via Gladstone

Currently on view at Gladstone Gallery’s New York City gallery, artist Ian Cheng is giving the world premiere of his new work BOB (Bag of Beliefs), the first of a series of artificial lifeforms created by the artist.  BOB is presented as an evolving, chimeric serpent, twisting and moving on-screen in a manner that sees him both learning from, and failing in, his new digital environment.  Long a devotee of simulations and learning environments, BOB advances Cheng’s use of these modes to focus on one’s capacity to deal with surprise: the subjective difference between expectations and perception. (more…)

The New York Times has a piece this week on the ever-expanding holdings of major museums, and the experimentation with their collections that curators are undertaking.  “There is this inevitable march where you have to build more storage, more storage, more storage,” says Charles L. Venable, the director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. “I don’t think it’s sustainable.” (more…)

Kara Walker will create the Tate Modern’s next commission for its Turbine Hall, The Guardian reports.  “Kara Walker fearlessly tackles some of the most complex issues we face today,” says Frances Morris, the museum’s director. Her work addresses history and identity with a powerful directness, but also with great understanding, nuance and wit. Seeing her respond to the industrial scale of the Turbine Hall – and the wider context of London and British history – is a hugely exciting proposition.” (more…)

A piece in The Art Newspaper this week explores the increasingly vocal activism of museum employees as they try and unionize in the face of increasingly hostile work situations, even as museums continue to grow and expand. “The industry is so decentralized, it’s really hard for it be unionized,” says a member of the Art Handlers Alliance of New York (AHA-NY). “You have this pyramid of inequity that goes all the way from collector down to art handler, where there’s pressure from all different places, and everyone wants everything right away.” (more…)

Sir John Richardson, the British art historian and critic whose expansive work on Pablo Picasso earned him high-praise as a master of documentation and research, has passed away at the age of 95. “It must have been hell to be his child or his mistress but to his friends he was beguiling,” Richardson said of the artist. “There was never a dull moment.” (more…)