Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Mirror Study (0X5A1237) (2017), via Matthew Marks

Matthew Marks Los Angeles has given over its West Hollywood exhibition space to a striking group show, exploring a younger generation of artists under the name Positioner.  The show takes its name from work by exhibiting artist Julia Phillips, and, much in the same way that the artist explores institutional power and discrimination in her own works, this exhibition focuses on the the manner in which artists today are currently focusing on depictions, representations, or consolidations of the individual within the modern field of art practice.   (more…)

Juergen Teller gets an interview in The Guardian this week, and notes his recent experience teaching, as well as the proliferation of photography thanks to smartphones. “I do like holding something in my hand – a piece of paper, books and magazines. I think it’s highly questionable what the role of a normal fashion photographer is now – I’m not sure that still exists,” he says. “On the iPhone, on Instagram, even a shit picture looks kind of good. It’s only in a magazine, in a long fashion story which has to unfold, that you can see an image doesn’t work.” (more…)

Two Massachusetts Arts Organizations, The Barr Foundation and Klarman Family Foundation will partner on a new $25 million initiative in support of Massachusetts arts institutions, Artforum reports. “Arts and cultural organizations have enormous potential to add value to the vibrancy, social wellbeing, and creative economies of their communities,” the project website reads. “Yet, amidst rapid change in our communities and broader society, these organizations must also grow and change.”  (more…)

Jeff Koons will get a “mini-retrospective” at the Ashmolean in Oxford, Art Newspaper reports, the first retrospective of his work in the UK. “It’s a poetic, miniature retrospective with a concentration on recent work,” says co-curator Norman Rosenthal. (more…)

Yayoi Kusama is threatening legal action against several exhibitions allegedly using counterfeit versions of her works, The Guardian reports. “These dishonest acts are a violation of public morals and decency of a notably malicious nature, and are a contemptible transgression of the originality and copyrights of all artists,”The Yayoi Kusama Foundation said in a statement. “We therefore strongly condemn these actions.” (more…)

The New York Times looks at the changing face and roles of the art gallery in a market where art fairs remain a major part of doing business, with mega-galleries evolving into varied economic ventures. “We are a business and are unashamed to be a very, very successful one,” says Hauser & Wirth’s Marc Payot. “We want to create a multidimensional global enterprise that connects the realms of art, architecture, education, food, and environmental responsibility.” (more…)

A minor fire erupted by a Mary Corse work at Dia:Beacon this week, causing an evacuation. According to a spokesperson, the piece is “currently undergoing a full assessment with our conservation team and we are further investigating what caused the element to overheat.” (more…)

Maya Lin gets a profile in the New York Times this week, as she opens a new show and commission at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, N.Y. “Maya is a continuation of great American artists who appreciate the beauty and power of nature,” museum director Miwako Tezuka says. “What better place to do that show than the Hudson River Museum?” (more…)

The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has donated $5 million to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. “This extraordinary gift reinforces our work to add to our existing collections on underrepresented artists and enables us to share an ever more inclusive story of American art globally,” says Kate Haw, the director of the Archives of American Art. “The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation’s wonderful generosity will lead to further research in under-recognized areas of our field, future exhibitions, and publications, connecting people everywhere with the stories of a wider range of artists.” (more…)

Art Basel Miami Beach will phase out its Art Public sector this year, instead presenting a free Abraham Cruzvillegas performance inside the Miami Beach Convention Center’s new hall. “We’re obviously thrilled the renovation is behind us after several years working through that,” says Noah Horowitz, Americas director for Art Basel. “That’s what’s driving a lot of this. We looked at this as an extraordinary opportunity. We’ve never had anything to play with that’s connected to the (main exhibition) floor and that offers such a vast expanse of space.” (more…)

Phillips head Edward Dolman gets a spotlight in NYT this week, as his auction house continues an impressive growth he made a priority when he took his position four years ago. “I feel blessed to have been released from the pressure of these high-profile sales at auction that are so full of risk and so damaging to the shareholder value if they go wrong,” Dolman says. “I’m very pleased with the progress.” (more…)

Artist Mark Grotjahn gets a profile in the WSJ this week, as the opens a new show in Los Angeles. The piece also reflects on Grotjahn’s impressive degree of market freedom, showing with a range of galleries. “It doesn’t bother me,” says dealer Larry Gagosian. “We’ve developed a bit of a shorthand over the years for how he wants things handled.” (more…)

Artist Natascha Sadr Haghighian will represent Germany at the Biennale next year, working under the name Natascha Süder Happelmann.  The artist’s research-intensive work follows up the Golden Lion-winning pavilion by Anne Imhof in 2017. “Over a period of around thirty years, a collection of name variations has been accumulating in the artist’s memory and in other places. The different versions have arisen mainly as a result of misspelling and autocorrect when the artist was addressed by public authorities. . . . Following careful analysis of the variations available, a particular version of the name was selected,” a spokesperson says of the artist’s choice of names. (more…)

