Colin O’Con, Magma Arch (2015), via Art Observed

In 2012, David Zwirner Gallery launched a novel concept for the summer group show.  Called People Who Work Here, the gallery opened its floors to its own employees, launching an exhibition of works that underscored the depth of talent of those working for the international mega-gallery.  Four years later, the gallery has picked up where the last exhibition left off, opening a new iteration of the show that welcomes over 35 artists to show their work at the gallery’s 19th Street location, just steps away from a massive new Jeff Koons sculpture in the gallery’s open garage exhibition space.  Curated by Marina Gluckman and Jaime Schwartz in gallery’s Research and Exhibitions department, the show takes a playful look at the gallery’s skilled employee based, and offers subtle historical parallels with its own selection of artists.

Joel Fennell, Still-life (after McCobb) (2016), via Art Observed

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The Detroit Institute of Arts as launched a multi-year commitment to deepen its holdings of African-American art, launching a new series of acquisitions, exhibitions, artist commissions, community partnerships, staff development and internships.  “We want to be the best,” says director Salvador Salort-Pons. (more…)

Art News takes an intriguing look at 57th Street, the original gallery district in New York, and its continued place in the New York art world.  “We have a lot of European artists we represent and I don’t think they were in love with Chelsea,” says Marian Goodman. “You see so many galleries in a row that you have to question the interest level [of visitors] after a while when they go to Chelsea. Very often they start to forget what gallery they’re in and what art they show.” (more…)

Empirical Intuitive Absorption (Installation View), via Art Observed

On paper, the list of artists for Andrea Rosen’s summer exhibition, Empirical Intuitive Absorption, may raise an eyebrow or two: Fernand Léger showing alongside Graham Marks, Matthew Ronay contrasted with Serge Charchoune, all underscored by Terry Riley’s swirling compositions.  Organized by Ronay, whose recent lecture at the Perez Museum in Miami inspired the exhibition, the show takes concepts of intuition and execution as two sides of the same coin, of the replication and creation of natural models through blind aesthetic representation. (more…)

Gagosian Gallery has agreed to pay over $4 million in back taxes owed to New York State this week, the New York Times reports.  “Although we cannot comment on these findings, we accept and will fully comply with the terms of the settlement to bring closure to this matter,” the gallery said in a statement.   (more…)

The name of the woman who received Van Gogh’s ear in the mail has been revealed for the first time, the Art Newspaper reports.  Gabrielle Berlatier was the daughter of a farmer, and was working in a brothel when she encountered Van Gogh, who would later send her his ear when he cut it off.   (more…)

Christie’s sales figures for the first half of 2016 dropped to £2.1 billion ($3 billion), down 29 percent from last year’s landmark year.  “I think there are no surprises,” says president Jussi Pylkkanen. “Volumes are down, year on year, and obviously it’s a very significant reduction in just the amount of artworks that were being traded.” (more…)

Camille Henrot is profiled in New York Times this week, as she opens a new show of work at Fondazione Memmo in Rome.  “Taking on fairly ambitious projects and producing a lot is a pace that suits me,” Henrot says. “When I was young, I was a little tortured by the fact that I couldn’t make all of the works that I had in my head. Today, I feel truly happy to have that freedom.” (more…)

Seventeen buildings by Le Corbusier have been named UNESCO World Heritage Sites this week, with the organization calling his work a “testimonial to the invention of a new architectural language that made a break with the past.”  The Complexe du Capitole in Chandigarh in India; the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, Japan; and the House of Dr Curutchet in La Plata, Argentina are all included on the list. (more…)

The £20 million private collection of late dealer Leslie Waddington is set for the auction blocks this fall at Christie’s in London, the Telegraph reports.  The sale includes landmark pieces by Jean Dubuffet, Alexander Calder, and Agnes Martin.   (more…)

Previously detained, Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli has been allowed to leave Iran for Vancouver, where he operates a studio.  “I am accused by the police,” Tanavoli says.  “The accusations are that my art is based on ‘spreading the falsehood’ and ‘creating public anxiety’. On 10 July I went to court with my lawyer and I was given the above allegations.” (more…)

MoMA has acquired and hung an early Faith Ringgold piece from 1967 in its galleries, a searingly critical piece that echoes a renewed critical and institutional appreciation of her early career.    (more…)

Kimberly Drew, social media manager at The Met and founder of the popular Black Contemporary Art blog, is profiled in The New Yorker this week.  “I built the blog as a critique of the art world, and now it has a seat in that world,” she said. “There’s a lot of work I post that I don’t particularly like, but maybe it will resonate with someone else’s experience.” (more…)

