Rhizome has opened its 2015 admissions process for its net art microgrants, small financial contributions for projects and new work created online.  The open call runs through July, with winners announced in early August. (more…)

Lisa Yuskavage is interviewed in The Paris Review this week, shortly after opening a show at David Zwirner earlier this month.  In the interivew, Yuskavage reveals some unconventional aspects behind her new work, including dabbling in online dating networks.  “It’s interesting because in order to make some of these paintings of men, I did something a few years ago—I didn’t realize why I was doing it at the time. I joined Grindr. I had a Grindr persona.”  Yuskavage tells the magazine.  “You didn’t think I was going to say that today, did you?” (more…)

A new report released by fine art insurance company Hiscox finds that an increasing number of collectors, at least 75% of those surveyed, are viewing online art sales as an investment opportunity.  “I wonder whether this change in attitude is genuine,” says Robert Read, the head of fine art at Hiscox, “or whether it is a dot.com moment where people feel they are missing out if they don’t.”

Ebay has launched a new section of its website this week, making good on its long-hinted-at art sales collaboration between the auction giant and Sotheby’s.  The site will stream all sales from the auction house save its major biannual sales.  Early highlights include an offering modern and contemporary photographs by Man Ray, Paul Strand and László Moholy-Nagy on April 1st. (more…)

The Whitney Museum has embarked on an ambitious expansion of its online database, dramatically growing its selection of images from 700 to 21,000 works.  A sizable portion of the museum’s collection, which has long been out of public view, will occupy a 60,000 square-foot section of the Whitney’s new Meatpacking District space. (more…)

The trailer for Woman in Gold has been released, a film focusing on the attempts of former refugee Maria Altmann to reclaim the Gustav Klimt masterwork Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, stolen from her family during the reign of the Third Reich. (more…)

More than 40,000 works from the Smithsonian’s Asian Art Collection have been digitized, and will be placed online for public use by New Year’s Day.  “The depth of the data we’re releasing illuminates each object’s unique history, from its original creator to how it arrived at the Smithsonian,” Courtney O’Callaghan, the director of digital media and technology, says.  (more…)

Richard Prince, Untitled (Portrait) (2014), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph By Robert Mckeever.

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery’s smaller galleries at 976 Madison, Richard Prince’s new set of Instagram-culled pieces are nearly as potent in exposition as they are in person, a series of images pulled directly from the social media app’s user accounts, and blown up to immense scales, full-sized canvases that command the attention of viewers passing by on the street outside. (more…)

Online auction site eBay is attempting a second foray into the world of live online art sales, a second venture outside its upcoming collaboration with Sotheby’s.  The new site is open to a select group of New York art galleries, and allow live bidding on works from around the world. (more…)

The New york Times has published an interesting video piece this week, a 24-second stop-motion piece showcasing 156 wigs used by Cindy Sherman in her photographic work.  The wigs were shot in Sherman’s New York studio by Leanne Shapton.  (more…)

As part of new project titled “After Dark”, the Tate Britain will deploy four remote-controlled robots throughout its galleries for five nights beginning September 13th. The public will be able to watch live-stream footage on the Tate’s website as the camera-equipped robots roam the museum’s collection, which includes works by David Hockney, Lucian Freud, and Henry Moore, for five hours each night. Since the robots choose new operators every few minutes, some viewers might get the chance to control the feed and see their favorite artworks in the empty galleries. (more…)

Partnering with Beijing’s Tsinghua University Art and Science Media Laboratory (TASML) and the Center for Art and Technology at CCIA (CAT/CCIA), Rhizome has announced a $10,000 cash prize to one Internet artist.  The award will be handed out annually three times total over the course of the next three years, through 2016. “Internet art remains less recognized, less supported,” the organization said in a statement. “This prize gives a boost to those who continue to make art on the Internet, and emphasizes the unique cultural importance of such work.” (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced a partnership with online auction giant eBay, with the aim of offering easy access to streaming coverage of the auction house’s sales worldwide, and to broaden the company’s reach beyond its traditional buyer pool.   “Even if we only reach point 1 percent of eBay users, that’s huge for us,” says Sotheby’s COO Bruno Vinciguerra. “The point is to make our sales more accessible to the broadest possible audience around the world, all the while remaining totally committed to our high end.” (more…)

