Lee Lonzano, Slide (1965), all photos via Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth is currently presenting Drawings and Paintings, a historical survey of artist Lee Lozano at the gallery’s Chelsea space on 18th Street, featuring a selection of critically significant works from 1964 and 1965.  Lozano’s pieces, expressive in their energy and form, showcase depth in exploring issues relating to both gender and the body in general, with drawings and paintings suggesting intersections and geometric interplays using color, line, gradient, and variations of perspective. (more…)

A theft of 43 engravings by 16^th-century artists valued at about $4.4 million from the Richelieu-Louvois branch of the National Library of France has led to the arrest of a library employee.  This is the second time engravings have disappeared from the institution this year.

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Artist and amateur chef Rikrit Tiravanija has opened his first commercial restaurant in Hancock, NY, titled Unclebrother, and incorporating food from the surrounding area into his menu.  “The surprising thing is that, actually, there are a lot of artists around,” Tiravanija says. “Even people who kind of ran away from the city, and are not participating in the art world anymore. Now they’re growing vegetables. These are people who would be interested in something like this.” (more…)

Funding for the proposed Ground Zero Arts Center in New York has reportedly been cut by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation again, bringing the budget for its construction to under $200 million.  “We can do a great building for $200 million — it has to be built,” says Maggie Boepple, president of the Performing Arts Center. “It will be smaller; there may be things that you might have liked to see, but that’s how it is.” (more…)

A new art fair has been announced for the week of Art Basel Miami Beach.  Titled Satellite, the fair will be spread across a series of vacant buildings in North Beach, and populated individually by a group of curators from WhiteBox, TransPecos, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and more.  “Each venue will be specially sub-curated by specific art world organizations and individuals, each bringing their personal identity and vision to the plate,” says Director Brian Whiteley. (more…)

Niele Toroni at Swiss Institute (Installation View), via The Swiss Institute

The work of Niele Toroni is currently the subject of a pair of shows this month, with exhibitions at the Swiss Institute through September 6 and at Marian Goodman Gallery through July 30.  The Swiss-born Toroni is known for his reductive, repetitive paintings, emphasizing a conceptual approach which he executes with impressive regularity.  According to some, the artist repeats his painting techniques to free his work from the formulaic politics of representation, and divorce art from authorship.  Toroni creates site-specific and serial paintings, placing brushstrokes at regular intervals with a 50cm paintbrush, 30cm apart on a variety of surfaces including canvas, newspaper, and fabric.  Toroni began employing this method during a 1967 performance in Paris. (more…)

The Observer notes an increasing number of dealers allowing collectors to take a work out of the gallery to view it in their homes before agreeing to buy.  “If they are on the fence—for instance, if it is a couple and one [person] likes it more than the other—living with it for a few days helps in the decision,” says dealer Debra Force. (more…)

Adam Szymczyk, director of Documenta 2017 in Athens, is interviewed this week in Deutsche Welle, discussing how the recent financial strife between Germany and Greece bodes for the event.  “We don’t want to illustrate the crisis,” he says.  “We believe that the real image of the crisis doesn’t exist and it perhaps should not be imposed. We just try to exist in this state of crisis, every single day – in Germany and in Greece.” (more…)

Paris-based art dealer Jean-Gabriel Mitterrand has opened a massive sculpture park in France’s Côte d’Azur, with more than 30 works spread out across the grounds’ lakes and trails.  “The works will change whenever they have to be returned or if some are sold. Also the park will be extended when new works are installed,” says the dealer’s son, Edward.  (more…)

Mother Jones takes a closer look at Basin and Range, the home of Michael Heizer’s City, and the center of a recently ignited political debate over the allocation of lands under government protection.  President Obama signed an executive order protecting Basin and Range earlier this month, earning angry outcries from Republicans.  “I don’t think expanding the narrowing use of public lands is appropriate,” Jeb Bush retorted following the bill.  (more…)

Ai Weiwei with his Passport, via The Guardian

Artist Ai Weiwei is free once again to travel outside of China, following the return of his passport, The Guardian reports. The return caps a four year ordeal for the artist following his arrest for alleged tax evasion in 2011.  (more…)

London based auction house Christie’s International PLC said that in the first half of the year, it sold £2.9 billion ($4.5 billion) of art, an increase of 8% from the same period last year. However, Christie’s old master paintings, 19^th century European paintings, Russian art, and luxury goods are struggling with diminishing sales growth. “Sellers of blue-chip artworks are getting choosier about where and when they put their pieces up for sale and for how much,” explained Christie’s global chief operating chief, Stephen Brooks. Additionally, a large number of Christie’s clients from the first half of the year were bidding for the first time, a coping strategy is “to find artworks that appeal to novice and seasoned bidders alike,” said Mr. Brooks.

