The MTA is planning to install a series of 12 Chuck Close mosaics around the the 86th and 2nd Ave Subway line, which is currently under construction.  The works will use pieces of tile rather than Close’s often utilized paints, and will consist of works from the span of his career.  “The richness of the city is all the various cultures coming together, and the richness of my art will be to simultaneously let people in on how many ways there are to build an image,” he says. (more…)

Helena Newman has been promoted to Sotheby’s Chairwoman of Europe, adding that prestigious position to her ongoing role as worldwide head of Impressionist and modern art. “I am thrilled to see Helena take on this additional position at the helm of our European organization,” says Maarten ten Holder, Sotheby’s managing director for Europe. “She will bring to the role as chairman not only the experience of 28 highly successful years at Sotheby’s, but also an unparalleled depth of expertise and relationships in the field of Impressionist and modern art, where she has been key, both to our longstanding leadership in the field and to many historic moments and landmark sales.” (more…)

Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli is facing criminal charges in Tehran after being barred from leaving the country for a July 3rd talk at the British Museum.  “As certain elements of the Iranian regime push for closer relations with the West, other forces within the government push back. And often it is the artists, whose work is well known across Iran’s borders, who get caught in the crossfires,” says a source close to the artist. “As Iran tries to open up tourism and business channels to the West, such moves are chilling.”  (more…)

The Philadelphia Museum of Art will show a rarely seen Frida Kahlo work, Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States (1932), as part of a show on Mexican Modernism.  The piece will go on view shortly before the November Presidential elections, a subtle comment on Donald Trump’s pledge to build a wall along the Mexico border.   (more…)

Berlin Biennale at the Kunstakademie, all photos via Anna Corrigan for Art Observed

While the DIS-curated Berlin Biennale is spread across a range of exhibitions and venues in the German capital, the beating heart of this year’s show is arguably the Academy of the Arts, a sleek modernist building located adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate and perched over a square heaving with tourist activity and history.  Walking into the foyer of this building, one immediately encounters a series of large, high-resolution photographs depicting warped, fragmented nationalities and identities.  Further upstairs, the cluster of screens, plastic and digital games that have come to define this Biennale buzz take over, creating a clustered, albeit striking experience of the post-digital arts landscape.  The location is densely packed with artists and works whose nationalities and political concerns range from brand-name art projects to a poignantly honest confessional rap about the refugee experience in Berlin.

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An Installation by Puppies Puppies

The 9^th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, curated by DIS (the New York art collective formed by collaborators Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso and David Toro), has long promoted a vision of the future as now.  Steeping their work in the ambitious task of interrogating relationships between the human and the digital, the collective has been turned loose on the prominent art biennial, using their unique brand of commentary on politics, happiness, commercial branding and the paradox of the modern age to frame the show as a brand, a tourist trap, and a materialization of the virtual in tandem. The Present in Drag channels the discomfort and drastic uncertainty that is a product of uncertain links and porous borders established by technological advancement.  Expanding beyond its traditional venue at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, additional sites for this Biennale are scattered throughout the city in various buildings and institutions. Its main point of departure is the Academie der Künst, located off Pariser Platz, and to the tourist mainstay Brandenburg Gate, and moves through the fabric of the city with its humorous, haunting and at times grotesque commentary on contemporary art in the digital age. (more…)

Roy Lichtenstein, Entablature (1975), via Quincy Childs for Art Observed

The Entablatures represent my response to Minimalism and the art of Donald Judd and Kenneth Noland. It’s my way of saying that the Greeks did repeated motifs very early on, and I am showing, in a humorous way, that Minimalism has a long history … It was essentially a way of making a Minimalist painting that has a Classical reference. – Roy Lichtenstein

Sometimes a show strikes a perfect balance between surprise and expectation, even more so when the works selected coincide so effortlessly that the artists seem presented anew. Castelli Gallery’s show, Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, Kenneth Noland: A Dialogue, does exactly that.  Taking inspiration from a quote by Roy Lichtenstein on his Entablature paintings, the show examined each artist’s work at the intersections of the architectural and the purely aesthetic, the functional and the pictorial. (more…)

The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney have announced a joint retrospective of the work of Jasper Johns, set to open in the fall of 2020.  “We thought, ‘What if we created a new model for a retrospective that did not try to survey the artist’s career all in one place in one moment, but that could be shared?’” says Scott Rothkopf, who is curating the Whitney’s portion of the exhibition. (more…)

London dealer Timothy Taylor is opening an exhibition space in Chelsea.  The space, titled 16X34 due to the dimensions of the building, will open this September with a show of work by Luis Barragán.  “New York is the engine of the contemporary art world — it sets the tone for the market in many ways,” Taylor says. (more…)

The Andy Warhol Museum’s director, Eric Shiner, will join Sotheby’s as a Senior Vice President, one of Amy Cappellazzo’s first major hires.  “There is probably not a greater Warhol expert on the planet,” Ms. Cappellazzo says. (more…)

The German government has passed its Cultural Property Protection Law, which puts strict limits on artworks and antiques that can be moved outside of the country.  “Germany spends billions in tax money to promote culture,” says culture minister Monika Grütters.  “It is therefore a matter of course that we should protect and keep our own cultural heritage—including the few cultural objects that are deemed to have national value.” (more…)