Carmen Herrera, Estructuras (Installation View), via Art Observed

Entering Lisson Gallery’s 24th Street New York space, visitors are greeted with a vibrant, colorful arrangement of works, geometric forms mounted on walls, arranged along the floor, and in some cases, even propped up on tables, creating the impression of momentary voids in the perception of the gallery space, or even that of the viewer’s own visual field.  The show is the first ever large-scale presentation of Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera’s Estrcuturas works, and underscores the artist’s ongoing contributions to the languages of minimalism and conceptualism. (more…)

Russia will show a selection of Wassily Kandinsky works from the State Russian Museum in Saudi Arabia, disregarding the current crop of countries and institutions fleeing the country following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “Several works of famous avant-garde artists of the early 20th century from the collection of the Russian Museum have already arrived in the capital of Saudi Arabia,” for the Future Investment Initiative (23-25 October), the Russian Museum said in a statement on Tuesday. “A full-scale exhibition, which will likely be called ‘Kandinsky and Russia,’ will include not only the works of classics of abstract art, but also paintings of contemporary artists who develop on Kandinsky’s ideas in their work.” (more…)

A proposed work by artist Marc Quinn will exhibit two blocks of preserved blood outside the main branch of the New York Public Library, The Guardian reports. The two cubes will feature blood in one from celebrities, and on the other from refugees. “The fundamental point of the sculpture is that under the skin, we’re all the same,” says Quinn. “You will see two sculptures made from blood but you won’t know who they’re from.” (more…)

Rebecca Rabinow, director of the Menil Collection in Houston, has been named to the board of directors of the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation in Berkeley, California, Art News reports.  “An authority on the work of Henri Matisse, Rebecca has long been aware that the master artist was a lodestar for Richard Diebenkorn, holding for him the spark of modernity and lessons of pure painting,” says foundation president Steven Nash. (more…)

Emmanuel Macron has proposed a new approach to French cultural policy, pushing for a government that seeks to emphasize culture as a prominent part of society, and address the “political struggle we have today, fighting against obscurantism [extremism], and the marginalization of creation and culture.” (more…)

Tomas Saraceno gets a profile in the NYT this week, as he opens his new exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo. “He’s a great artist, comparable to Marcel Duchamp or even Leonardo da Vinci, who always thought outside and combined disciplines,” says curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel. (more…)

Vilnius, Lithuania has opened the new, €15m MO Museum, housing the 4,000-work private collection of biotech entrepreneur Viktoras Butkus and his wife Danguole.  (more…)

A Jackson Pollock painting originally purchased for $306 in 1950 by Nelson Rockefeller is headed to Phillips in New York next month, carrying a $18 million estimate. “There’s a real magic to that provenance,” says Robert Manley, co-head of 20th century and contemporary art at Phillips. “They were the biggest collectors of their time. They had access and very good taste. People knew that much of their art will end up in major museums.” (more…)

Fausto Melotti, The Deserted City (Installation View), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Hauser & Wirth’s expansive 22nd Street location in New York, a body of work by the Italian master Fausto Melotti spreads across the upper floors, a snaking, intricate series of pathways that draw the viewer into an intimate, almost theatrical relationship to the works on view. Presenting a series of varied scenes and arrangements of the artist’s delicate, surreal formal arrangements, the show is an exemplary demonstration of Melotti’s capacities to create other worlds and new sensations within the gallery. (more…)

Pope.L, Rebuilding the Monument (chicago version/the vitrine problem/one of three) (2007), via Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Currently on at both of Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s New York locations, artist Pope.L presents an exploration of various projects both current at historical at its Chelsea exhibition space and uptown gallery.  Pope.L’s practice often focuses on the uncertain but productive space between differences in language, class, race, and gender to create works that simultaneously enlist, mock and re-write convention. For Pope.L this gap is where ignorance, the unknown, or the unintended collides with human meaning and, even hubris to create fresh tensions around authenticity, self and icon. (more…)

Pierre Huyghe, UUmwelt (Installation View), Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London, (3 October 2018 – 10 February 2019). Copyright Ola Rindal. Courtesy of the artist and Serpentine Galleries

Artist Pierre Huyghe is known for his complex immersive ecosystems, creating impressive arrangements of space and material that incorporate living organisms, active agents and forces that gradually transform or reactivate the gallery in which its placed.  For his new exhibition at The Serpentine Gallery in the UK, which opened during Frieze London this past month, the artist has turned the museum into a porous and contingent environment, housing different forms of cognition, emerging intelligence, biological reproduction and instinctual behaviors. (more…)