Multimedia arts publication DIS Magazine has announced a new partnership with 89plus, the young artist program co-founded by Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist, for the arts grant competition Younger Than Rihanna, aimed at offering money for young artists and their creative proposals.  Hosted on the DIS website, the competition welcomes young artists born in 1989 or later to upload their work and statement, placing them in contention for over $19,000 in grant money, and a gallery exhibition this fall. (more…)

The Design Musuem announced on Tuesday that it has sold its Thames-side home to Zaha Hadid architects. The revenue of the £10 million sale will be added to the £80 fund necessary to move the museum to the Commonwealth Institute on Kensington High Street. The former banana-ripening warehouse will now become the offices of the practice, as well as a space for architecture exhibtions.

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Laurel Nakadate, Portland, Oregon #1 (2012), via Leslie Tonkonow

Strangers and Relations is a two-part project by American photographer and filmmaker Laurel Nakadate, in which the artist photographs strangers she connected with through the Internet, and arranged to meet in 31 different states within the US. and parts of Europe. The exhibition is being held at Leslie Tonkonow in New York City. (more…)

Robert Irwin, Black Rectangle – Scrim Veil – Natural Light (1977), via The Whitney

The immediate effect upon entering Robert Irwin’s full-room installation at The Whitney Museum is one of disorientation.  A single black runs along the outskirts of the room, interrupted by the enormous window at one end of the space.  Through the middle of the room runs an even larger black line, seemingly suspended in mid-air.  The eye swims around this phenomenon, unsure of the depth of the room, or the origin of the line until one notices the large veil bisecting the room, leaving about 6 feet of clearance for viewers to walk under.

Robert Irwin sets up his installation at the Whitney in 1977, via New York Times (more…)

In celebration of its first broadcast of a national televised awards show from Brooklyn, MTV has recruited artist KAWS to redesign the Video Music Awards statue for its August 25th broadcast from the Barclays Center.  The one off design translates the iconic image of Buzz Aldrin planting a flag on the moon (affectionately referred to as “The Moonman”), replacing Aldrin with the artist’s “Companion” character.  “The connection to Brooklyn, it felt like it was the perfect time to reinvent an iconic image,” said MTV President Stephen Friedman. “Consistent with our DNA of creative reinvention and constant reinvention, this felt like a perfect marriage.” (more…)

With the opening of Richard Artschwager! (previously at the Whitney Museum) at the Hammer Museum this month, the institution welcomed Richard Artschwager’s contemporaries, John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha to sit down and discuss his influential practice, output, and creative legacy. “Whether he’s well known or not is not important because he’s seen widely, and if you’re interested in art you’re going to be familiar with his work.” Ruscha said. (more…)

Bill Viola, Chapel of Frustrated Actions and Futile Gestures (Detail) (2013), via Blain Southern

Several new works by American video artist Bill Viola are currently being hosted by the Blain Southern gallery in London through July 27. Viola is considered a leading voice in the field of New Media, and is known for the existential and essentialist themes that surface in his work. Drawing from Buddhist, Zen, and mystical tradition, Viola approaches human mortality and spirit through video, sound and digital installation.  (more…)

The New York Times reports on the growing contemporary arts scene in Bangkok, Thailand, increasingly bolstered by expats and foreigners.  Referred to as “farangs” in Thai, many have opened galleries, nonprofits and other organizations promoting the city’s artists and institutions.  “Farangs play a very important role in the image of what goes on here,” says curator Pier Luigi Tazzi.  “They are still connected to their own countries so these links are still very attractive in terms of communication.” (more…)

Artist Giuseppe Penone will bring a trio of monumental bronze tree sculptures to Madison Square Park this fall and winter, exploring the relationships between humanity and nature through art.  Meticulous reproductions of 40 foot high trees, Ideas of Stone marks Madison Square Park’s 26th exhibition of outdoor sculpture.  “A tree summarizes in an exemplary way the contrast between two forces: the force of gravity and the weight of life we are part of. The need and the search for balance, which exists in every living being to counteract the force of gravity, is evident in every step and in every small action of our lives.” Penone said in a statement. (more…)

Empire State (Installation View), via Palazzo Delle Esposizioni

“Empire State,” a classic nickname denoting New York’s central position in the art world, takes a new spin in Rome this summer, thanks to the curatorial talents of Alex Gartenfeld and Norman Rosenthal. (more…)

This fall, The Tate Britain will present an exhibition exploring iconoclasm in British art.  Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm opens this October, and will include a number of works that have been damaged, defaced or otherwise physically attacked as part of an ideological agenda, including the Statue of the Dead Christ, a 16th Century statue that survived the purgations of religious reformers.  “We wanted to look at things that had gathered significance over time and not something that happened to be topical.” Penelope Curtis, director of Tate Britain, said.  (more…)

Artist Miranda July has launched her email project We Think Alone, a curated series of quotidian emails from celebrities, artists, and other public figures on a variety of themes.  Including emails from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lena Dunham, Kristen Dunst, Etgar Keret and more, the piece welcomes an intimate peek into the sender’s day to day life.  “Privacy, the art of it, is evolving. Radical self-exposure and classically manicured discretion can both be powerful, both be elegant. And email itself is changing, none of us use it exactly the same way we did ten years ago; in another ten years we might not use it at all.”  Says July. (more…)