The New York Times has published a profile on Ryder Ripps, the net artist and designer who has worked on major branding campaigns and web design projects alongside his own online practice, including his role as the founder of image community Dump.FM and the viral WhoDat.Biz hoax, a website falsely attributed as a new project from Kanye West. (more…)

Ai Weiwei has backed the new Digital Arts website The Space which will commission and showcase new art online for website visitors.  The artist has also donated the names of 5,196 student victims from the Sichuan Earthquakes in 2008, in the hope that The Space will use them to create a new work.  “It gives another opportunity and a platform for artists or somebody like me to work with. I believe many, many young people and students will love it,” Ai says.  (more…)

The Wall Street Journal notes the growing trends for bidding at major auctions to move towards phone and online bids, leaving auction rooms looking much less filled out, even at some of the biggest sales of the year.  “People are busy, they’re working. They don’t want the expense of flying here, waiting four or five hours for their lot to show up,” says Paul Minshull, COO of Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. “They can sit at home in their underpants and bid by phone.” (more…)

Google has launched a new project, an online street art gallery of images provided by cultural organizations and Google’s Street View camera.  But with the company’s entry into the conversation on the documentation  of street art playing out against the criticisms Google has seen regarding privacy and surveillance, the move should offer interesting discussion points for open access to art online and in the streets.  “I’ve always used my street art to democratize art, so it would be philosophically inconsistent for me to protest art democratization through Google,” says Shepard Fairey. (more…)

An article in The Guardian notes the growing popularity for online auctions as a means of discovering young artists, and offering an entryway for new collectors to first experience the art market.  “The idea is to make great art available to a far broader audience,” says Joshua Blackburn, founder of online gallery Artful. (more…)

Online art sales surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time in history last year, The Art Newspaper reports.  The market is also expected to double in less than ten years, according to special insurance group Hiscox.  The news was accompanied by a survey that noted some drawbacks to buying online, including an inability to see the work in person, but also noted a high number of customers to be aged under 30. (more…)

A recent interview with Christie’s head Steven Murphy for the Wall Street Journal notes the auction house’s commitment to entering the online market.  “I felt the art auction world had not experienced the tidal wave that music, video and books experienced with the advent of online,” said Mr. Murphy, who has worked with Rodarte and Disney in the past. (more…)

Artists Ai Weiwei and Olafur Eliasson have launched their collaborative Moon project, an online platform where users are allowed to browse a rotating orb, gradually covering it with their own art drawings.  “By connecting in spaces for imagination – by determining what to share and how to share it – we can create a greater outcome,”  the site reads.   (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on MoMA’s efforts to move beyond a brick and mortar museum space, detailing its hiring of Paola Antonelli for the newly created position of Director of Research and Development, a post focused on revolutionizing the museum space through technological advances.  Antonelli’s work is seeing its first fruits with the launch of Design and Violence an online exhibition intended to spark discussion and discourse on various art objects and projects.  “This is truly the new aspect, the fact that it’s a two-way conversation,” Antonelli says. “It’s a departure point.” (more…)

Jon Rafman, I am alone but not lonely, (2013), via Zach Feuer

The artist Jon Rafman continually explores processes of archiving and history-making, storytelling and expression online, trawling the deeper recesses of gaming and message board communities to explore how these groups express senses of their own identities, their own mythologies, and their own senses of being.  It’s this sense of recording and presentation that marks Rafman’s current show at Zach Feuer, which sees the artist examining the shared sense of history and presentation for various communities through written dialogues, amateur film, and image.

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Further extending its commitment to live performance work and new media, the Tate Modern has announced plans for additional performance space inside its museum spaces, as well as a website for the broadcasting of performance works live around the world.  “It’s a completely new thing.” Says Dutch artist Nicoline van Harskamp. (more…)