Arthur Jafa is profiled in the New York Times this week, as the Golden Lion winner reflects on his recent successes and the response to his video work Love is the Message, the Message is Death. “I’ve… had people coming up to me saying, ‘I was super moved,’ ‘I cried’ — a pretty moderate articulation of their experience. I’m very happy that people are moved, but I do think it’s complicated when you say, ‘I cried.’ O.K., is that what art is supposed to do? Does that make you any less whatever the hell it is you are? Is that transformative crying or is it just crying? I don’t know.” (more…)

Robert Indiana’s caretaker has been accused in court of neglect, claiming around $1.1 million while the artist lived in “squalor and filth.” “Thomas had allowed valuable archival documents, nearly all of Indiana’s personal library (which he had taken enormous pride in), and some artwork to suffer severe damage or destruction,” says James Brannan, who represents Indiana’s estate. (more…)

London’s National Gallery is planning an “immersive experience” that will look at Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks this fall, showcasing the work’s construction and research into its history. “Much of our research takes place in closed studios, laboratories and libraries,”says Caroline Campbell, director of collections, noting that the project allows visitors “to explore and engage with what we have found.” (more…)

A piece in the New Yorker this week charts recent challenges faced by the El Museo del Barrio, as tensions between the museum and the community around it come to a head. “The institution got gentrified,” alleges one protestor. (more…)

Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was arrested in Havana this week after staging a performance where he illegally draped a Cuban flag over his shoulders. The work, Drapeau, was initiated in protest of new laws passed this year that regulate how national symbols can be displayed. (more…)

The N.E.H. has announced a round of grants totaling $29 million for the fiscal year. “As the nation prepares to commemorate its 250th anniversary in 2026, N.E.H. is proud to help lay the foundations for public engagement with America’s past by funding projects that safeguard cultural heritage and advance our understanding of the events, ideas and people that have shaped our nation,” says Jon Parrish Peede, the endowment’s chairman. (more…)

The New York Library System’s Culture Pass Project saw 70,000 sign-ups in its first year, the NYT reports. Cardholders at the Brooklyn, New York and Queens public libraries can get free admission through the program at various city cultural institutions. (more…)

Pace Gallery has launched a new venture, PaceX which is marketed around facilitating art-and-tech commissions around the world.  “Artists reflect the time we’re in,” says Marc Glimcher. “In what way is the gallery model equipped to support these artists in the way it supports painters and sculptors?” (more…)

The New York Times writes on the Louvre’s recent move of the Mona Lisa, and the new arrangements at the museum to accommodate the throngs that come to see it.  “The thing about the Mona Lisa is, supposedly, her eyes follow you,” says one guest. “I could hardly see her eyes.” (more…)

Garage has a piece this week on beloved art world haunt Lucien, and the cast of dealers and artists that frequent it.  “It was the place I first met Marina Abramovic, first time I met endless curators and artists,” says Alex Logsdail. I have endless memories of dinners with artists.” (more…)

A group of artists have removed their work from the Aichi Triennale in Nagoya, Japan after the triennial removed work from view in a move some have called censorship.  Among the artists requesting the removal of their work are Pia Camil and Tania Bruguera.  (more…)

Sotheby’s announced this week that the only known complete set of a portfolio titled Les Peintures-Graveurs, published by one renowned dealer Ambroise Vollard will hit the auction block this fall in London. “Vollard showed astonishing foresight,”Séverine Nackers, the head of prints in London, said. “And the portfolio stands testament to the work of one of history’s greatest publishers, and to the history of printmaking as a whole.” (more…)

The Istanbul Biennial will open in a few weeks, but will have to relocate from its original location at the city’s shipyards, due to the delay of construction and the discovery of toxic asbestos materials that need to be removed.  The site would have hosted the majority of the show. (more…)

