Researchers are laser-scanning the city of Venice to create a digital replica, as rising floods threaten the city.  (more…)

Joe Thompson is leaving his 32-year directorship of MASS MoCA.  “After more than three decades as director, it is high time for me to step away from day-to-day management of the museum, focusing for the next year on transition planning, institutional advancement, and capacity-building,” Thompson said in a statement. “While we’ve achieved much over the past few decades, there remains programmatic innovation, still to come.” (more…)

Christie’s is preparing its first sales after merging its Contemporary and Modern departments for October, leading with a $25 million Cezanne. “We’re giving consignors and buyer multiple opportunities this fall to buy at auction,” Alex Rotter, Christie’s Chairman of Postwar and Contemporary Art in New York says. “These collectors are happily making use of a wide range of platforms, they are buying works across categories, and they certainly are not glued to the conventional auction schedule.” (more…)

A who punched a £20 million Picasso last year at the Tate Modern will face 18 months in prison.  “I have concluded without hesitation the impact upon the public and the gravity of this offense, together with the need to deter others from this form of conduct requires the imposition of an immediate custodial sentence,” said Judge Jeremy Donne in the sentencing. (more…)

The Whitney Museum of American Art has canceled an upcoming exhibition following controversy over its decision to include work purchased during a fundraiser for racial justice charities, a move that drew criticism over its perceived capitalization on the work of artists of color without compensating them directly.  The museum is facing additional criticism over pulling the show instead of paying artists.   “Instead of canceling, they should actually pay us for the full price of our work and hold the exhibition instead of cowering in the face of everyone calling them out,” says artist Dana Scruggs. (more…)

Lisa Alvarado, Thalweg (Installation View), via Bridget Donahue

Drawing on the shifting conceptions of political geography and economy, the work of Lisa Alvarado mines a certain point of friction between western art history and other modes of visual expression, using historical frameworks and objects to populate her work with subtle but enduring critiques of capitalism and colonialism.  Alvarado’s paintings operate as stage sets, artworks, and ritual objects simultaneously, often targeting a certain sense of meditative, considered reflection while looking, and using this space to incorporate new historical tropes into the work.

Lisa Alvarado, Thalweg (Installation View), via Bridget Donahue

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The Tate will make half of its commercial workforce redundant, The Guardian reports. “Sadly, at the moment, the trading business is too big because we won’t be able to open all the cafes and the shops in the same way,” says director Maria Belshaw. (more…)

Oregon philanthropist and collector Jordan D. Schnitzer has purchase an archive of prints and works on paper by Judy Chicago. “This will enhance the abilities of art historians to understand her process,” says dealer Tonya Turner Carroll. (more…)

Part of the collection of late financier Don Marron, works on paper by Jasper Johns, Brice Marden and more, will go on sale at Pace Gallery’s Hamptons outpost this month. “The reason for this show is the same reason we are having the gallery here,” says Marc Glimcher. “To get people reengaged and in front of art again.” (more…)

The Philadelphia Museum of Art staff has voted to unionize. “We are all incredibly happy and excited to get to this point,” says organizer Nicole Cook. “It works out to an 89% victory, which feels really great. The win was very emphatic.” (more…)

Ricky Swallow, Rocking Chair with Rope (Meditation #1) (2020), via David Kordansky

Currently on view at David Kordansky in Los Angeles is BORROWED SCULPTURES, an exhibition of new floor- and wall-based bronze sculptures by the Australian-born artist Ricky Swallow.  Continuing the artist’s enigmatic explorations of bronze sculpture and its relationship to the materiality of the everyday, the show mounts a body of works that walk a peculiar line between manufactured sculpture and readymade. (more…)

The Met has laid off an additional 79 workers as the financial impact of COVID-19 continues to worsen.  “Our goal has always been to minimize the impact of the financial crisis for our staff,” reads an open letter from director Max Hollein and president/CEO Daniel Weiss. “Unfortunately, with staff salaries comprising around 65 percent of our annual budget, we are confronted by the difficult reality that reducing the size of our workforce and furloughing additional staff is the responsible next step to address our urgent financial challenges.” (more…)

A piece in the Art Newspaper traces the Lebanese art scene’s mourning after the massive explosion in the city last week. “All I hope now is for the quick recovery of those who have been injured and a safe return to the now-scattered people,” says Naila Kettaneh Kunigk, owner of Gallerie Tanit said in a statement. (more…)

