Downtown Los Angeles is set to open another new arts space, The Main Museum, which will focus almost exclusively on local art and artists.  The space will be housed in a series of buildings in the Old Bank District.  “This is an adaptive re-use project, so we wanted to take a look at the possibilities related to that and start using some spaces sooner rather than later,” Agsten says. “It’s in the spirit of what’s ahead for us … it’s about experimenting and trying things.” (more…)

Artist Sophia Al-Maria is profiled on CNN this week, as she prepares to open an exhibition at the Whitney Museum at the end of this month, and reflects on her generation’s experience of digital technology.  “A few years ago I had a real feeling of heaviness through things like Facebook, like I was dragging the ghost of every person I had ever met. Maybe it doesn’t create community in the way that people think because with the ability to post whatever you want at any time, you also get the ugly side,” she says. (more…)

The New Museum has announced a new residency partnership with China’s K11 Art Foundation, which will bring young, emerging Chinese artists to New York for an exhibition in the museum’s ground-floor project space.  “We are delighted to embark on this collaboration as part of our wider mission of incubating remarkable Chinese artists and bringing their work to the international stage,” K11 founder Adrian Cheng says.  (more…)

Reuters reports on the ongoing battle for a collection of 16 Giacometti sketches and over 100 photographs by the Swiss artist and his friends.  A lawsuit was filed by the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation, claiming the works were stolen from its holdings.  “It offers a very important documentation of the artist and his private side,” says Katharina Ammann, a Swiss art expert.  “It is also the perfect accompaniment for the few Giacometti works already part of the Grisons museum’s collection.” (more…)

The New York Times writes on the recent sale of a pair of Rembrandt masterworks to the Rijksmuseum, formerly held by Éric de Rothschild, and hung in the bedroom of the French businessman’s Paris home.  “At home, they were part of the environment, and they rarely showed all their importance. They were now all of a sudden more official. At home, they were very much at ease,” de Rothschild says.  “Now, they were dressed up more in their evening clothes. They were on their best behavior.” (more…)

Vice Media has purchased Garage Magazine in a play to expand its arts, fashion and architecture coverage, Variety reports.  “Dasha and the Garage team have created an amazing product that melds the worlds of publishing and technology with art, design and fashion to create something totally unique,” says Tom Punch, Vice Media’s global executive creative director. (more…)

Sotheby’s is opening an exhibition in Montauk this summer, showing a series of works by Joel Mesler, former artist and current head of Feuer/Mesler.  “On view will be a selection of ten paintings by the artist-dealer, each of which responds to the cultural history of the sea, New York City’s annual migration to Long Island resort towns, and vacation-induced identity shifts,” the press release reads. “With his trademark wit and idiosyncratic figurative style, Mesler presents a body of work that is both as vacant and generous as a long weekend by the sea.” (more…)

A group of artists, including Rashid Johnson, Angel Otero and Marcel Dzama, are donating works to an auction benefitting Sandy Hook Promise, an organization founded by the parents of victims of the Connecticut school shooting.  “This isn’t a political issue, but something completely real,” says Enoc Perez, who organized the sale. “I can’t begin to imagine what those parents must have gone through. As a father of two kids, the Sandy Hook Promise mission touched me deeply.” (more…)

Katharina Grosse’s Rockaway! Installation at Fort Tilden, all photos via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Sitting at the edge of Fort Tilden, the former aquatics building marks the transition from the manicured lawns of the former U.S. Army base to the sandy expanse of the Far Rockaways’ beachfront.  Yet the prominently placed structure, which saw considerable damage during Hurricane Sandy, has been slated for demolition in the coming months, opening the door for MoMAPS1 to commission a temporary intervention by artist Katharina Grosse at the site. (more…)

Garage in Moscow has launched a new initiative to cater to disabled visitors.  “For the general Russian audience, there is a lack of information on contemporary art,” says Garage curator Anastasia Mityushina, continuing that programming accessible to the disabled “is like 1% of that.” (more…)

The British Museum has issued its annual attendance report, stating that the 2015-2016 year was its most successful on record.  The Museum welcomed 6.9 million visitors over the course of this period.  “This year the British Museum has proved once again it is a museum for London, the UK, and the world with a diverse program onsite, offsite, and online,” says Richard Lambert, chair of the British Museum’s board of trustees. (more…)

The New York Times looks at a growing trend towards galleries and exhibition spaces hosted in the homes of artists, as high real estate prices encourage holding shows closer to home.  “Artists are the tastemakers now,” says Emily Weiner, who runs a space called The Willows from her Brooklyn Heights apartment. “We don’t wait for galleries to pick us up.” (more…)

