Robert Smithson, The Machine Taking a Wife (1964), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Before he began his pioneering work in land art and environmental sculpture in the late 1960’s, and shortly before his untimely death in 1973, Robert Smithson was exploring the quirkier, more colorful ends of the pop art spectrum, pulling from a broad range of figurative and cultural images.  Pornography, textured plastic, machinery and photographs collided in the Pop works, drawing from the often lascivious but always captivating landscape of Times Square, with its sci-fi movie houses, porn shops and street walkers combining to create a fitting commentary on the excess of American consumer culture.

Robert Smithson, Untitled [Zig zag star center, motorcyclist with wings, and microscope with wings] (1964), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

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Francesco Vezzoli is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing his personal life, and his leftist political views, formed by his family’s membership in the Proletarian Unity Party.  “We had a public debate at the National Synotec in Rome and one of the presidents of Italian television who is one of the wittiest men in Italy kept screaming ‘You’re such a Marxist!’, because of the things I was saying.” He says. “I said ‘I must have been able to come out of the closet as a homosexual, but the Marxist thing is still locked somewhere in there.’ Many people say that the work is way more political than I seem to realize, but that must come from my family. I think that it’s kind of sweet that it’s there; I leave for other people to read it.” (more…)

Barron’s reports that New York state is cracking down hard on taxes for art purchases, often asking for shipping records and invoices, and sending out sizable bills in the process to many collectors who have skimped on sales taxes.  “I’m getting panicked phone calls from people who are not even my clients,” says David Lifson, a partner and art expert at Crowe Horwath. “I’m seeing letters about people who have moved to New York,” and “letters where the inventory is in transit among dealers and owners. There are many people on this list who bought art in Europe and had it shipped in or through New York.” (more…)

Richard Prince is once again the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit, after photographer Donald Graham filed suit on December 30th, alleging that the artist reproduced his image Rastafarian Smoking a Joint without notification or compensation.  The lawsuit comes mere months after Prince won his last lawsuit over infringement. (more…)

Rhizome has been awarded a $600,000 grant, the largest award in the organization’s history, to fund a new web archival program called Webrecorder, lead by developer Ilya Kreymer.  “The things we create and discover and share online—from embedded videos to social media profiles—are often lost, or become unrecognizable with the passage of time,” says Rhizome artistic director Michael Connor.  “Webrecorder, with its ability to capture and play back dynamic web content, and its emphasis on putting tools into users’ hands, is a major step towards addressing this, and improving digital social memory for all.” (more…)

Troy Brauntuch, Untitled (Officers) (1982), via Petzel Gallery

Taking over the uptown, 67th Street location of Petzel Gallery, Troy Brauntuch is presenting a selection of early compositions, created between 1976 and 1983, illustrating some of the artist’s early interests in techniques of photographic reproduction and representation, executed in a variety of materials and styles that hint at the artist’s later work.

Troy Brauntuch, Untitled (Head) (1978), via Petzel Gallery

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A non-profit group in Palm Springs is preparing to open a new art fair, coinciding with the proceedings of the Coachella music festival.  The fair has hired Neville Wakefield as its first artistic director, and has Ed Ruscha as a member of its board.   (more…)

Art Dealer Guy Wildenstein is set to begin trial this week for fraud in Paris. Wildenstein is accused of concealing much of his inheritance in offshore accounts, and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. (more…)

The UK has created a new £30 million fund to help aid in the protection and preservation of artworks and archaeological sites in war-torn and threatened areas, including the new Iraqi Emergency Heritage Management Project.  The project will train Iraqi archaeologists in preservation techniques in hopes of saving further sites from destruction. (more…)

A new German task-force, the Stiftung Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste (German Lost Art Foundation), will take over investigations on the provenance of the Cornelius Gurlitt art trove.   “Our research will be sound, efficient and above all transparent,” says co-director Uwe Schneede.  “Research has been done consistently and professionally. But unfortunately people often confuse research work with restitution.” (more…)

