Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman’s For Freedoms project has set up shop in New York, planning a major national billboard campaign in the run-up to the midterm elections. “We’re trying to bring these different artists’ voices more into the realm of public discourse,” Thomas says, “which is part of the way that advertising works—it reaches a very wide audience. So we’re trying to think about art and creativity, beyond just the confines of the art world, but out into contexts around the country on the side of the road.” (more…)

The German government has approved a 9% increase in federal arts money, reaching a total budget of €1.8bn. Additional funding has been earmarked for preserving and protecting heritage buildings, archive materials and memorial sites.  (more…)

Cheim & Read is leaving Chelsea, and will move uptown to start  a “private practice, concentrating on the secondary market, ​sculpture​ commissions​ and special projects,” according to a statement by the gallery.  (more…)

The New York Times spotlights the new Swiss Institute space on St. Marks Place. “The ability to engage with such a vibrant, high-traffic neighborhood is unprecedented for S.I.,” says director Simon Castets. “There are many schools, cultural and community organizations in the neighborhood, as well as an incredible history of art making and experimentation.” (more…)

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has approved the Frick Museum’s expansion plan, capping a years-long effort that saw four different proposals. “They recognized the strength of the plan to upgrade the building to ensure the long term vibrancy of the Frick,” said Ian Wardropper, the Frick’s director. “The public process can be painful, but we listened and I think the project is better because of that.” (more…)

A piece in Bloomberg this week charts the challenges around stealing fine art, delving into the factors making art theft a far less profitable field than many imagined. “Criminals don’t understand that, because their knowledge of art crime is based on fiction and films,” says Noah Charney, a scholar and author. (more…)

Bloomberg has a piece this week on the fortune of the Roche family, whose wealth built on the cough syrup Sirolin, and the art collection held by the family, has become one of the city of Basel’s arts cornerstones. “I learned how to collect with the family collection,” collector Maja Hoffmann, who has been on the board of the family collection for decades, says. “This I’ve continued to do for all these years.” (more…)

Martin Kippenberger, Ohne Titel (aus der Serie Das Floß der Medusa) (1996) final price: £8,446,500, via Phillips

With another auction in the books, Phillips has rounded out a pair of high-profile evening sales in the British Capital of London this week, running through a well-managed auction that ultimately capped aa strong tally of £34,811,000, with all works selling.  (more…)

Lucian Freud, Portrait on a White Cover (2002-2003) final price:£22,464,300, via Sotheby’s

Trumpeting the sale as a “vote of confidence” following an unsteady Impressionist Evening Sale the week prior, Sotheby’s concluded its Contemporary Evening Sale tonight, marking a more balanced, even-handed outing with a £110,239,550 final tally.  Spread over 44 lots, the sale was a solidly-appointed affair, with only one work going unsold in an outing that aimed to put fears over market weakness to bed.   (more…)

Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery has announced a new design for its expansion that would spare the 1962 building by Buffalo-born architect Gordon Bunshaft. “You see a tip of an iceberg, and there are a lot of complexities and contradictions underneath that tip,” says Albright-Knox Director Janne Sirén. “But this is one of those special moments for us.” (more…)

Artist Olafur Eliasson is partnering with Swedish furniture retailer Ikea to produce a series of sustainable electrical systems and projects, based around the artist’s Little Sun project.  “Little Sun makes solar energy tangible and your world a little bit more sustainable,” Olafur said. “We are excited to collaborate with IKEA, raising awareness for energy access and the need for global togetherness. Together, we want to connect the world by sharing the power of the sun with everyone.” (more…)

The Art Dealers Association of America has added five new members: Honor Fraser Gallery, Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Jessica Silverman Gallery, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, and Venus Over Manhattan. “It is especially exciting to expand the Association’s representation on the West Coast and add to the range of dynamic programming, expertise, and connoisseurship of our membership across the country,” says Andrew Schoelkopf, the president of the ADAA.

