CNN notes a recent uptick in the Dubai art market of late, as sales continue to rise and a number of new buyers enter the fray.  “The art scene is thriving in the Middle East,” says collector Mohammed Afkhami. “I sense a regional sense of pride when art from the region is discussed and the level of coverage in traditional and social media is making people more aware.” (more…)

New York Times art reporter Randy Kennedy is joining Hauser & Wirth as director of special projects.  Kennedy will “helm a number of new editorial, writing, and documentary initiatives for web and print, including relaunching and expanding the gallery’s magazine Volume, for which he will serve as editor-in-chief,” the gallery said in a statement. (more…)

Arturo DiModica, the sculptor behind the famous “Charging Bull” statue in downtown Manhattan, is asking the city to remove the “Fearless Girl” statue placed in front of the bull as part of an ad campaign for State Street Global Advisors.  The new statue has become something of a phenomenon in recent weeks, with tourists clamoring to take photos and pose with it, all to the dismay of Mr. DiModica, who claims the new piece appropriates his original sculpture.  “The Charging Bull no longer carries a positive, optimistic message. Rather, it has been transformed into a negative force and a threat,” says Di Modica’s attorney, Norman Siegel. “Clearly, a deliberate choice was made to exploit and to appropriate the ‘Charging Bull’ through the placement of the ‘Fearless Girl’.” (more…)

Artist Carolee Schneeman has been awarded the Venice Biennale Career Golden Lion award, recognizing her contributions to the field over the course of her career.  “Schneemann has been one of the most important figures in the development of performance and body art,” curator Christine Macel said in a statement. “She uses her own body as the prevalent material of her art. In so doing, she situates women as both the creator and an active part of the creation itself.” (more…)

Representatives Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY) and Leonard Lance (R-NJ) have penned an open letter not only condemning Donald Trump’s proposal to eliminate the N.E.A., but also asking to increase funding to the organization.  The letter, signed by more than 150 members of Congress, indicates strong government opposition to Trump’s plans.  “Federal investment in the arts provides all Americans with expanded opportunities to engage with the arts in each state and district,” the letter states. “The NEA reached its peak funding at $176 million in FY92, and has never fully recovered from a 40 percent budget cut in FY96.” (more…)

Las Vegas billionaire casino magnate Frank Fertitta has settled his claims against art historian Oliver Wick over Wick’s confirmation that a fake work sold through Knoedler Gallery was in fact a forgery.  Fertitta had previously sued in Swiss court, where had lost, and tried to push the case through in the U.S.  “Wick was cleared of any wrongdoing and we won our legal fees. When the Swiss order was upheld on appeal, the New York case had no future and was destined to be dismissed,” Wick’s lawyer David Baum says. “We are very pleased with the result.” (more…)

Robert Ryman has donated a trove of his works to Dia:Beacon, the New York Times reports.  A collection of works, which have long been on view at the museum in upstate New York, will now become part of the institution’s permanent collection, offering a cohesive sweep of his work that many consider impossible to replicate.  “Ryman is so completely central to Dia’s mission,” says Dia Director Jessica Morgan.  “This is a culmination of almost 30 years of the foundation’s involvement with his work.”  (more…)

Jeffrey Deitch is returning to Los Angeles this fall, opening a new exhibition space in Hollywood at 925 North Orange Drive.  “The idea in New York is to do three large shows a year, and it will probably be the same here,” he say. “When you do shows that are museum-level, you don’t want to take them down after a month.” (more…)

Test runs of artist Daniel Knorr’s Documenta 14 work Expiration Movement in Kassel, which sees plumes of smoke spiraling out of the Fridericianum museum, has garnered several calls to the local fire department.  “We find it good that the citizens care about it at all,” says Norbert Schmitz, head of the Kassel fire department. (more…)

The Art Cologne and Art Berlin Contemporary art fairs are in “advanced negotiations” to create a new fair this September, Art Berlin.  “We are still in a phase of negotiating the exact structure, however we have at this point established the basics, that Koelnmesse will own this new fair and take all financial liability,” says Art Cologne director Daniel Hug.  “Artistic direction will be determined by Maike Cruse [abc’s director] and myself. We have also decided that this fair in 2017 should be an international fair, with the idea of creating a more experimental platform in the coming years.”  (more…)

Bruce Nauman’s 2004 commission for the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall will return to the museum, the Art Newspaper reports, setting the stage for the artist’s upcoming retrospective set to open in 2020.  Nauman will also take part in the museum’s Artist Rooms series in its new Switch House building. (more…)

