Wallspace, the Chelsea Gallery that launched the career of Walead Beshty and has shown artists including Mark Grotjahn, N. Dash and Jay Defeo, is closing on August 7th.  “It has been our immense privilege to nourish a roster of artists who have inspired us, challenged us and enriched our lives in immeasurable ways,” the gallery said in a statement.  “We are better people for knowing you and we thank you for working with us to make Wallspace the special place it has been.” (more…)

The Seattle Art Fair, bankrolled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, opens today, with an impressive list of major blue-chip galleries in attendance.  “I’ve been going to the Venice Biennale for at least a decade and always enjoy the stimulation of seeing the work of new and up-and-coming artists,” says Allen. “In 2013 I started thinking, ‘what’s keeping us from doing this in Seattle?’” (more…)

While Ai Weiwei’s passport has been returned to him, the artist has reportedly been limited in how long he can travel in Britain in the coming months.  While he had planned a six-month stay, the British Embassy had reduced his stay to only 20 days, citing an unreported conviction in Chinese court.  “The decision is a denial of Ai Weiwei’s rights as an ordinary citizen, and a stand to take the position of those who caused sufferings for human rights defenders,” the artist said in a statement on his Instagram. (more…)

In an unexpected turn, Art News and Art in America have announced a merger that sees Peter Brant taking controlling interest in the pair of companies.  “The idea is to make artnews.com the single domain for the company when it comes to any digital editorial content — news coverage or information,” says ArtNews CEO Izabela Depczyk. “That means content from Art in America will be housed on the website as well… all the archival content [from all magazines], back issues, subscriptions, anything and everything will be housed on artnews.com.” (more…)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has recorded at least 6.3 million visitors in the past year, the most in the 40 it has been recording attendance statistics.  The figures are attributed to the museum’s new seven day operating hours and a number of popular exhibitions. (more…)

Artists in Oakland and the Bay Area at large are outraged after the Building Industry Association of the Bay Area filed a lawsuit against the city for requiring all new building projects to include plans for public art on the premises.  “Developers owe it to the city and residents to enrich the landscape and culture of the urban space,” says Emma Spertus, artist and founder of the Oakland studio building and residency program Real Time and Space. (more…)

Katherine Bernhardt has completed a commissioned mural for Venus Over Los Angeles, covering the outside of the gallery in her signature cartoonish drawings of food and cigarettes.  The mural is on view through August 9th. (more…)

The New York City government has pledged $10 million towards Spaceworks, a city-based non-profit aiming to convert public spaces into affordable studio space for artists and community art sites.  The sites will be located in The Bronx.  “It’s a borough that is clearly under-resourced in terms of creative space,” says executive director Paul Parkhill. He is also hiring a full-time community organiser based in the area “to make sure there is a grassroots conversation early on, so people know what is happening.” (more…)

Following a number of walkouts and week-long protests, the staff at London’s National Gallery has announced its first full strike this August.  “Our members in the National Gallery have been engaged in a heroic struggle to defend the functions of a national institution,” PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said in a statement. “They have taken 52 days strike action so far and are prepared to take more. Accordingly, we have served the employer with notice today of more sustained action in August.” (more…)

A Venice court will hear the lawsuit filed by The Icelandic Art Center (IAC) in Reykjavik over the closure of Christoph Büchel’s Icelandic Pavilion “mosque” in the Italian city over a perceived “security threat.”  The work was closed in May after remaining open for only two weeks. (more…)

The Financial Times profiles Patricia Barbizet, Christie’s newly minted chief executive, who moved from her early work with Renault through her longtime career working under François Pinault.  “My mother was an artist, my brothers and sisters are film and theatrical producers, my father was in cinema. I chose Renault — spot the odd one out,” she jokes. (more…)

The Tate Modern has announced its schedule of exhibitions for 2016, including a major survey of the work of Georgia O’Keefe, as well as the first posthumous retrospective of the work of Robert Rauschenberg in the UK.  “There is next to no work by Georgia O’Keeffe anywhere in Europe,” says Achim Borchardt-Hume, the gallery’s director of exhibitions. “Unless you travel to the States and travel quite extensively across the States it is very difficult to form a coherent picture of her work.” (more…)