Artist Lee Ufan has declared that 13 works held in connection with an alleged forgery case are all authentic, complicating an ongoing investigation and a year of research by forensics experts.  “I concluded that there is not anything strange with a single piece,” said Lee. “The use of breath, rhythm and color were all my techniques.” (more…)

The LA Times looks again at the crisis at the USC Arts Program, interviewing former faculty and students about the continued departures by both parties.  “The administration is primarily concerned with revenue,” says tenured professor and artist Frances Stark. “They see the students as customers purchasing degrees, never as scholars or practitioners within an evolving field.” (more…)

Trevor Shimizu, Sophia’s Teddy (2016), via Art Observed

Currently on view at 47 Canal, Trevor Shimizu has realized a swirling fantasia of parenthood, a series of paintings, sculpture and video that turn the act of parenting into an otherworldly, almost surreal experience through his ragged, often comedic sensibility.     (more…)

Guy and Myriam Ullens, founders of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, are looking for a new owner to continue their mission of supporting new Chinese art.  “I have been a patron of the arts in China for over thirty years and have found this a hugely interesting and fascinating experience,” Guy Ullens says. “I’m now in my eighties and need to look at how to hand over the stewardship of the UCCA and my art collection to younger patrons of the arts.”  (more…)

In an attempt to expand its footprint on the West Coast, Sotheby’s has hired Gagosian Los Angeles Director Candy Coleman as a contemporary art specialist.  “Candy is an established market powerhouse, and she brings to Sotheby’s extensive private sale experience, as well as a commitment to artists over the long term,” Amy Cappellazzo, the chairman of the fine art division at Sotheby’s. (more…)

Henry Moore, Reclining Figure Festival (1951), via Christie’s

Adding one final sale to the end of a long two weeks of auctions, Christie’s “Defining British Art” Sale this past evening notched an impressive last set of sales for the spring season, pushing a 29-lot sale of works ranging from Impressionist Masterpieces to Modernist Sculpture to Contemporary pieces to an impressive £99,479,500 final tally.  The sale saw only two works go unsold over the course of the evening, and offering an exclamation point at the end of a week that did much to challenge assumptions over the impact of the Brexit on market health in Europe.

John Constable, View on the Stour near Dedham, full-scale sketch (c. 1821), via Christie’s

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The WSJ looks at the collection of Greek magnate Basil Goulandris, which currently sits at the center of a major legal dispute surrounding the ownership of a series of works sold to an offshore corporation shortly before Goulandris passed away.  The works were intended for a museum in Athens, but many in Goulandris’s family are fighting for what they consider their inheritance.  “I’m keeping my walls empty until my paintings come home to me,” says Goulandris’s niece Aspasia Zaimis, who is suing for the works. (more…)

Sotheby’s Helena Newman spoke with the New York Times this week, registering her disregard for the Brexit’s influence on the European auction market.  “Whatever is going on, if you have something really great or really rare, that will ride out any concerns,” she says. “There continue to be global collectors who are looking for museum-quality work.” (more…)

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has made 250,000 works from its huge collection available for free online viewing or free download.  The museum’s impressive collection of Dutch Masters and 17th Century European works will now be available for all to view online and download for use. (more…)

An arrest has been made in connection with the theft of a trailer housing works by Matisse and Chagall earlier this year, the LA Times reports.  Robert Michael Slayton was taken into custody when the trailer was found, stripped, in his backyard, with $120,000 worth of art still in his possession.  Some works remain missing. (more…)

Gavin Brown’s New Exhibition Space, Ed Atkins at Gavin Brown’s, via Art Observed

Gavin Brown has headed north, finally opening his long-rumored Harlem exhibition space with an expansive show of work by British artist Ed Atkins.  Culling a diverse series pieces from the artist’s recent output, the exhibition’s awareness of its context, and its presence in this former brewery turned exhibition space, makes for a strangely surreal experience, and a striking perspective on the gallery itself.

Ed Atkins at Gavin Brown’s, via Gavin Brown’s

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Marian Goodman has been awarded the 2016 Leo Award by Independent Curators International, honoring her “groundbreaking support of contemporary art.”  “Last year, ICI marked its 40th anniversary, a milestone that Marian Goodman Gallery will celebrate just a year from now,” said Renaud Proch, ICI’s Executive Director. “Today, we’re proud to honor Marian Goodman for her steadfast support of so many of the artists who move us, impact society, and help us make sense of the world in which we live.”  (more…)