Cuban artist Tania Bruguera is making her directorial debut with a theatrical performance of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame.  “I’m interested in how Endgame brings power dynamics into our everyday lives,” Bruguera says. “It feels relevant to see this piece today, when the world is seduced by so-called strong political figures and when democracy is abused instead of enacted. It feels like the end of a chapter.” (more…)

Jeff Koons has unveiled a new collaboration with Luis Vuitton, releasing a series of handbags emblazoned with famous art works and drawing on his Gazing Ball series.  “My primary motivation for this project was for making the work that I wanted to,” he says.  “There’s kind of a reflective process about the person being interlinked with the bag. (more…)

The Skate Room has produced a run of skateboards featuring the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, featuring both single prints and series from some of the artist’s most iconic works.   (more…)

The Wall Street Journal profiles Alex Katz, and the reception of his early work in a New York painting landscape dominated by abstract expressionism.  “I really was out there,” Katz says. (more…)

A Carl Andre exhibition at MOCA in Los Angeles was visited by protestors this week, aiming to bring attention to the death of the artist’s wife, Ana Mendieta.  “I was at the protest to lend support to the group,” says former MOCA curator Alma Ruiz. “It was important for me to be there because as a [former] MOCA curator and a contemporary art curator with a particular interest in Latin American artists, I’ve always considered Ana Mendieta’s work relevant because of the emotional, intellectual and artistic heft it has had and continues to have on other artists.” (more…)

Highlights from the Spring auction sales in New York continue to trickle out, as Sotheby’s announces a marquee Roy Lichtenstein canvas, Nude Sunbathing, set to sell for upwards of $20 million at the auction house’s Post-War and Contemporary sale.  “Painted in 1995 and exemplary of Lichtenstein’s late, great genius, the work revisits one of his signature subject matters: the female form,” the company said in a statement. (more…)

A new version of the LACMA expansion project by architect Peter Zumthor has been unveiled, featuring a twisting museum wing that stretches over Wilshire Boulevard and onto museum-owned property across the street.  “The moment I had to cross Wilshire I had to develop a different kind of urban energy,” he says of the new design. “I couldn’t cross Wilshire Boulevard with that organic, peaceful form.” (more…)

Steven Cohen is allegedly the seller behind the sale of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s La Hara at Christie’s next month, a work anticipated to sell for upwards of $28 million.  “It’s one of the few works of white men by Basquiat,” says Alex Rotter, Christie’s chairman of postwar and contemporary art in the Americas. “It also has a political aspect.” (more…)

The FBI has issued a warning regarding a series of faked lesser works by Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, and Franz Kline.  A short article on the organization’s website warns of a series of works released by Eric Ian Hornak Spoutz, small-scale works that he sold with false documents using storied names like Betty Parsons or Henry Hecht.  “He was selling lower-level works by known artists,” says Special Agent Christopher McKeogh. “If it’s a direct copy of a real one, the real one is going to be out there and the fraud would be discovered.” (more…)

Artists Leigh Ledare and Zinadu Saro-Wiwa are among the list of the new Guggenheim Fellows.  “It’s exciting to name 173 new Guggenheim fellows,” says foundation president Edward Hirsch. “Each year since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has bet everything on the individual, and we’re thrilled to continue to do so with this wonderfully talented and diverse group. It’s an honor to be able to support these individuals to do the work they were meant to do.” (more…)

An art gallery focused around the work of Andy Warhol is suing a pair of online dealers who the dealers claim sold them a pair of forged Warhol Shadows works.  “Brian and Ana Walshe (the sellers) likely sold the authentic Warhols to a collector in South Korea and passed off the forgeries in the United States assuming that because the paintings are on different continents, the forgeries would not be detected,” the complaint states. (more…)

Grayson Perry is collaborating with the Apparata architecture firm in London to design a series of affordable housing for artists, complete with studios, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.  “By placing artists squarely within the community, the project aims to remove barriers to engagement, fostering inclusive and creative ways of using civic space,” says Create London, the commissioning organization on the project. (more…)

In a momentous decision, the Met will now show Native American art in the American wing of the museum, “to display art from the first Americans within its appropriate geographical context,” according to a museum statement.  The decision comes as part of an agreement between the institution and collectors Charles and Valerie Diker, who stipulated the move as a condition of their donation of the collection to the museum.  “We always felt that what we were collecting was American art,” says Mr. Diker. “And we always felt very strongly that it should be shown in that context.” (more…)