Read more at Art News

More protests have raised challenges to the Frick’s new expansion plan, the New York Times reports, as preservationists have challenged the sincerity of alternative construction models for the museum. “The plan would destroy or irrevocably alter many historic elements of the Frick Collection, including the landmarked Russell Page Garden and renowned Music Room,” the Stop Irresponsible Frick Development coalition said in a statement. “The public has not been given a fair opportunity to provide feedback on the harmful proposal, and alternate plans that have been submitted have only been partially considered.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor has filed a lawsuit against the NRA, citing copyright infringement over the organization’s usage of a photo of his Cloud Gate sculpture in a recent ad campaign. “These sadly are times in which it is urgent for us all, in whatever way we can, to stand up to the dark and aggressive forces in society that seek, out of fear and hatred, to lead us backward into a primitive, paranoid, and defensive worldview,” Kapoor says. (more…)

The Whitney is preparing to open a major exhibition on the work of Andy Warhol, the first Warhol retrospective organized by a United States museum since 1989. “Warhol was a myth when he was alive, and he’s even more of a myth now,” says Donna De Salvo, deputy director and senior curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. “To humanize Warhol and get people to actually look at what he made is not as easy as it might sound.” (more…)

Jennifer Y. Chi has left her position as chief curator and deputy director of the Brooklyn Museum after less than a year, the Art News reports. “The museum is grateful to Dr. Chi for her efforts in pursuing departmental restructuring, refining curatorial processes, and highlighting the museum’s extraordinary collections, and we wish her well,” a spokesperson said. (more…)

The Art Newspaper spotlights the recent market explosion for Adrian Ghenie, charting the artist’s skyrocketing popularity and equally high auction prices. “Adrian is an extremely talented painter and manages to engender the feeling of something rather than explicitly outlining exactly what it is,” says curator Jane Neal.

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Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art has announced its new expansion, the Watershed, unveiling the 15,000 square-foot space last week.  “We always knew, when we built the ICA, that there were going to be buildings that came up around and behind it,” says ICA director Jill Medvedow.  “As we began to think about an expansion, we started to think about the ways in which we could welcome more and more people into the ICA community, how to expand the circle, how to grow our audience, how to create extraordinary encounters with works of art. It seemed like an important and perfect spot.” (more…)

Lucian Freud, Portrait on a White Cover (2002-2003), via Sotheby’s

Following up on a set of sales that can best be described as unsteady last week, the London auction houses return again today for a trio of sales that will once again test the market strength for the upper echelons of the Post-War and Contemporary segment.  Taking over the British capital for the last bout of auctions before a long summer recess, this set of sales should see an attempt to overcome sluggish interest and achieve a strong closing note for the first half of the year. (more…)

Gagosian Gallery has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit in which artist Jeff Koons’s studio was charged with “non-delivery.” “Although the Gallery has met all of its obligations under the Purchase Agreements, Mr. Tananbaum now claims that he has the right to walk away because the artist is purportedly taking too long to create the Works and Mr. Tananbaum is not prepared to ‘wait’ any longer,” the motion reads.  (more…)

Alberto Giacometti’s Paris studio has reopened as part of the Giacometti Foundation’s campus. “When I first saw everything in storage, it was fantastic, like a little time capsule,” says Catherine Grenier, the director of the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti.  (more…)

Glenn Ligon, In Poetry, A Solution to Everything (Installation View), via Thomas Dane

Glenn Ligon’s first solo show in Italy, on view now at Thomas Dane, translates the poetical image into pictorial figuration, taking form around a poem by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ma Era L’Italia, L’Italia Nuda e Formicolante, in which the poet recalls Italy in the years after the war, the cries of his generation and of ancient children, obliged to face history, a mission not based on power but on civilization. At this time, the artist cannot only be who tries to revolt the repressive system of forces. The poet lives, more than others, the agony of modernity and art. His poetry is not born from a crisis; it is the crisis itself. (more…)

Marlene Dumas, Awkward (2018), via Art Observed

Painter Marlene Dumas’ show, Myths and Mortals, a return to David Zwirner‘s New York gallery space, comprises 22 paintings and 33 works on paper divided into three parts, showcasing the artist’s sense of narrative and interconnected meaning. The first series of works includes large scale and smaller scale oil on canvas paintings that explore the dynamics of love. The second part includes ink washes on paper depicting Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis story, as translated by the Dutch Hafid Bouazza, and is constructed in a highly narrative style with the story moving chronologically with explicit references. The third returns to canvas and oil paintings and begins to explore the themes of Venus and Adonis although with the more general factors of romance, lust and true love. (more…)

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