The New York Times looks at the ongoing trend for large-scale real estate projects to incorporate some sort of public art into its building plan, and maps out some of the more recent additions to the city’s selection of publicly accessible, large-scale pieces.  “We’ve always thought about the collection as a cultural investment, and there’s never been any kind of easy-listening quality to it,” Lisa Erf, the chief curator of the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, says. “That’s the point of the collection — the importance of art as an extension of daily life.” (more…)

Jussi Pylkkanen is interviewed in Forbes this week, as he recaps the last year of Christie’s sales, and reflects on the impact of Asian collectors in the current market.  “They’re now buying great European furniture, great American pictures by post-war artists, Picasso, Monet, and now moving into other areas where they’ve not been before-European porcelain, works like Meissen porcelain and even works by English manufacturers,” he says. (more…)

Martha Rosler, If You Can’t Afford to Live Here, mo-o-ove!! (Installation View), all photos by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Adopting its title from Ed Koch’s response to complaints regarding New York’s rising housing concerns, Martha Rosler’s current Mitchell-Innes & Nash exhibition If You Can’t Afford to Live Here, mo-o-ove!! promises a compact look at the artist’s influential 1989 exhibition If You Lived Here…, which was exhibited at Dia Foundation as a three part show.  Similarly, this current interpretation is a trilogy, culminating in this grand finale at the Chelsea gallery and proving the relevance of issues raised almost thirty years ago in the original version. (more…)

The New York Times details a strange lawsuit surrounding Peter Doig, who is currently being sued by a Canadian corrections officer.  The officer claims he purchased a work by the artist while he was staying in a Toronto detention center, yet Doig asserts he was never imprisoned, and points out that the work is signed by a one “Pete Doige.”  “This case is a scam, and I’m being forced to jump through hoops to prove my whereabouts over 40 years ago,” he says. (more…)

Jeffrey Deitch will inaugurate his return to 18 Wooster Street this September with a trio of performances by Eddie Peake.  “Inspired by Eddie Peake’s project for Performa hosted by the Swiss Institute in the Wooster Street space in November 2013, Jeffrey Deitch invited Eddie Peake to inaugurate his new program,” the gallery said in a release. (more…)

The New York Post’s Page Six reports on the $31 million lawsuit filed by dealer Alex Komolov, owner of the Alskom Gallery, against former colleagues for allegedly selling him fake Monet and Renoir pieces.  “My client’s business has been damaged by going out of pocket $40 million to obtain items that are essentially worthless,” his lawyer, Phil Chronakis added. “My client does a lot of business in Europe, specifically in Eastern Europe and now parts of Asia, he’s had a concern that this would affect his reputation, which is of course very valuable in business.” (more…)

Writer Anthony Haden-Guest has a short piece on Artnet this week, responding to rumors that his interview with artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was in part responsible for the artist’s drug overdose.  “I had a first interview with him in his studio on Great Jones. He was open to difficult subjects, such as his family, and told me that he was “controlling” his heroin use. I set off to do the other stuff one does before getting back to him for a second interview. But then the collector Ethel Scull telephoned. ‘Anthony,’ she said. ‘You are putting Jean-Michel under a lot of pressure…’  No problem, I said. I would take care of it. I called Basquiat and told him I would put the story off until he was up for it.” (more…)

New York Magazine has a humorous piece on a selection of artists responding to the campaign of Donald Trump, and the reception that each of them has received through their work.  “His ascension from tycoon caricature to viable presidential candidate sends very real chills up my spine,” artist Eric Yahnker says.  “I still have considerable faith in my fellow Americans, but the whole thing is beyond dangerous.” (more…)

Gagosian Gallery is now representing Katharina Grosse, according to a recent announcement by the gallery.  Grosse, who unveiled her sculptural intervention in the Far Rockaways this past weekend, will have her first show with the space in 2017. (more…)

The South China Morning Post reflects on the use of art as a cultural meeting point between China and Africa, as wealthy Chinese businessmen and collectors are increasingly drawn to the continent’s thriving art market.  “The relationship between China and African art makes a lot of sense once you think about it. Firstly, I would say the biggest demographic buying contemporary African art is sophisticated, knowledgeable collectors who purchase for aesthetic pleasure,”says Giles Peppiatt, director for African art at Bonhams. “They are people who look at an El Anatsui [sculpture] and think, ‘That would fit with the rest of my collection’, no matter whether they own any other art from the region.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper speaks with a number of British, European and American art world figures, discussing their opinions and views of the Brexit vote.  “We think about where we come from—and what this museum has achieved at the heart of this nation and of Europe,” says Hartwig Fischer, the German-born head of the British Museum. “We all know that we have to continue to share this future.” (more…)

The Victoria and Albert Museum has been awarded the UK’s prestigious 2016 Museum of the Year award.  “The V&A experience is an unforgettable one,” says Art Fund Director Stephen Deuchar.  “Its recent exhibitions, from Alexander McQueen to the Fabric of India, and the opening of its new Europe 1600-1815 galleries were all exceptional accomplishments – at once entertaining and challenging, rooted in contemporary scholarship, and designed to reach and affect the lives of a large and diverse national audience.” (more…)

Antony Gormley is interviewed in the Guardian this week, as he opens a new show at White Cube.  “We are living in a really strange time,” he says. “Yet we are all sleepwalking through it. And it is urgent we wake up. We are sort of aware the centre cannot hold, that 250 years of industrial activity has undermined and fundamentally disturbed our world – yet we feel somehow not responsible.” (more…)