Artist Julie Mehretu will join the Whitney board, just the third artist in the museum’s history to do so. “The Whitney’s founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, believed that artists were essential to defining, challenging and expanding culture and that the museum should be a site where artists and audiences engaged openly with untested ideas,” says director Adam D. Weinberg. “Today, more than 90 years later, this history informs who we are and how we serve our public, and our trustees, along with our staff, help to ensure that we redouble our commitment to American art and artists.” (more…)

Simone Leigh at Hauser & Wirth, via Art Observed

After a long hiatus and the challenges posed in the wake of months of crippling pandemic lockdowns, the Frieze Art Fair has returned to Regent’s Park in London for its annual run, bringing with it over 160 international galleries and a range of projects and talks that underscore its continued vitality in the world of contemporary art. The full first edition back in the British capital since the fair was forced to cancel its 2020 edition due to Covid-19, this year’s opening was a return to form, filling its exhibition halls with a range of diverse works and artists from around the globe. (more…)

Ibrahim Mahama,  (2019-2021), via White Cube

Marking his third show with White Cube, artist Ibrahim Mahama brings together a body of new works addressing the passage of time, the notion of obsolescence and the potential for regeneration. The Ghanian artist, whose work often incorporates materials from the everyday landscape of his home in Tamale, touches down at the gallery’s Bermondsey exhibition space for Lazarus, a show that draws reference from the biblical story of a miracle resurrection and one of Mahama’s works on view, a group of suspended sculptures formed from armatures made of metal rebar and draped with tarpaulin, which together take on the form of cloaked figures or large bats. Haunting and ethereal, the work challenges framings of economic and cultural history in his home country and abroad.  (more…)

Anish Kapoor, Blackness From Her Womb (2021), via Lisson

On view now at Lisson Gallery in London, Anish Kapoor presents a new series of paintings, an element of his practice that has rarely been seen, exploring the intimate and ritualistic nature of his work. Created over the past year, the show provides a poetic view of the artist’s recent preoccupations, while delving into his more expressive and visceral modes of practice. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the artist’s show at Modern Art Oxford. (more…)

Issy Wood, What if you showed up (detail) (2021), via Carlos Ishikawa

Marking the latest entry in a body of work that has long evaded easy classification, painter Issy Wood has opened a show of new works this month at Carlos/Ishikawa, continuing her exploration of the painted canvas as a site for the juxtaposition of realities, memories and figments of the imagination. (more…)

Ron Nagle, Pink Flamenco (2021), via Matthew Marks

Ron Nagle is known for his intimately scaled sculptures made of ceramic elements that are slip-cast, fired, and embellished with epoxy and other synthetic materials that allow him to expand his forms beyond the limits of clay. Evoking otherworldly landscapes or surreal architectural arrangements, Nagle’s inventive works elicit a vast range of associations. A new exhibition of the artist’s work is now on at Matthew Marks in New York. (more…)

Jack Pierson, Stay (1992), via Regen Projects

Spanning the full width and breadth of his career, Regen Projects is currently presenting a selection of works by the artist Jack Pierson, underscoring his ongoing and extensive practice, and its engagement with themes of memory, desire, longing, beauty, despair, loss, and glamour.Arranged as a poetic, achronological, and comprehensive installation, Less and more tracks Pierson’s diverse yet idiosyncratic practice. (more…)

Helen Marten, Horizontal Weather (2021), via Sadie Coles

Currently on view at Sadie Coles HQ‘s Kingly Street location, artist Helen Marten presents a body of new works that continue her investigation of a space shaped by participants and her pieces simultaneously, the show here draws on the ancient philosophical metaphor of “the body politic”, taking the allegory of a single individual body into a raging grammatical city, a contemporary projection of systems, agency and the digestion of ideas. (more…)

Rashid Johnson, Untitled Totem (2021), via David Kordansky

On view in Los Angeles this month, artist Rashid Johnson has brought forth a selection of new works at David Kordansky that continue his exploration of a wide range of media and formats. The show, which includes new paintings, bronze sculptures, works on paper, and the debut of a new 35mm film will occupy all three of the gallery’s exhibition spaces. (more…)

Lisa Yusakavage, Yellow Studio (2021), via David Zwirner

On view now at David Zwirner’s 19th Street location in New York, artist Lisa Yuskavage marks her seventh solo exhibition at the gallery with a selection of new work that sees the artist continuing to mine her surreal approach to figuration, and her expression capacity for charging scenes with a latent tension complicated by notions of sexuality, the body, and society.  (more…)

Work by artist Kerry James Marshall will replace two Confederate-themed stained-glass panels at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., the NYT reports. “It will have to be work that is able to synthesize a multiplicity of ideas and sentiments about what the country represents for all of us,” Marshall says. “There will be some kind of imagery that presents itself as an invitation to reflection on the meaning of America now.” (more…)

