Working to shore up defense of its Cultural Property Protection Law, Germany has created an internet database offering resources and information on recording, securing and reporting cultural artifacts. The site is part of an ongoing effort by Culture Minister Monika Grütters to ensure greater protection for artifacts moving from destabilized countries, and those circulating in Germany and the rest of Europe.  (more…)

Henry Tang Ying-yen has been appointed the board chairman of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, putting him in charge of stewarding the ongoing expansion of the city’s cultural district. “Mr. Tang has this very unique experience of working in the government and in the private sector,” says Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive. “I have every confidence that under Henry’s leadership, the WKCDA project will be brought to new heights.” (more…)

Cape Town, South Africa’s Zeitz-Mocaa gallery, the largest contemporary art museum in Africa, will open its doors this Friday. “I think what is going to define all of this in the end is what is represented in the museum,” says Mark Coetzee, Zeitz-Mocaa’s executive director and chief curator. “It is going to win if the audience see themselves represented by their own artists.” (more…)

Philadelphia’s University of the Arts is merging with the Philadelphia Art Alliance, bringing together two major institutions supporting the city’s arts community. “We are thrilled that the Art Alliance will continue to be an active part of the future of Philadelphia’s cultural life as a result of this merger with the University of the Arts,” said Carole Shanis, chairperson and president emerita of the Art Alliance. “While, over the last 10 years, our focus has been on contemporary craft and design, we welcome the new resources and broader perspective that will come with this partnership.” (more…)

The Broad Museum has added a group of new directors to its board, including former Met Director Thomas Campbell. “As the Broad celebrates its second anniversary, Edye and I are delighted to see the museum expand its board,” founder Eli Broad said in a statement. “The four new members reflect a wide variety of experience in industries including the arts, philanthropy, media, and business, and we look forward to applying their insights as the Broad looks to the future.” (more…)

Tom Sachs at Sperone Westwater, via Art Observed

Currently at Sperone Westwater’s Bowery exhibition space, artist Tom Sachs is presents Objects of Devotion, a body of new pieces that mark both a return and elaboration of the artist’s nuanced sculptural process, and his relentlessly interrogative focus on the act of making art. The show, on view through October 28th, spans two floors of the gallery, including a series of sculptures re-creating the artist’s various workspaces and materials, offering them both a pseudo-scientific dedication to reproduction, and a pseudo-spiritual fascination with their prominence in his life. (more…)

Mexico City’s art world is assessing the damage after a massive earthquake struck the city yesterday, leaving over 200 dead and damage across the city. A group of museums have faced varied structural damage, with some institutions remaining closed to examine their grounds. (more…)

Florence Derieux has been named the director of exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth New York, leaving her position as curator of American art at the Centre Pompidou Foundation to join the international gallery. (more…)

Theaster Gates has won the $100K Nasher Prize for Sculpture, the Dallas News reports. “He’s an exceptional artist,” says Jeremy Strick, director of the Nasher Sculpture Center. “He’s an artist who, like the previous two laureates, continues to push the boundaries and the understanding of sculpture.” (more…)

Thomas Ruff gets a profile in the Financial Times this week, as the artist prepares his mid-career retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery. “He’s got this huge thinking space — I find it quite thrilling,” says Iwona Blazwick, the director of the Whitechapel Gallery. “Really, there is very little photography going on there. But a lot of thinking, a lot of figuring out, and a lot of models, bits of this and that. It’s like he’s sitting there thinking about it all, shuffling it around and figuring how to absorb it into his own repertoire.”   (more…)

Documenta 14 has reported record attendance for this year’s edition, tallying 891,500 visitors over the course of its run. “Any demands for further growth spring from a dream of Documenta to be yet another cog in the tourist and cultural industry—a generic yet profitable spectacle,” the exhibition noted in a press release announcing the event’s attendance.  (more…)

Architect Barry Diller has scrapped plans for a floating island on the Hudson just a few feet from the doors of the Whitney, opening the door for new projects and proposals, including an installation by David Hammons. “David Hammons’s concept for a public art installation at the edge of Gansevoort Peninsula is something that we’re very excited about,” Whitney president Adam Weinberg says. “Our proposal is only in its earliest stages and for us it’s really important to start with our community board. (more…)