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In a commentary on the ongoing threat of nuclear radiation in Japan, Kenji Kubota, associate professor at the University of Tsukubacurat in Japan, has curated an exhibition inside the exclusionary zone at Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, a space only accessible to visitors wearing hazmat suits.  The exhibition, featuring work by Ai Weiwei, Taryn Simon and others, will remain open until the public is able to see it. (more…)

Bloomberg profiles new tech startup Verisart, a digital venture founded by Robert Norton, the former CEO of both Saatchi Online and Sedition. that utilizes the bitcoin block chain to authenticate and catalog works currently on the market.  “We think long-term monetization will come through building a verified database of inventory,” he says. “We think that that will enable transactions through Verisart.” (more…)

The Financial Times profiles Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, a contemporary artist-turned-politician whose belief in the ability of art to work in conjunction with policy informs his leadership.  “Languages are different,” he says slowly. “And to pretend that politics should speak the language of art might be misleading. But, at the same time, I think that art can exercise an influence, without really making it seem like a straightforward influence.” (more…)

The Whitechapel Gallery has announced the London Open 2015, a Triennial open to all artists living and working in the British capital over the age of 26.  “The London Open 2015 received the greatest number of applications in the history of the Whitechapel Gallery’s open submission exhibition,” says Daniel F. Herrmann, Eisler Curator and Head of Curatorial Studies.  “The entries were of exceptionally high quality – their level of execution, creativity and critical sense are testament to London’s status as the art capital of the world and we are delighted to present some of the most interesting artists working in the city today” (more…)

LACMA is currently showing the video collaboration between Steve McQueen and Kanye West, depicting the musician rapping and running through the Chatham Dockyards in London.  The video is currently running at the museum. (more…)

Leigh Morse has been ordered again by a New York judge to continue paying off the $1.6 million in restitution she owes to victims.  Morse had drawn criticism for barely paying any of the legally mandated repayment, while refusing to sell her uptown apartment or her Pennsylvania weekend home.  “She doesn’t want to change her lifestyle. She won’t even do what people do all over New York — rent!” says prosecutor Kenn Kern.
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As exemplified by the triennial survey of rising Belgian artists and artists working in Belgium, “Un-Scene III”, Brussels is gaining attention as an emerging major art city in Europe. “A city of both commerce and creation”, Brussels provides a mix of local and international artists with a “fertile cultural laboratory” with affordable rents.  Russian-born American artist Marin Pinsky jokes, “I don’t want to be too big a booster of Brussels… I don’t’ want the whole world moving here.”

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The Hermitage Museum has announced plans to open a contemporary art outpost in Moscow, hinting at an attempt by the Russian city to become a contemporary art powerhouse.  “Rather than being perceived as a museum dealing only with the past, the Hermitage is pushing itself forward into the future from its powerful historical position,” says commissioned architect Hani Rashid of Asymptote Architecture said. “Our whole generation of architects looked to the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century, which made such a powerful break to the past. We’re working within a tradition that we’re extending.” (more…)

A collection of Robert Ryman works from the recently shuttered Swiss exhibition space Hallen für Neue Kunst will travel to Dia Beacon late this year, The New York Times reports.  “There’s a very healthy conversation that’s going on right now in New York about painting,” says Dia Director Jessica Morgan said, “but Ryman often doesn’t seem to be a part of those conversations about experimental approaches to painting, where he’s played a big role. And it was very important for me to try to reinsert him into that discussion.” (more…)

Françoise Grossen, Five Rivers, 1974

Currently on view at Blum & Poe is the first survey of Swiss-born, New York-based artist Françoise Grossen, focusing on works the artist created between 1967 and 1991 using fiber, a material that has recently had something of a renaissance in contemporary practice.  The material, which served as a popular material during the experimental ventures of the late 1960’s art scene, saw Grossen, as well as her peers Eva Hesse, Sheila Hicks and Lenore Tawney utilizing the material in allegorical and often grandiose arrangements, culminating in 1969’s historically resonant MoMA exhibition Wall Hangings. (more…)

Michael Borremans, Black Mould / Pogo (2015), via Art Observed

Belgian painter Michael Borremans has long mined the aesthetic moorings of antiquity for his work, creating meticulously labored paintings that owe much to 17th and 18th century painterly technique.  Originally trained as a photographer, Borremans’s craft is tempered by a notable scholarly, contextual awareness, frequently using his mooring in the present day to offer the occasional critique or inversion of his historical inspirations.  Such is the case with the artist’s most recent body of work at David Zwirner’s 24 Grafton Street gallery in London, a series of dark, occasionally disturbing pieces that use the painter’s signature style to amplify their surrealist aspects.

Michael Borremans, Black Mould / The Badger’s Song (2015), via Art Observed

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Franz West, Lamp (2003), all photos by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Marlborough Broome Street, the downtown, contemporary-focused outpost of Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery, opened its doors for a summer group show titled Marlborough Lights this month. Curated by Leo Fitzpatrick, a newly appointed director at the gallery, the exhibition traces a loose interpretation of the lightbulb as a source of energy and an allegory for critical thinking, while exploring the potentialities for the lamp as a creative container for motives beyond mere furniture or utilitarian lighting.

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