The controversial installation of a neon Playboy logo and cement sculpture by curator Neville Wakefield and Richard Phillips in Marfa, TX has been ordered to be removed.  After complaints from a local resident, the Texas Department of Transportation found that the installation was in fact corporate advertising, which requires a permit for installation. The Texas Department of Transportation has ordered the property owner to remove this sign because the owner does not have a Texas License for Outdoor Advertising and a specific permit application for the sign was not submitted,” explained Veronica Beyer, the director of media relations for the Texas DOT, in a statement. (more…)

Gerald Lee Jones, a former supervisor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s admissions department, has filed an affidavit detailing the museum’s policy towards rewarding higher cashier receipts.  In his statement, Jones claims that museum employees who brought in lower admissions receipts, regardless of the museum’s “suggested” admission price, were rebuked for their performance, while cashiers who aggressively pushed for higher admission prices were rewarded.  “Cashiers are not only trained to avoid disclosing the truth about the museum’s admission prices; their compensation and their continued employment may largely depend on them not revealing it,” He says in court papers. (more…)

Artist Dustin Yellin is profiled in The New York Times, detailing the artist’s continued practice, his recently reopened Pioneer Works space in Red Hook, and his ongoing fascination with collecting and antiques.  “My father had the bug,” said Mr. Yellin, who grew up in Aspen, Colo. “Ever since I can remember walking, he was waking me up at 5 in the morning to go to flea markets. As a kid, I couldn’t really stand it, but as I grew up, I became that guy, and when I have kids, I am going to be doing the same thing.” (more…)

Paul McCarthy’s WS has become the Park Avenue Armory’s second most well-attended show at the venue’s history, having already drawn 11,000 visitors since its opening last month.  The work, already gaining major press for its challenging subject matter, runs until August 4th.  “There’s a much narrower potential audience for this than for most things we’ve done before,” says Armory President Rebecca Robertson, “so I think the attendance we’re seeing is very strong.” (more…)

Xavier Veilhan, Mobiles (Installation View), via Galerie Perrotin

Galerie Perrotin in Hong Kong is currently presenting a solo exhibition by French sculptor, photographer and painter Xavier Veilhan, the first exhibition by the artist to focus exclusively on his mobiles.  Combining a selection of past work with a series of new installations created specifically for the exhibition, Veilhan explores the mobile as a fluid continuation of his work on the intersections of geometric form and three dimensional space. (more…)

Artist Jan Mostaert’s painting Discovery of America, depicting a group of Spanish soldiers aiming cannons at an indigenous group of people, has been purchased by the Rijksmuseum.  Previously owned by Marei von Saher, the work had been taken from her father in law, dealer Jacques Goudstikker, by the Nazis during World War II, and was returned to von Saher in 2006.  “It’s a picture that a lot of people were interested in both in North and South America because of it being such an important historical picture,” said dealer Hugo Nathan, “but Mostaert is arguably the most important early Dutch painter, as opposed to being a Flemish master, and the Rijksmuseum was always hoping to secure it for the Dutch nation.” (more…)

The winning design has been announced for the M+ Museum in Hong Kong, an inverted “T” by Pritzker Prize winners Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.  Featuring 183,000 square feet of exhibition space, the design will be more than twice the size of the Tate Modern, and will stand as the centerpiece of the expanding cultural district in the West Kowloon area of the city.

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Filmmaker Jem Cohen’s recently opened Museum Hours has garnished considerable attention, setting a story of friendship and art within Vienna’s Kunsthistoriches Museum.  “The use of the Kunsthistorisches is heartfelt and also very funny,” Says film critic Christoph Huber, “a slice of everyday life that I hardly see covered in my national cinema.” (more…)

A recent study of laboratory mice at Keio University in Japan has sought to uncover whether the small animal could distinguish between various works of art by Kandinksy, Renoir, Picasso and Mondrian.  Using various rewards for the animal, the researchers discovered that mice were able to distinguish works as unique, and were also, in some cases, able to identify an artist’s work by their style of painting.   (more…)

Andy Ralph, Manifold Destiny (2013), via L&M Arts

L&M Arts’ current exhibition, Neo Povera, presents a group of works in the spirit of the 1960’s Arte Povera movement, meant to exist purely in and of their own material while pushing the boundaries of acceptable art.  The Arte Povera movement attempted to strip symbolic implications from an object, leaving only the true material, thus making art that is unassuming, present, undivided from reality, minimal in material cost, and devoid of signifiers.  At its conception, the group of Italian artists brought together by Germano Celant intended to dissolve the boundary between elite art and a common experience.

Neo-Povera (Installation View), via L&M Arts (more…)

Artist Imran Quereshi recently sat down with Bloomberg to discuss his current installation on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his inspiration for the work, and his attempts at bringing a certain understanding of violence to his audience.  “We’ve had so many bomb blasts and people suffering in Pakistan, and when these things happen, people are asked to stay away and officials investigate. And nobody really knows what the reason behind the violence was. I made this work interactive so that people could investigate it themselves and get multiple meanings out of it.”  He says. (more…)

The  New York Times writes on the ongoing contention between the nation of Turkey and the J. Paul Getty Museum over a number of potentially looted items currently held in the American museum’s collection, highlighting the difficult issues at play in repatriation claims.  While many museums are speeding up their processing of these claims, many factors must be taken into account before handing over past property.  “Museums must untangle a lot of knots before making such an irrevocable decision,” said Stephen K. Urice, an expert on cultural heritage law at the University of Miami School of Law in Florida. (more…)