Richard Prince gets a profile in the New York Post, cataloguing his often controversial practice, and the impact it has left on the world of contemporary art. “For Richard, the lawsuits are also the artwork,” says his friend and fellow artist Harmony Korine. (more…)

Artists are teaming up to assist in the fallout from a massive 8.1 magnitude earthquake rocked the country and left 90 dead, as many cultural centers, museums and galleries send resources to help deal with the damage caused. “This is a good opportunity to invite all the cultural centers, all the spaces, museums, artists that want to come,” says artist Demian Flores. “Reconstruction in Juchitan is going to be a long road.” (more…)

The last of Francis Bacon’s Pope paintings will hit the auction block this fall at Christie’s in London, estimated to sell for over £60 million, the BBC reports. “It is a tragic premonition which unites Bacon’s two greatest muses, the Pope and George Dyer, for the first and only time,” Francis Outred, Christie’s head of post-war and contemporary art says of the work. (more…)

Sanford Biggers presented by monique meloche, via Art Observed

Situated just beyond the tourist traps of Navy Pier, the EXPO Chicago art fair attracted visitors out over the lapis waters of Lake Michigan for the sixth iteration offering another year of global arts attention on the Windy City. British artist Roger Hiorn‘s deliciously fun, foam spawning A retrospective view of the pathway is prominently placed in the front yard of the space, serving as a prominent lure for the show, and indicative of this same international flavor. As well as partnering with the Palais de Tokyo and Institut Francais for an exhibition of emerging French and Chicago artists at the DuSable Museum of African American History, the press release heralded this year as the “most global edition to date.”

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Sam Lewitt, Stranded Asset (2017), All photos via Anna Corrigan for Art Observed.

Now through October 21, 2017, Galerie Buchholz presents FILLER, an exhibition by American artist Sam Lewitt, following on and extending the artist’s project Stranded Assets, currently on view in the 57^th Venice Biennale. (more…)

Marianne Boesky’s Aspen location gets a spotlight in Architectural Digest this month, an Annabelle Selldorf-designed exhibition space that has been a major project for Boesky since 2007. “If you don’t have unlimited funds to buy an existing turnkey dream space,” the gallerist says, “you have to get creative with whatever circumstances you’re given. Here, the location worked and more importantly the price was right.” (more…)

Stuart Shave’s Modern Art Gallery is set to open a second London location, the Art News reports. “For some time, I have been looking for a second space that would allow the gallery to program multiple shows at one time, to give scope to bring new artists into the gallery, as well as to work more spontaneously when the opportunity arises,” Shave says. (more…)

Documenta is facing an operating deficit of over $8 million, the Art Newspaper reports, with city and state governments taking on loans to keep the exhibition running. “Documenta is inextricably linked with Kassel,” Christian Geselle, the mayor of Kassel said. “We want Documenta to continue in Kassel as a world-ranking exhibition of contemporary art.” (more…)

The new Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island features a range of art installations by artists including  Michael Riedel, Matthew Day Jackson and Alison Elizabeth Taylor, among others, the New York Times reports. “The entire building is designed to spur imagination and innovation and sometimes unintentional interactions,” said Patricia Harris, chief executive of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which helped in the building commissions. (more…)

The New York Times profiles the damage wrought by Hurricane Irma, and notes how well many Miami arts institutions handled the storm. “It’s an existential question,” says collector Mera Rubell. “Ultimately, how can we predict what’s going to happen anywhere?” (more…)

Ann Freedman has settled her final of several lawsuits against her in the Knoedler Gallery court cases, bringing its long narrative to a conclusion. “Neither the government nor these individuals ever accused Ann of wrongdoing,” Freedman’s lawyer, Luke Nikas says. (more…)

The Art Market Monitor has a piece on the increasingly complex connections between collector Dmitriy Rybolovlev and various officials in the Monaco government, indicating that the Russian billionaire may have wielded undue influence on the small country’s justice system.  I have always said that Mr. Rybolovlev had privatized the justice system in Monaco its profit. There is now evidence that the police, the prosecutor’s office and the equivalent of the Minister of Justice have done everything possible to constitute an association of criminals in order to carry out a scam in the judgment,” says Paris based lawyer Francis Szpiner, who is pushing for a broader investigation of this situation.  (more…)