New York’s Armory Show has named Gabriel Ritter, curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Jen Mergel, former senior curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, as curators for its 2018 edition. “The growth of these curated sections and the introduction of a curatorial leadership summit reflect the Armory Show’s core identity as a place for presenting new ideas and strong curatorial viewpoints,” says Benjamin Genocchio, the Armory Show’s executive director. (more…)

The Art Newspaper profiles the work of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, an organization that has promoted the work of African-American artists of the South working beyond the traditional gallery system, and which will take over the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco for a major exhibition this year.  “We’ve spent a lot of time trying to illustrate to people that a great Gee’s Bend quilt or a Thornton Dial sculpture or a Lonnie Holley can stand next to any contemporary work,” says board member Michael Sellman. (more…)

Kurt Schwitters’s Merz Barn in Cumbria, UK, is under threat as funding dries up to maintain the artist’s small stone studio and installation, and many art institutions refuse to take on its maintenance.  “Don’t get me wrong, we love it – but we’re two old people who realistically can’t be here laboring for much longer,” says Ian Hunter, one of the lone people currently working to maintain the space. “So what we’ve tried to do is keep it going as best we can because we feel like we have a moral responsibility.” (more…)

Tate Britain is planning a rehang of its full collection, Artforum reports, changing the previous hanging strategy of director Penelope Curtis. “We want to look at how social factors caused art to take the forms it did,” director Alex Farquharson said. “So there could be big themes, like London as an urban space in the eighteenth century or Britain in the post-war age of anxiety.” (more…)

Former financier Asher B. Edelman is charging that Dutch art dealer Remko Spoelstra deceived him in the sale of an Edvard Munch painting.  Edelman claims that a loan he secured from his mother’s estate to help sell the piece was never repaid, even after the work was sold for $7 million.   (more…)

The New York Times reports on the ongoing discussions over artist Sam Durant’s artwork recently de-installed at the Walker Art Center, as the Dakota governments in Minnesota debate whether to destroy the work permanently.  “There is discussion now within the broader Dakota community about whether it should burn or not burn,” says director Olga Viso. “We’re really clear that it’s for them to decide, not for the Walker or the artist.” (more…)

David Rockefeller’s art collection is heading to auction at Christie’s, the WSJ reports, carrying a total estimate of over $700 million that would make it the most expensive single collection of art in auction history.  “Because he was blessed with great wealth, he always felt a responsibility to give back to society,” says family spokesman Fraser Seitel. “He lived that credo every day of his life.” (more…)

Artist Glenn Ligon is profiled in the New York Times this week, as he prepares to unveil a new curatorial project in St. Louis, inspired by Ellsworth Kelly’s piece Blue Black.  “When I was in the building, the Ellsworth Kelly is massive,” he says. “I had this very funny aural hallucination where I kept hearing Louis Armstrong’s voice singing ‘What did I do to be so black and blue?’” (more…)

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum has revealed plans for a photography center, the Art Newspaper reports.  The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery will open in the fall of next year, and will serve as the home for the institution’s expanded holdings in the medium, and also includes future plans for a darkroom and library.    (more…)

Maria Balshaw has begun her tenure as the Director of the Tate, taking over from Nicholas Serota on June 1st.  Balshaw will preside over the increasing scale and scope of the Tate’s varied exhibition spaces, and will push for a more events-driven schedule in the coming years. (more…)

Rashid Johnson is profiled in The Guardian this week, as the artist embarks on a residency at Hauser & Wirth’s Somerset exhibition space.  “Regardless of where you are, the psychological aspect of otherness will follow you,” Johnson says. “I’ve never seen blackness as a ghettoizing concept. I think it can be very empowering. It’s fed my understanding of culture, identity and presence, both socially and psychologically.” (more…)

Damien Hirst, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable (Installation View), via Art Observed

After much anticipation, the crowds of the Venice Biennale have finally packed through the doors of the Palazzo Grassi and Punta Della Dogana to take their turn at the visual tour de force of Damien Hirst’s Treasures of the Wreck of the Unbelievable.  The show, which opened last month at François Pinault’s pair of exhibition spaces in the city, has garnered considerable discussion over the past several months since its announcement, and with good reason.  Hirst’s exhibition is a challenging, and often confounding experience, taking on the museum as a form, and pushing it to its symbolic limits.