Repairs to a boiler system at the financially troubled South Carolina State University Museum has led to disputes over what will happen with its art collection, with some arguing that moving the works puts them at risk during the University’s currently dire financial straits.  “There’s a certain care that we need to provide to preserve the collections, not only for the university but for the state and the country,” says Museum director Ellen Zisholtz. “We are looking for ways to carry out the mandate without putting the collection at risk.” (more…)

Matthew Eck, former co-director of the SELECT art fairs in Miami and New York, has announced a new fair project to premiere at Art Basel Miami Beach this December, X Contemporary.  “Art doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and X Contemporary aims to present this overlap through dynamic events and collaborations, and within a curated context that prominently features some of the most exciting new galleries and artists today,” the fair says in its press release. (more…)

Hedge Fund Manager and Collector Bruce Berkowitz, of Fairholme Capital Management, has reportedly scrapped a proposal for a ten-story office building, which featured public exhibition of works by Richard Serra and James Turrell, in Miami, following fines and a reported lack of attention from City Hall.  “There are no ongoing discussions and the only thing I’ve heard from the city is that I’ve been fined $300,000 for the way we cleared and secured the lot.” (more…)

Ingrid Sichy, International Editor of Condé Nast, former editor of Interview Magazine, and longtime contributor to Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, passed away late this week in New York City at the age of 63.  Sichy was a foundational chronicler of the New York avant-garde and modern fashion for nearly forty years, and was a fixture at openings and runway shows around the globe.  “She could write about anything, but what interested her most were art and fashion, and she traversed those two hothouses like a bemused empress,” says Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.  “She had a crisp mind and an almost uncanny focus when she sat down to write. She was a fun, conspiratorial gossip, but never with malice or envy — the working tools of so many gossips.” (more…)

A theft of 43 engravings by 16^th-century artists valued at about $4.4 million from the Richelieu-Louvois branch of the National Library of France has led to the arrest of a library employee.  This is the second time engravings have disappeared from the institution this year.

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Artist and amateur chef Rikrit Tiravanija has opened his first commercial restaurant in Hancock, NY, titled Unclebrother, and incorporating food from the surrounding area into his menu.  “The surprising thing is that, actually, there are a lot of artists around,” Tiravanija says. “Even people who kind of ran away from the city, and are not participating in the art world anymore. Now they’re growing vegetables. These are people who would be interested in something like this.” (more…)

Funding for the proposed Ground Zero Arts Center in New York has reportedly been cut by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation again, bringing the budget for its construction to under $200 million.  “We can do a great building for $200 million — it has to be built,” says Maggie Boepple, president of the Performing Arts Center. “It will be smaller; there may be things that you might have liked to see, but that’s how it is.” (more…)

The Observer notes an increasing number of dealers allowing collectors to take a work out of the gallery to view it in their homes before agreeing to buy.  “If they are on the fence—for instance, if it is a couple and one [person] likes it more than the other—living with it for a few days helps in the decision,” says dealer Debra Force. (more…)

Adam Szymczyk, director of Documenta 2017 in Athens, is interviewed this week in Deutsche Welle, discussing how the recent financial strife between Germany and Greece bodes for the event.  “We don’t want to illustrate the crisis,” he says.  “We believe that the real image of the crisis doesn’t exist and it perhaps should not be imposed. We just try to exist in this state of crisis, every single day – in Germany and in Greece.” (more…)

Paris-based art dealer Jean-Gabriel Mitterrand has opened a massive sculpture park in France’s Côte d’Azur, with more than 30 works spread out across the grounds’ lakes and trails.  “The works will change whenever they have to be returned or if some are sold. Also the park will be extended when new works are installed,” says the dealer’s son, Edward.  (more…)

Mother Jones takes a closer look at Basin and Range, the home of Michael Heizer’s City, and the center of a recently ignited political debate over the allocation of lands under government protection.  President Obama signed an executive order protecting Basin and Range earlier this month, earning angry outcries from Republicans.  “I don’t think expanding the narrowing use of public lands is appropriate,” Jeb Bush retorted following the bill.  (more…)

In a commentary on the ongoing threat of nuclear radiation in Japan, Kenji Kubota, associate professor at the University of Tsukubacurat in Japan, has curated an exhibition inside the exclusionary zone at Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, a space only accessible to visitors wearing hazmat suits.  The exhibition, featuring work by Ai Weiwei, Taryn Simon and others, will remain open until the public is able to see it. (more…)