The NYT has a profile on artist KAWS, as he prepares to open his major retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, which is already sold out in its first weekend. “His years as a graffiti artist were incredibly important for him, and really formed his artistic vision,” says Eugenie Tsai, the show’s curator. “I think his studio practice is one part of that, but it’s still predicated on showing in public spaces.” (more…)

Robert Longo, Storm of Hope (Installation View), via Jeffrey Deitch

Asked if his work was “preaching to the choir,” Robert Longo responded, “It is not preaching to the choir – it is screaming at the choir.” The American artist, who opened a show of new works this winter at Jeffrey Deitch LA, has long been invested in navigating the world we live in and how we see it, creating a sense of opposition to the flurry of images we are presented with each day, which surround us and define our experience of the globe. Presenting these same images in a re-created state, his large-scale drawings function as monuments, securing a sense of permanence that transcends the flood of transitory imagery.   (more…)

SFMoMA director Neal Benezra will step down. “What we are announcing is the beginning of a transition,” he says, “not a departure.” (more…)

Eddie Martinez, Untitled (2020), vai Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Currently on view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York, artist Eddie Martinez has opened a show of new works, many executed during the lockdown of 2020. Continuing the artist’s energetic and expressive investigation of the potentials between abstraction and figuration, the show sees him taking stock of his work, exploring all that he’s achieved in his art.  (more…)

Actor Riz Ahmed and Chisenhale Gallery curator Sandy Nairne are part of a new commission to diversify London’s public sculptures, the Art Newspaper reports. “For far too long, too many Londoners have felt unrepresented by the statues, street names and building names all around them, and it’s important that we do what we can to ensure our rich and diverse history is celebrated and properly commemorated in our city,” says Mayor Sadiq Khan.  (more…)

The German government’s advisory panel on Nazi-looted art has ruled that the city of Cologne should return an Egon Schiele that was likely sold under duress by Heinrich Rieger, a Jewish Viennese dentist and art collector. “We are relieved that there are now prospects for a fair and just solution with the return of the work to the family,” says Yilmaz Dziewior, the director of the Museum Ludwig. (more…)

The WSJ takes a tour of Annabelle Selldorf’s art-filled home this week, as she reflects on her many projects with galleries, and how it has informed her taste in art. “I’ve worked on art-related projects since early days,” she says. “Art is the thing that stimulates, inspires and informs in ways that sort of activate this part of the brain.” (more…)

A piece in The Guardian this week features snapshots from the organizer of the late Christo, which features a range of meetings and appointments, including several lines like “CALL ANDY WARHOL.” “Christo and Jeanne-Claude also spent quite a bit of time with Andy Warhol. They had lots of friends in common and would lunch or dine together or go to the movies. Christo said he was a very sweet, almost shy in person,” says Lorenza Giovanelli, Christo’s studio manager, friend and confidante. (more…)

Rachel Harrison, Boss Revolution (2015), via Kasmin

Currently on view at Kasmin in New York, a series of monolithic sculptures come together to create a new insight into the expression and reflection of scale. The show, Between the Earth and Sky, brings together a series of works from the format of the large-scale, towering sculpture spanning from 900 A.D. to 2019, and demonstrating how various utilizations of stelae, herms, and columns have functioned as repositories of meaning or markers of time and place across many cultures since prehistory, as well as the way in which the expressive possibilities of this format continue to resonate with sculptors working internationally today.

Between the Earth and Sky (Installation View), via Kasmin

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The NYT has a piece this week on the number of Florine Stettheimer pieces appearing on the market of late, and the allegations of fake works that have followed in their wake. “The challenge with Stettheimer,” says Christie’s deputy chair Eric Widing, “is so little of her art comes to market that there is a dearth of good pricing data for people to make an assessment.”  (more…)

The Met is considering selling off works from its collection to fund for the collection’s care and current expenses. “This is the time when we need to keep our options open,” says director Max Hollein. “None of us have a full perspective on how the pandemic will play out. It would be inappropriate for us not to consider it, when we’re still in this foggy situation.” (more…)

NBC reports this week on the newly approved National Museum of the American Latino, and the efforts to spearhead funding for getting the museum built, including using funds. already on hand. “We’ll go ahead and do that, but Congress is going to have to appropriate later as we move forward,” says interim director Eduardo Diaz. (more…)