Kerry James Marshall unveils a body of new works in the NYT this week, inspired by the drawings of John James Audubon, and by historical assertions and evidence that the ornithologist and artist was black. “I didn’t know what to make of it, honestly,” he says. “If somebody did the research and put it in a book, then maybe it must be true. And I never forgot that assertion was made.” (more…)

Artist Hank Willis Thomas has an interview in The Guardian this week, as he exhibits a new sculpture in Atlanta’s Fourth Ward Park.  “To me, the work is a celebration and a provocation,” Thomas says. “It’s a symbol of community, strength, justice and belonging that aims to inspire action and demand social change.” (more…)

Heather Phillipson, The End (Installation View), via City of London

A riddle topped with a cherry, Heather Phllipson’s new sculpture installation on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth in London has all the makings of a work fittingly in line with the surreal progression of events that have marked 2020.  A massive dollop of whipped cream, topped off with a cherry, a large fly and whirling drone, the piece, titled The End, seems to invite questions of just what its title might imply: are we looking at the end of meaning, the end of the world, or perhaps just the end of a particularly large sundae? (more…)

Sotheby’s announced earnings for the first half of 2020 at $2.5 billion with sales volume for the year down 25%, but impressive gains shown in online sales. “The art and luxury markets have proven to be incredibly resilient, and demand for quality across categories is unabated.” says CEO Charles Stewart. (more…)

Yayoi Kusama’s retrospective at the Gropius Bau in Berlin has been postponed until 2021.  “To Covid-19 that stands in our way/I say Disappear from this earth/We shall fight/We shall fight this terrible monster,” the artist said earlier this year in a statement on the current challenges caused by the virus. (more…)

Protests have begun in Norway, as the government begins tearing down a massive Picasso mural damaged in the 2011 terrorist attack in Oslo. “There is a grieving process that this is happening,”  “At the same time, the spirit that many displayed to campaign to protect the building has been very positive. People have woken up to the value of this art.” (more…)

The site of Van Gogh’s last painting has been discovered as Auvers-sur-Oise, village north of Paris where the artist died.  “Having worked for hours on a painting which shows a preoccupation with the relentless struggle between life and death, Van Gogh, feeling alone and seeing no alternative, decided to find his earthly rest with the setting sun, on the outskirts of the village with a view of a freshly harvested wheatfield,” says researcher Wouter van der Veen.  (more…)

The Tate is under fire after trade unions accused the museum of disproportionately cutting black and minority ethnic staff members as it reopens.  “Many of these colleagues will be amongst the lowest-paid staff on the Tate estate, with some at risk earning little more than the national minimum wage, and in some of the most diverse teams across Tate,” the union representing employees stated. (more…)

Pace has informed a number of previously furloughed employees that they will not be returning to work. “The economic situation caused by the global pandemic means we cannot sustain our previous level of staffing,” says gallery spokeswoman Amelia Redgrift. “This decision was taken after every other measure to ensure we are prepared for an extended period of financial uncertainty and to protect as many jobs as possible in the long-term.” (more…)

Gary Simmons, Screaming into the Ether (2020), via Metro Pictures

As galleries reopen in New York and test out their new exhibition strategies, the first string of gallery highlights and highly touted shows are beginning to pop up online.  Among these is Screaming into the Ether, the newest show of paintings by artist Gary Simmons at Metro Pictures.  Mining the language of classic cartoon aesthetics and the often physically expressive poses its characters took, Simmons’s show turns moments of comical action into desperate, unnerving moments through his slurred, blurry hand.   (more…)

Sculptures by Anton Bakker at Walker Fine Art, via Hamptons Fine Art

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With the summer months in full swing and the challenges of a post-COVID art world continuing to pose new issues for the market, an increasing number of fairs and exhibitions are moving towards online sales and shows.  Hamptons Virtual Art Fair, currently open online, marks a new entry in the string of fairs and online exhibitions that have run this summer, an intriguing addition that references the art world’s annual pilgrimage to the Eastern end of Long Island without the sun and sand.  It’s an interesting addition to an art calendar long defined by timing and travel for the collector class, a wink towards where, in late summer, its buyers may well be logging in from.

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