Sam Lewitt, Less Light Warm Words (Installation View), via Art Observed

The news that Swiss Institute would leave its location at 18 Wooster this summer joined a slow but steady list of high-profile departures from SoHo that included Artist’s Space and other longtime residents of the neighborhood.  With this movement from its home soon to be underway, Swiss Institute has turned its attention to a pair of exhibitions dealing with concepts of the institution, infrastructure, and urban locales as it takes its final bow in the space.  Giving the space upstairs over to artist Sam Lewitt’s installation Less Light Warm Words, while German artist Mathis Altmann takes over the gallery’s basement exhibition space, filling it with a bizarre series of pieces that mix the abject with the structural.

Mathis Altmann, Untitled (2016)

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Asger Jorn, Portrait of Odilon Redon (1958), via Art Observed

Despite a remarkably expressive hand and a pioneering range of styles, Asger Jorn’s work has long been somewhat under-appreciated in the United States. The Danish artist and COBRA co-founder’s work ranges across a broad series of compositional techniques and practices that defined him as a founding voice of post-war abstraction, yet his reputation seems almost underemphasized by comparison to his stature in Europe.  It’s this contrast that makes his show currently on view at Petzel Gallery feel like such a well-kept secret, a balanced, well-organized exhibition that spans a wide range of the artist’s practice.  (more…)

Yayoi Kusama has unveiled a recently completed version of the Hans Christian Andersen classic, The Little Mermaid, featuring her illustrations for a collaboration with Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.  “In the past few years there have been many exhibitions of my work touring the world,” Kusama said recently.  “I would like people to feel my creation and its message. Once they manage to feel it, I am reminded of the greatness of the hymn of being human and the mystery of it and that makes me very happy.” (more…)

The New York Times has further details on the return of Nazi-looted artworks to the families of Nazi officials who had looted the pieces in the first place.  “The basic element of this story is this: They stole from my family,” says John Graykowski, the great-grandson of collectors Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus, “and then they gave it back to the guy who stole it from them. How does that work?” (more…)

Anonymous sources have reported that Jeff Koons’s studio has allegedly laid off a group of painters after the group attempted to unionize, Art F City reports.  Legal proceedings are reportedly underway, but no sources were available to comment on the case.  If proven that the lay-offs were the result of a unionization attempt, the studio is in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. (more…)

The UC Board of Regents is set to approve the UCLA Art School expansion, funded in part by gallerist Margo Leavin.  “We’ve had these plans, but it sat fallow there for the longest time,” says painter and UCLA educator Lari Pittman.  “But Margo drove it. She asked questions. She wanted to know things. She wanted to meet the dean. That’s how it slowly got its legs.” (more…)

The recent report that Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde sculptures are potentially harmful to viewers’ health has been retracted by its author, who now claims the findings are “inaccurate and unreliable.”  “Science Ltd and the authors of the paper co-operated to conduct further tests on formaldehyde works using the equipment referred to in the paper as well as commercially available equipment used by Science Ltd to test the presence of formaldehyde fumes,” a spokeswoman for Hirst said. “It was agreed that there cannot have been formaldehyde present at the dangerously high levels originally cited in the paper and, accordingly, there was never any risk to the public.” (more…)

The Met’s job cuts could likely reach 100 in core areas after its buyouts, as the museum continues to seek relief from a $10 million operating deficit.  “There is no letting up on the quality and the commitment we have to excellence — nothing we’re doing will be discernible or visible to the public,” says the museum President and COO Daniel H. Weiss. “We’re planning to streamline our budgets but not to diminish our mission.” (more…)

The BBC is claiming it has identified a lost Lucian Freud work, despite the fact that the artist had repeatedly claimed he never painted the work over the course of his lifetime.  “Freud is a colossus of 20th-century modern art, and challenging his word was something we undertook with some trepidation,” says Fiona Bruce, host of Fake or Fortune, where the show was analyzed. (more…)

The Financial Times looks deeper on recent market strength, noting a drop in both the volume and value of sales at Sotheby’s after the auction house released its first half earnings for 2016.  Sotheby’s will release its private sales figures in August. (more…)

Ai Weiwei has installed one of his life jacket sculptures in the pool outside of Vienna’s Belvedere Palace this month, continuing his work advocating for and exploring the crisis of Syrian refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos.  “There are more than 500,000 life jackets left on [Lesbos] and it looks like a landscape,” he says. “It is something so related to individuals. It could be the last thing you grab when you have to escape.” (more…)