Venice’s newly elected mayor Luigi Brugnaro has launched a major initiative to confront the city’s dwindling finances, including exploring possibly selling off some of the city’s prized art collection that does not directly correspond to the city’s history.  “I’ll sell the paintings rather than sit here and admire them while rain drips onto children’s school desks and public libraries have no toilet paper,” he says.   (more…)

The New Yorker profiles the efforts of the Whitney’s conservation department in preserving some of the more challenging works in its collection.  “I was excited by the immediacy of it—how I was often the first person restoring a canvas, as opposed to dealing with a century of past restorations,” says Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, who works as head of the museum’s replication committee. “And I loved, whenever possible, consulting with the artists themselves.” (more…)

An associate of longtime Gardner Museum heist suspect Robert Gentile has told the Hartford Courant that the reputed mobster has long talked about having access to the works stolen from the museum, and has often spoke of selling the pieces.  Sebastian “Sammy” Mozzicato, who took a $5 million reward from the FBI for information on the theft, claims that Gentile gained control of the work during the 1990’s, after the theft.   (more…)

Bradley Kronz, Untitled (2015), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Tucked away on the fourth floor of 134 Bowery, an understated yet impressive Federal-style building, LOMEX opened its doors late last month with minimal fanfare.  The space, operated by curator, writer and artist Alexander Shulan, takes its name from one of Robert Moses’s proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway plans, a strictly utilitarian concept which would have razed much of the area around the gallery’s home, and once served as the studio of Eva Hesse. (more…)

Robert Irwin is profiled in the New York Times this week, as the artist prepares to open his new permanent installation in Marfa, and reflects on the often challenging works he has executed in public space over the past several decades.  “With Bob’s work, I think there’s been a kind of laziness in the art world in terms of understanding exactly what he’s been doing,” says Jessica Morgan, the director of the Dia foundation. (more…)

Police have uncovered what they believe to be an art theft ring at the Fiumicino and Rome airports this month, where paintings sent through oversize baggage checks were stolen away from passengers.  “Dressed in the uniforms they normally wore to work in the airport, they easily convinced people that they were providing a genuine service and managed to dupe them,” the police said in a statement.  (more…)

Arts Council England Head Darren Henley has made a statement in The Guardian this week, pledging more attention and funding to the regions outside of London, and increasing funding for areas outside the city to 75% of total funding. “With nine offices around the country, the biggest of which is not in London, but in Manchester, we understand very clearly the many beneficial dividends that investment in arts and culture pays back to communities in all parts of England,” he writes. (more…)

The WSJ looks at a growing group of artists dealing with the fluid movements of immigrants and refugees internationally, and the increased focus on notions of identity and global politics that often underscore their work.  It’s one of the themes that are going to define the latter half of this century,” says London-based artist John Akomfrah. (more…)

An article in The Guardian this week makes the argument that the art market bubble so often discussed in 2015 has already burst, pointing to the considerably diminished sales totals in late 2015, often failing to meet their estimate despite several major record-setters, and a drop-off in new buyers.  “It feels like we hit the top in the first half of 2015,” says Todd Levin, director of art advisory the Levin Art Group. “We rang that bell and things have softened ever so slightly since. My guess is that we will see further tightening over 2016.” (more…)

Agathe Snow at The Journal, via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Agathe Snow’s current exhibition at The Journal in Williamsburg is a flurry of touchstones, compiling fragments of art history, domestic objects, knitted material, paint, and any number of accompanying materials to explore what the artist deems the full-length of human existence, an attempt at a totemic retelling of man’s relationship to the world around him.  Objects cluster and clump together, or are cast into heaps and piles spread across the spacious confines of the gallery.  The show, which continues the artist’s enigmatic approach towards sculpture, identity and its related historical contexts, is at times comic, and at others sobering, interrelating the artist’s personal life, themes of death and rebirth, and the always present backdrop of human culture.

Agathe Snow at The Journal, via Rae Wang for Art Observed (more…)