Philanthropist Eli Broad has announced that he will step down from his public life, halting his work supporting museums and other public institutions. “I am retiring,” Mr. Broad said. “Now. Right now. I am just tired. I want to spend more time with my family. Catch up on my reading.” (more…)

Gagosian has taken over worldwide representation of artist Mary Weatherford, Art News.  Weatherford will show with Gagosian around the globe, except in Los Angeles, where she will continue to show with David Kordansky. “I first admired Mary’s work in MoMA’s ‘The Forever Now,’ and am thrilled she has joined the gallery,” Gagosian said in a statement. “It’s exciting to have her included with the roster of great artists in our ‘L.A. Invitational’ exhibition opening later this month in New York.” (more…)

Art Dealer Gary Nader has announced plans to sell off over $100 million in works from his collection to fund a museum for Latin American art. The institution is likely to open in downtown Miami.  (more…)

Elizabeth Orr, House (2017), via Bodega

In the back room of Bodega, a new video by Elizabeth Orr began with one word: “HERE,” a coy move to set the location before her projected video lit up with a full sentence that manages to double back on the grandiosity of its previous line: “There is no spectacle to be revealed.”  This statement, taken in conjunction with the artist’s minimalist sculptures arranged around the front room, sets a terse, self-critical tone for Orr’s new exhibition, Our Hallway is Surrounded, a show that makes much of the act of both creating space, and dispensing with that same space’s contextual aura. (more…)

The New York Times reports on the maneuvering of auction houses in recent years to adapt to the changing landscape of both the information revolution and the ever-shifting art market. “I don’t know many industries that have been through so many structural changes in such a short period of time,” said Guillaume Cerutti, the chief executive of Christie’s. (more…)

Thomas Eggerer, Todd (Installation View), all images courtesy the artist and Petzel Gallery

For the artist’s sixth solo exhibition at the gallery, New York’s Petzel Gallery is presenting nine new paintings by Thomas Eggerer, introducing an innovative figuration to the artist’s already established practice in meticulous depictions of the everyday. Each of the three large-scale works, as well as the six smaller canvases feature an elevated street view in which an industrial manhole cover is the focal point. In the larger works, the cool metal lids stand alone, while in the remaining, and arguably more engrossing paintings, they are accompanied by objects and figures that enact situations on and around them. (more…)

Kara Walker, Dredging the Quagmire (Bottomless Pit) (2017), via Art Observed

“How many ways can a person say racism is the real bread and butter of our American mythology, and in how many ways will the racists among our countrymen act out their Turner Diaries race war fantasy combination Nazi Germany and Antebellum South…” poses Kara Walker in the statement for her current exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins.  The artist’s work, returning to the gallery after a lengthy absence, is presented at the height of its power and intensity, here focusing on the repeating narratives and cycles of violence against the black body that have plagued the United States since its birth. (more…)

Tobias Meyer, an art adviser and former auctioneer at Sotheby’s is currently advising the Newhouse Family on the collection of the late Si Newhouse. “Si Newhouse possessed an incredible eye, and with astuteness and passion assembled one of the greatest collections of 20th century art,” Meyer said in a statement. “He was my mentor and friend, and I am honored to now work with his family.” (more…)

The City of Kassel is in talks Nigerian artist Olu Oguibe to keep his immense obelisk on view at the city’s Königsplatz after Documenta. “We are in talks with the artist and will be ready to go with the campaign as soon as we have an agreement,” a spokesman for Kassel mayor Christian Geselle said. (more…)

Nicole Eisenman’s Sketch for a Fountain, erected in Münster for this year’s Skulptur Projekte, has earned the love of of the city’s citizens, who are currently rallying to keep the work in the city permanently. “We think this is great,” spokesperson Jana Duda says. “We never thought of keeping it permanently, but now there is interest and money.” (more…)

Desert X, the free exhibition of large-scale installations in the deserts of the Coachella Vallery outside Los Angeles has announced that it will return in 2019, the LA Times reports. “Desert X’s attendance in its first year exceeded all our expectations, in both scale and diversity,” returning curator Neville Wakefield says. “With our new co-curators, we’ll be exploring issues and ideas for the 2019 exhibition that I anticipate will draw far reaching audiences, hopefully expanding on that of 2017.” (more…)