Artist Nancy Kienholz, who worked alongside her husband Ed on a series of  challenging, occasionally controversial sculptural installations, has passed away at the age of 75.  The announcement came via L.A. Louver gallery, which represented the duo in Los Angeles. “Nancy will be deeply missed. Her collaborative work with Ed, and thereafter her solo studio activity, has been a powerful cornerstone of L.A. Louver for the past 38 years,” the gallery said in a statement. “We suffered a huge loss upon Ed’s death in 1994, which deepens with Nancy’s passing—a void that can only be filled with the enduring legacy the couple left behind. Their work, and their relentless charge against social injustice, will remain a guiding light that leads us through our darkest times.” (more…)

UK national museums loaned nearly 450,000 objects around the globe in the last year, according to figures from the newly released Museum Partnership Report for 2017/18, published by the UK culture department. The results were described as “UK soft power at its best,” by arts minister Rebecca Pow. (more…)

Artist Xu Zhen’s show of live performance sculptures at MoCA in LA has the city’s main newspaper looking at recent efforts by museum’s to acquire performance works.  “You’re collecting an idea and the documentation, if the artist has stipulated, but sometimes they prefer it to be fleeting and ephemeral and totally experiential,” says director of education and senior curator of programs Amanda Hunt. (more…)

A piece in Art News this week charts artists’ in Puerto Rico’s response to the political upheaval in the country. “A lot of us are proud to be Puerto Rican because we are experiencing our collective power at history-making levels,” says poet and performer María José. “I feel very proud, but I am also worried that people’s main goal is to kick a misogynist out of office, and not to kick out misogyny from our society.” (more…)

The New York Times charts the recent focus on massive flagship galleries for New York’s biggest blue-chip dealers, as galleries like David Zwirner and Pace race to build massive spaces. “Retail is suffering because it’s replaceable in a virtual world,” says Marc Glimcher. “Art galleries are not suffering; they’re growing because we offer an experience.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei has sent a team of researchers to Hong Kong to make a record of the massive demonstrations in the city of its proposed extradition law revisions.  “We are really on the front line; we are fighting for human rights, for freedom of speech, and we are fighting for all the values we care about [alongside] those people who also care about those same values,” he says. (more…)

Forensic Architecture’s video work Triple Chaser, and its projects investigating architectures and their complicity in state-sanctioned violence, gets a profile in Daily Beast this week.  “My desire to be an architect was to use architecture as a social and political tool, and I realized that architecture is not about designing buildings,” says founder Eyal Weizman. “Architecture is a way of seeing the spatial dimensions of relationships of people, of societies, and the way they exist in space. Architecture is a way to analyze a violation of human rights, to unpack the politics in a way that other frameworks are perhaps not.” (more…)

Hans Ulrich Obrist Eulogizes Marisa Merz in Frieze this week, recounting her work and her dedication to her craft. “This resistance to the idea that any material or encounter was forever was something she insisted upon. Nothing should ever be fixed, she explained to me – the works have to be alive,” he writes. “This is one of the reasons she disliked the concept of exhibitions: freezing artworks in time was not something that corresponded to their vivacity. The transformative quality of objects and materials is key to her oeuvre.” (more…)

Richard Prince has a sit-down with 303 Gallery’s Lisa Spellman this week, as the two recount the early years of the gallery, and her perspectives on the art world. “I think the bigness is like getting shot of novocaine, it just dulls everything around it,” she says. “It takes all the oxygen out of the room; at this point, it’s a little boring and expected.” (more…)

Artist Takis, a pioneer of kinetic sculpture, has passed away. “A prolific and visionary mind, whose ingenuity, passion and imagination was endless, Takis explored many artistic and scientific horizons, as well as music and theatre, and redefined the boundaries in art,” the artist’s foundation wrote in a statement. “Thanks to his creative genius on so many levels, his generosity and his exceptional intuition, Takis was ahead of his time, which widely contributed to his success throughout the world. Today, we have all lost an extraordinary mind.” (more…)

Artist Kara Walker has designed a tribute to the late Toni Morrison for next week’s New Yorker.  The silhouette image was unveiled on the magazine’s Instagram this week. (more…)