Damien Hirst, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable (Installation View), via Art Observed

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The LA Times has a profile on Mexico City’s thriving arts scene, noting its continued growth even in the midst of the country’s occasionally fraught political landscape.  “Carlos Monsivais once said that whoever was bored in Mexico City was bored of living,” says Kurimanzutto co-founder José Kuri. “The art infrastructure, the ecology, has become really developed. Galleries, artists, museums — everyone — is responding to the new reality.” (more…)

Los Angeles’s Acme Gallery will close after 22 years in business, the Art News reports, following the conclusion of its final shows on June 10th.  Founders Robert Gunderman and Randy Sommer first opened the space in 1994.   (more…)

The Frick Collection is moving its Pay-What-You-Wish Hours to Wednesday afternoon, moving away from its usual slot on Sunday mornings.  The move comes alongside the announcement of a free program on Friday nights, which the museum will aim to pair with its new admission schedule.  “By shifting our pay-what-you-wish period to Wednesdays, we hope to accommodate those audiences who aren’t able to take advantage of these free Friday programs,” Frick director Ian Wardropper said in a statement. (more…)

Dealer Timothy Sammons, a former director at Sotheby’s, is facing extradition to the United States to face trial for fourteen charges of grand larceny, the Times of London reports.  Sammons is accused of stealing over $10 million from the sale of works by Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore and Marc Chagall, among others.   (more…)

The New York Times profiles the recently opened exhibition of works from New York’s Hispanic Society of America at the Prado Museum in Madrid, and the response the exhibition has already garnered among viewers.  “When some of the society employees saw the exhibition for the first time, some of them started to cry,” said Miguel Falomir, the new director of the Prado and a curator of the show. “They felt such emotion to see their objects on display in a way they had never seen before.” (more…)

Dan Colen is set for his first major exhibition in London this fall at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery.  The show opens in October, and according to Colen, will be “the first time I’ve been able to present the full range of my work and the wide-ranging ideas, crafts, materials, technologies and processes that I engage with.  It will also include large-scale installations that have been specially reconfigured for the show.” (more…)

Artist Sheena Rose is profiled in the New York Times this week, taking the news on a tour of her home in Barbados, and reflecting on her performative and sculptural work in the past few years.  “The trick is just to be honest,” she says. “People want to see themselves.” (more…)

Art Basel is suing Adidas for its release of an “Art Basel” branded shoe last year during an event in Miami.  “The complaint speaks for itself,” a spokesperson for the company said.   (more…)

SFMoMA has appointed Eungie Joo as its first curator of contemporary art, and will begin her tenure at the museum next month.  “Eungie’s arrival signals a deepening of SFMoMA’s commitment to contemporary art. Her international experience in Asia, the Middle East, South America and beyond positions her to convene important conversations and create innovative projects that will help define the art of our time in the broadest sense,” says Ruth Berson, deputy museum director of curatorial affairs. “We look forward to seeing how her leadership in the field and the support of our community will help keep SFMoMA at the forefront of this dynamic field.” (more…)

The Whitney Museum has appointed Kim Conaty as its curator of drawings and prints this July.  “Following a tremendous period of growth, the museum has broken new ground in its exhibition program while also making a decisive commitment to the care, research, and presentation of its collection,” Conaty says.  “I look forward to collaborating with the museum’s exceptional team and to developing future projects and research initiatives that will highlight the richness and diversity of its extraordinary collection of drawings and prints.” (more…)

MoMA is preparing to unveil the final designs for its $400 million renovation project, with a distinct move toward more historically and thematically-oriented hanging strategies.  “It’s a rethinking of how we were originally conceived,” director Glenn Lowry says. “We had created a narrative for ourselves that didn’t allow for a more expansive reading of our own collection, to include generously artists from very different backgrounds.” (more…)

Robert Longo, Untitled (Raft at Sea) (2016-17), via Art Observed

Several years ago, a lone Robert Longo piece left quite an impression at Art Basel Miami Beach.  The subdued charcoal composition depicting several players from the St. Louis Rams posing in the iconic “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” pose that followed in the wake of the death of young Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer in nearby Ferguson, Missouri was stark and imposing, a powerful reminder of the specter of police violence preying on black citizens in the United States.  It made for a sudden rupture in the often buoyant atmosphere of the fair, and one that welcomed the turbulence of the outside world in. (more…)