Jack Greer with One of His Works, all photos via Art Observed

Artist Jack Greer takes to Howard St Gallery this summer to present his solo exhibition, Landmark, continuing his affiliation with The Still House Group at the collective’s downtown space. Producing individual work amongst an ensemble of young artists–who chiefly provide for one another what is essentially a creative support group– has undoubtedly influenced Greer’s work; Landmark explores the relationship of the individual vis-à-vis the conglomerate, exposing the inherent desire of humans for enduring fellowship.  (more…)

The USC Roski School of Art Students, who withdrew in protest over changes to the school curriculum earlier this year, have called for the resignation of Dean Erica Muhl.  “Together, we continue the call for USC leadership’s accountability in acknowledging an administrator’s destructive actions and blatant disregard of the feedback and experience of its faculty and students in support of the future of fine arts higher education at USC,” the students wrote. (more…)

Three former Christie’s employees; Jean-Paul Engelen, Hugues Joffre, and the auction house’s former deputy chairman of postwar and contemporary art in New York, Robert Manley, have all joined Phillips this week.  The move follows a strong outing by the New York-based auction house this past spring, and continued aggressive approaches to contend with Sotheby’s and Christie’s. (more…)

The Guardian notes increasing protests and challenges to potentially controversial subject matter in the arts, including the recent forced closure of artist Bradley Bailey’s Exhibit B at The Barbican.  Analyzing increased public outcry over challenging works, the article notes potential solutions for resolving and mediating potential issues with new work. (more…)

Flat Time House, the London studio and home of artist John Latham, has announced that it will close next year, following a failed attempt to raise £1 million to keep its doors open.  “Flat Time House will continue with a vibrant program until the house closes in summer 2016, and thereafter the Institute plans to continue its activities at other venues, to be announced,” the organization said in a statement.  (more…)

Gagosian Gallery has reportedly won representation for the estate of Nam June Paik worldwide, the Art Newspaper reports.  The deal was initiated by the gallery’s Hong Kong Gallery.  “Paik was an Asian artist—a Korean national fluent in Japanese—who lived most of his life in Europe and the United States,” a spokesman for the gallery says. “As a Western gallery with an expanding presence in Asia, Gagosian sees Hong Kong as a fitting place to inaugurate our representation of the estate.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles the work of the Guerrilla Girls, the anonymous collective fighting for women’s rights and representation among the art world’s vaunted institutions over the past 30 years. “I remember feeling such pride that there were female artists out there giving voice to these concerns that we were sensing and feeling,” says Olga Viso, the Walker Museum’s director. “[They] totally shaped who I am and the artists I worked with.” (more…)

Converse has released a new line in collaboration with the Andy Warhol estate, placing the artist’s iconic banana print from the Velvet Underground’s first album cover onto the heel of a pair of Chuck Taylors.   (more…)

W Magazine visits Jenny Holzer in the artist’s studio this week, noting her techniques and approaches in realizing her various aesthetic interests.  “Whenever possible I work with the same people. It’s a problem now that I’m getting so old that I’m outliving people,” she says.  “It’s regrettable when we’ve known each other and worked together since the 80s.” (more…)

The FBI has officially announced that it knows who was behind the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist, and that the pair of thieves are deceased, shifting the investigation towards locating the works.  “The focus of the investigation for many years was: Who did this heist? And we have through the great investigative work identified who did this heist, and both those individuals are deceased,” Kowenhoven told The Associated Press. “So now the focus of the investigation is the recovery of the art.” (more…)

SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner has threatened to move his collection out of German museums if the government amends its cultural heritage protection legislation.  Plattner has promised his collection of works to Potsdam’s Barberini Museum, but may move the works to Palo Alto if the legislation passes.   (more…)

Cindy Sherman is set to play aging diva Maria Callas in a new film show by Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli, the Art Newspaper reports.  “The video was shot last May in Paris at Théâtre des Variétés, featuring Cindy as the quintessential opera diva. The film depicts fictional, pivotal chapters of the singer’s life and career, in her full glory and darker situations, showing her fading away,” Vezzoli says. (more…)

Will Boone, RID (2015), via Art Observed

David Kordansky Gallery is currently presenting Flat World a group show organized by Karma New York, an exhibition of familiar objects rendered in conceptually minimal fashions, cohesively utilizing form as content while transforming formal aesthetic style into subject and material.  Flat World includes works by Richard Artschwager, Tauba Auerbach, Will Boone, Jeff Elrod, Robert Grosvenor, Peter Halley, Lee Lozano, John Mason, and Charlotte Posenensko. Combining the work of artists both young and old, the exhibition spans the years of the 1960’s  through the 1980’s and on to the early 2010’s.  (more…)