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts has received two major troves of of 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings, drastically improving its holdings in the field. “Our wish is that the MFA will deal with our paintings the same way we have,” says one collector, Rose-Marie van Otterloo. “That means we want them to lend to other institutions, care for them the way we have and use them as a teaching tool for curators, conservators and all students studying art history or are interested in art.” (more…)

Artists Trevor Paglen and Njideka Akunyili Crosby have been awarded MacArthur Genius Grants in this year’s round of Fellowship Awards. The award recognizes individuals who have “shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.” (more…)

Jessica Kreps has been named a partner at Lehmann Maupin, Art News reports. “I remember when Jessica first started working at the gallery—she was young and fresh, and I always saw extreme potential in her,” gallery cofounder Rachel Lehmann said in a statement. “Today—eight years later—I still find the same freshness and curiosity, and I trust her with what is most dear to me, which are our artists.” (more…)

Amanda Ross-Ho, Untitled Timepiece (Coca-Cola) (2017), via Art Observed

In some regards, size has always mattered to Amanda Ross-Ho. It’s hard to even recall a show of hers in which she hasn’t taken a common object and enlarged it to an uncommon size. In her 2012 show at MOCA’s Pacific Design Center, Teeny Tiny Woman, Ross-Ho even went so far as to create an oversize photo enlarger, underscoring her impressive sense of both scale and formal wit. With several years of practice under her belt since then, however, Ross-Ho’s simple enlargements have seemed to evolve quite considerably, perhaps best exemplified by My Pen is Huge, Ross-Ho’s new exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, which sees her adding to own work’s discourse by including life size objects alongside her oversized sculptures. (more…)

Christie’s will offer the last Leonardo da Vinci painting in private hands, Salvatore Mundi in its November auctions in New York, part of a special sale that will look to earn upwards of $100 million for the piece.  The show is accompanied by Andy Warhol’s Sixty Last Suppers (1986), which carries an estimate of $50 million on its own. “We cannot comment about sellers, but it has every passport, every visa,” Loic Gouzer says of the work. (more…)

New York’s long-running non-profit exhibition space White Columns is moving to a new location near the Whitney, Art News reports. The move will place the exhibition space on Horatio Street, not far from the proposed David Hammons work commissioned by the Whitney. (more…)

Rachel Whiteread, Wolfgang Tillmans and Tracey Emin are among the artists donating works to benefit the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire in London.  Of particular note is Tillmans’s work, from his rare Freischwimmer series. “It’s from a very rare series of work, and he was incredibly generous,” says art consultant Katie Heller, who helped organize the show. (more…)

Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu of OMA will design an expansion for the New Museum, building a new structure alongside its Bowery exhibition space. “I’ve admired Rem’s work and the firm for a long time — he’s a top thinker, he’s an urbanist, he’s got his finger on the pulse of the city and has thought about New York more than many people,” museum director Lisa Phillips says. (more…)

A group of Chinese investors have purchased Beijing’s Ullens Centre For Contemporary Art, the SCMP reports. “Our mission continues to be a desire to put Chinese art in a global context, to provoke and stimulate a discussion about a vital part of art history,” Director Philip Tinari said. (more…)

Laura Raicovich, the director of the Queens Museum, is profiled in the New York Times this week for her outspoken stance against President Trump, and her commitment to political agency and advocacy. “Neutrality is a fiction,” she is quoted as saying over her opposition to the President’s stance on DACA. (more…)

Kudzanai Violet Hwami at Tyburn for 1:54 Art Fair, via Art Observed

With Frieze London commanding such expansive attention across the European art world each year, the fair’s annual occurrence has opened the door to an increasingly large pool of satellite fairs and supplementary exhibitions, turning the week into a packed series of openings and fairs spread throughout the British capital. This year, Frieze Art Week was no different, as the 1:54 Art Fair and Sunday Art Fair  its doors for another year in the city. (more…)

The Guggenheim’s Richard Armstrong is interviewed in the New York Times this week, discussing the ominous and occasionally violent threats staff members received over the recently pulled works from its show on Chinese contemporary art.  “I think one thing we weren’t prepared for, or were surprised by, was the ferocity of the reaction,” Armstrong says. “The issue ultimately became one of safety.” (more…)

Thomas Ruff is profiled in the New York Times this week, as the artist reveals a body of new work focused around the limits and structural networks behind the production of the modern image. “What I do is react,” he says. “I think, ‘Oops, this is strange, I have to make an investigation.’” (more…)