Santa Maria della Misericordia church converted in THE MOSQUE: The First Mosque in the Historic City of Venice (2015) by Christoph Büchel, all photos by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Historically, there have been no mosques in the city of Venice.  Despite the port city’s history as an open gateway to the East and a point of trade that facilitated new cultural, artistic and scientific developments to spread across Europe from trade with the Ottoman Empire and beyond, the city has never permitted the construction or reconstitution of a site of worship for its Muslim population.  Today, in the heated political climate that surrounds international conflicts, not to mention the recent Italian (and, at large, European) controversy regarding immigration from Syria, Lebanon and other regions in North Africa and the Middle East, the prospects for a dedicated Islamic worship site seems even less likely.  For the time being, however, the Venice Biennale has changed this scenario, as the Swiss-born, Iceland-based artist Christoph Büchel opened his frankly-titled installation THE MOSQUE: The First Mosque in the Historic City of Venice this month. (more…)

Tania Brugera is one of the 2015 Herb Alpert Award recipients this year, but is unable to attend the awards ceremony, due to the revocation of her passport by the Cuban government.  “The Alpert Award could not come at a better moment,” the artist wrote in a statement to the organization. “The Cuban government does not like my artworks because I’m proposing that our relationship with politics is one where the script is not written for us, but is something we create with responsibility and honesty out of the desire to engage in our political destiny.” (more…)

Following her arrest over a performance in Havana, Tania Bruguera has claimed that Cuban authorities are closely following her every movement.  “I can move around Havana, but I have a car following me everywhere I go,” the artist tells the Miami New Times. “I know they are listening to my calls, because recently, during a phone conversation with a friend, I mentioned I was going to pass out fliers that the government might find alarming. Then, 20 minutes later, a government blogger wrote, ‘Tania is on her way to distribute inflammatory leaflets here.'”  (more…)

Ai Weiwei, Blossom (2014) (Detail) photo by Jan Stürmann, courtesy of FOR-SITE foundation

After much anticipation, Ai Weiwei has opened his new project at Alcatraz, the former island prison in the San Francisco Bay.  The project, which brings seven large-scale installations incorporating photography, installation, sound and video, is a fitting continuation of Ai’s projects examination of incarceration following his own imprisonment in 2011.

Ai Weiwei, Yours Truly (2014) (Detail) photo by Jan Stürmann, courtesy of FOR-SITE foundation

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Ai Weiwei’s name and works have been removed from a show of Chinese contemporary art in Shanghai, following government pressure over his inclusion.  “We were not really a party to this,” says Uli Sigg, the Swiss collector and organizer of the show. “In the end it was the Power Station and the cultural bureau. In the end we said we must accept. We don’t understand but we must accept that his works will not be in there.” (more…)

The Guardian has published an in-depth look at the early work of Thierry Noir, one of the first graffiti artists to paint on the Berlin Wall during the 1980’s.  In the profile, Noir recounts his taunting of West German guards, his developing style, and his meeting with Keith Haring, who painted over one of Noir’s works.  “I talked to Keith and he was embarrassed and apologized,” Noir writes. “He said: ‘In New York you can get killed for that’. He was invited over and the section of Wall had been pre-prepared for him. The yellow was very transparent so you could see my statues through it. I was angry, but it was not his fault.” (more…)

With the Syrian civil war raging around them, a group of artists have smuggled their works out of the country for a survey exhibition in London, risking life and limb to get their works abroad for a show at P21 Gallery in Euston, opening this week.  “I travelled to Lebanon and Jordan twice to take work smuggled over the border,” said Fadi Haddad of support group Mosaic Syria. “The artists are worried that they could be traced if the work is stopped at a checkpoint. Some haven’t signed their work. The security police wouldn’t understand their message but they’d still see it as a danger. One artist went to Lebanon to remake her work just to avoid trouble from the authorities.”   (more…)