Carsten Höller, Isometric Slides (2015), all images via Hayward Gallery

Outside London’s Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre, a massive pair of slides have sprouted out from the building’s walls, spiraling away and towards each other in a mirrored, descent towards the ground.  The playful, immense structure marks the presence of Carsten Höller, the Belgian artist who is currently presenting a career retrospective within the gallery walls. (more…)

Ai Weiwei has received assurance from the Chinese government that he will be able to return to his home country following his 6-month stay in Britain.  “They know that I want to make China into a better country, that I am concerned about the young generation,” he said. “There is a basis of trust, otherwise they would not allow me, the former enemy of the state, my exhibitions; otherwise they would not have returned my passport.” (more…)

Brooklyn graffiti artist Joseph Tierney (who paints under the name Rime) is suing designer Jeremy Scott over a design for Moschino he alleges was plagiarized from a mural, Vandal Eyes, that he painted in Detroit in 2012.  “Nothing is more antithetical to the outsider ‘street cred’ that is essential to graffiti artists than association with European chic, luxury and glamour—of which Moschino is the epitome. To anyone who recognizes his work, Plaintiff is now wide open to charges of ‘selling out,’” the court filings read. (more…)

Korakrit Arunanondchai, Painting with history in a room filled with people with funny names 3 (2015), all photos by D. Mookherjee for Art Observed

Painting with History in a room filled with people with Funny Names 3 is a monographic exhibition displayed at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris, presented by Thai artist Korakrit Arunanondchai, and concluding a series of works started in 2011. The exhibition gathers performances, installations and videos that question the apprenticeship of a painter through the prism of an exchange between the artist and his alter ego Chantri, and his incarnation as a recurring fictional character, the Thai Denim Painter.  This exhibition finalizes the artwork initiated with the two previous pieces by dealing with Arunanondchai’s core theme; his identity, a structured representation of his artistic life, the social realities of Thailand and the phenomena of globalization, all mingled together here to form what he refers to as a “Memory palace.” (more…)

Gabriel Orozco, Diagram 1 (2015) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Gabriel Orozco unveils new series of works at the Marian Goodman Gallery in Soho, London. For the fourth exhibition housed in the freshly renovated Victorian warehouse, Orozco chose to present a majority of works realized in Tokyo, where he has been living since the beginning of the year.

The exhibition offers a multidimensional survey of the artist’s critical and aesthetical concerns. It features the brightly colored Roto Shaku, twenty eight Obi Scrolls and their custom wooden cases, as well as intricate variations of his fragmented geometrical paintings on canvas, and a witty series of photographs.

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De Wain Valentine, Curved Wall Clear (1969), via Art Observed

Set inside David Zwirner’s West 19th Street locations, a series of works from De Wain Valentine’s late 1960’s and 1970’s output is currently on view, culling a number of works by the Light and Space artist that illustrate his technical, material and spatial innovations during the early years of his career.

De Wain Valentine, Works from the 1960s and 1970s (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Duane Hanson, Queenie II (1988), All images by Luke Hayes for Serpentine Gallery.

Currently on view at London’s Serpentine Gallery is a retrospective of Duane Hanson, the late American sculpture whose hyperrealistic sculptures of individuals pulled from daily life still manage to create a potent sense of awe are on view.  The show, his first survey in the British capital since 1997, strikes a chord against the backdrop of today’s high-tech art production methods and complex conceptual depictions.  (more…)

The New York Times notes the increasingly central role Instagram is taking in the art market, used by galleries, artists and collectors alike to promote, publicize and sell works.  “So many people are either artists, collectors or gallery owners or photographers who are using it very actively, so it allows you to preview exhibitions happening everywhere in the world, and to see the works the minute the exhibitions open, rather than waiting to read about it in a review,” says Simon de Pury.  “That’s what makes it exciting.” (more…)

As the art market continues to boom, the business of art lending is seeing an equally impressive bump, with early 2015 estimates by Skate’s noting that lending could top$10 billion in 2015, at least twice as much as its last survey in 2011, and may very well grow to $100 billion.  The statistics note a major impact from Sotheby’s, which recently spun off its finance wing and which claims it can lend up to £1.3bn against art. (more…)

London’s gallery scene, art districts and theatre have resulted in the British capital being named the most Googled cultural center in the world, the BBC reports.  “London is without a doubt the cultural capital of the world,” said Mayor Boris Johnson of the news. (more…)

The New Yorker has an article this week profiling the intertwined lives of artists Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen and Clare Rojas.  Rojas, an artist living in Philadelphia, originally met Kilgallen and McGee through mail correspondence, and became close friends with the married couple.  After Kilgallen died of cancer in 1999, Rojas found herself growing closer McGee as she helped to care for his young daughter, and eventually married him.  “I think most people would just completely head the opposite direction, like, ‘Good luck with this, Barry,’ ” McGee says. “But she walked straight in.”

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