The Netherlands will embark on an ambitious new plan to repatriate artifacts removed from former colonies. “We must treat colonial collections with great sensitivity,” says Ingrid van Engelshoven, the minister of education. “There is no place in the Dutch State Collection for cultural heritage objects that were acquired through theft.” (more…)

Artist Nick Cave has won his court case in Kinderhook, NY over the right to show a massive text piece on the facade of Jack Shainman’s Schoolhouse gallery. Ruling that the words in the piece “were displayed as a political message and art for a temporary period of time and therefore Kinderhook Village Code does not apply to regulate the exhibit as a sign.” (more…)

Joel Mesler, Untitled (Surrender) (2020), via David Kordansky

On view this month at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles, artist and former dealer Joel Mesler has. brought a selection of new paintings and works on paper forward for his first solo show at the gallery. Playful and engaging, the works make for an expressive entry in the artist’s work.  (more…)

The Parrish Art Museum has tapped Kelly Taxter as its next director. “We’re at a crucial moment for change in the art world,” she tells the NYT. “And I’m excited to be a part of it. I hope to make the museum relevant year-round, on both a local and global level.” (more…)

The New York Times charts the challenges faced by dealers and arts professionals in the UK as post-Brexit trade restrictions and fees cause increasing challenges to doing business. “Brexit has made the U.K. a faraway country,” says Belgian collector Andre Gordts. “It just makes things extremely difficult, enhancing the trade of bureaucrats and punishing hard-working artists and honest tradesmen in their galleries.” (more…)

French arts institutions have written an open letter to the government asking for permission to reopen.  “For an hour, for a day, for a week or for a month, let us half open our doors, even if we have to close them,” it reads. “We express the wish to be able to take care of visitors now, because it seems essential to us that places of culture can once again offer a sensitive aid to mental well-being to cope with this crisis. Art, like health, helps heal the human soul.” (more…)

Thomas Ruff, tableau chinois_19a, tableau chinois_19b (2020), via Art Observed

Currently on view at David Zwirner’s Paris location, artist Thomas Ruff is presenting a series of recent works and historically significant works exploring his ongoing interest in propaganda photography and the critical deconstruction of images.   (more…)

A piece in the New York Times notes the varied responses museums in the U.S. surrounding the pandemic, noting some institutions’ prolonged closures while others lobby the government to push for broader reopening. “The decision making has been really erratic,” said Laura Lott, president of the American Alliance of Museums. “There are 50-plus sets of different rules and thousands of museums making different decisions.” (more…)

The Supreme Court has sided with Germany in the Guelph Treasure case, refusing to require the country to return the artifacts under the conditions of the case. “A ‘taking of property’ could be ‘wrongful under international law’ only where a state deprived ‘an alien’ of property,” the Supreme Court said. (more…)

Dan Walsh, Channel (2020), via Paula Cooper

Celebrated for his work across a range of media including sculpture, bookmaking, drawing and installation, artist Dan Walsh has traced a particular trajectory in painting since the 1990s, working with a focused vocabulary of unit-based forms that include lines, circles, grids and rectangles to layer brushstrokes according to defined sets of rules yielding complex compositions. For his most recent show, on view now at Paula Cooper Gallery, a selection of more recent pieces are on view, culled from a period between 2014 and 2020, and highlighting the artist’s prolific and expansive output in the medium of painting. (more…)

Artist Derek Fordjour has joined David Kordansky Gallery, Art News reports. “He’s created an immediately recognizable iconography and materiality that grapples with complex and urgent themes of identity, race, vulnerability, and grief,” says gallery partner Mike Homer. (more…)

Christian Boltansk Les Linges (2020), via Art Observed

“A very horrible yet interesting thing has occurred since Covid is here, which is, that death is no longer hidden. Death used to be completely denied by us, and nowadays, because of this disease, we are talking about death as something that is around us and that is present,” says Christian Boltanski.   The French artist, currently showing his most recent exhibition at Marian Goodman’s Paris exhibition space, has taken a particularly direct approach towards a pandemic still causing widespread death and disruptions around the globe. For this show, titled Après, the artist asks challenging questions about our current state of the world, and the human values we ascribe to it. (more…)