Korakrit Arunanondchai has an interview in Art Newspaper this week, as the artist opens a major show of his work at the Migros Museum in Zurich, where he reflects on the dense layering of cultural, personal and societal symbolism in his work. “I felt like I wanted to paint on denim because denim constantly signifies Western globalization and the soft power of America.” he says. “Today, one in seven people in the world have denim. It felt like that was the thread or the canvas I wanted to build my practice upon. But now I think the series has gone full circle, it goes back to my grandfather, to the idea of death, to the source of the fire itself.” (more…)

Pol Yves Taburet at Balice Hertling, via Art Observed

Opening this year in another hall of the Messe Basel, the Liste Art Fair returns to Basel Art Week with another edition of its event showcasing works by a range of galleries presenting the latest and newest voices in contemporary art. Running in conjunction with the Art Basel fair just a few minutes away in another hall of the expansive exhibition center, Liste welcomes 81 galleries from 33 countries, each centering on younger artists, new concepts and exploratory work. (more…)

Tacita Dean, Purgatory (2nd Cornice) (2021), via Marian Goodman

Marian Goodman opens its fall exhibition calendar in New York this month with a selection of works by artist Tacita Dean, centered around a set of new works made in association with ‘The Dante Project,” commissioned by The Royal Opera House in London to create new designs for The Royal Ballet, which will premiere in October 2021. Centered on Dante’s Divine Comedy, with new music by Thomas Adès and choreography by Wayne McGregor, the ballet is structured in three parts: Inferno; Purgatorio; and Paradiso. Dean represents these three realms of Dante’s journey in an adventure through various mediums and means of representation, with works that move from drawing to photography and film; from negative to positive, representation to abstraction, and monochrome to color. (more…)

Elaine Cameron-Weir at JTT, via Art Observed

After a trying year in the art world, and a rigorous series of precautionary measures, the 2021 edition of Art Basel has opened its doors for its early hours, preparing for a public opening this weekend with an expansive offering of works from European galleries and those further afield. Coupled with the fair’s ongoing “Art Basel OVR” project, this year’s live edition of the fair returns its physical model, inviting over 250 leading galleries and more than 4,000 artists from five continents, on view both on-site and online. Open once again at the Messe Basel, the fair continues its reputation as a flagship for the international fair brand.  (more…)

Marcel Dzama, Who Loves the Sun (Installation View), via David Zwirner

David Zwirner presents new work by artist Marcel Dzama this month, continuing the artist’s exploration of travel, nature and colorful reflections on the history and social underpinnings of art. The show coincides with the opening of a major survey of the artist’s work at the Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland. (more…)

Dread Scott, Never Forget, Never Forgive: They Left Us to Die (2006), via P·P·O·W

This Septamber at P·P·O·W, the gallery is presenting RECOVERY, a group exhibition exploring art as a critical gesture towards collective resistance and remembrance. Acting as individual altar spaces, the works presented in this exhibition form commemorative sites to recover knowledge, provide proof, overcome loss, and contain memories.  (more…)

The Geneva public prosecutor has dropped a criminal investigation into the operations of Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier, the NYT reports. “Although there are still some gray areas as to the legal nature of the relationship between the parties, even on the assumption that Yves Bouvier was the agent of the complainants, the objective constituent elements of the offense have not been met,” the ruling reads. (more…)

The Met will sell off more than 200 prints and photos from its collection to raise funds amid a budget shortfall caused by the pandemic. “The Museum approaches deaccessioning with the same degree of strategy and deliberation as we apply to acquisitions “It will take years until we can expect the full return of tourism revenue,” says director Max Hollien. (more…)

John Booth, the venture capitalist and major donor to the Tory party is the new chair of the National Gallery. “I’m delighted to take up this role as the National Gallery prepares to celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2024,” Booth says. “The gallery’s amazing collection, including so many of the world’s greatest paintings, belongs to the whole nation and we look forward to sharing it afresh with visitors as we emerge from the pandemic, and as we continue to grow our international digital presence.” (more…)

Leilah Babirye at Gordon Robichaux, via Art Observed

Art-goers descended upon Cipriani South Street in the newly renovated Battery Maritime Building last week for the much anticipated 12th installation of the Independent Art Fair, which opened in New York on September 9th. Formerly located at Spring Studios in Tribeca, the fair has garnered a reputation as a reliable source of fresh talent, and took up new residence  this year within the spacious corridors of the historic waterfront locale at the lower tip of Manhattan.

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As the Fondation Louis Vuitton prepares to show the collection of Russian brothers Ivan andMikhail Morozov. “Without this collaboration and huge program of restoration, it was impossible to organize the exhibition,” says advisor Jean-Paul Claverie. (more…)

Philip Guston, Entrance (1973), via Hauser & Wirth

Open now at Hauser & Wirth’s New York exhibition space, the gallery gives a meticulous treatment to the early breakthroughs of painter Philip Guston. Charting the figurative innovations that Guston pioneered in the last decade of his career, the show brings together eighteen masterworks created after the artist turned away from abstraction to assert an unprecedented new figural language. On view through the end of the month, the show offers a rare opportunity to appreciate Guston’s expressive and enigmatic pivot during the last year of the 1960’s, and the political and social undertones of his work.  (more…)

Faith Ringgold will have her first New York retrospective at the New Museum in 2022.  (more…)