A group of vandals attacked a sculpture in Nicole Eisenman’s site-specific installation, Sketch for a Fountain, at Skulptur Projekte Münster, Artforum reports. A large figure in the sculpture has been beheaded, and will remain without its head for the remainder of the show.  (more…)

The Getty Museum has made a major purchase of 16 drawings and one painting including works by Michelangelo, Parmigianino and Watteau, among others, one of the most expensive single acquisitions in the museum’s history. “This acquisition is absolutely transformative in terms of the quality of our drawings collection,” says director Timothy Potts. “There hasn’t been an opportunity like this in 30 years of the Getty’s existence and there won’t be again.” (more…)

Lisa Yuskavage, Déjà Vu (2017) via Art Observed

On view at David Zwirner Gallery‘s London exhibition space, now through July 28th, is a new series of new paintings by Lisa Yuskavage.  Often associated with the re-emergence of figuration in contemporary painting, Yuskavage’s work is noted for its psychedelic, colorfully vibrant style, and its often sexually-charged subject matter. Her paintings embody a unique genre of portraiture—a blending of imagined and contemporary subjects set against classical tropes and icons of human sexuality. In this series, Yuskavage draws upon the world of American hippies, where slinky, bodacious women lounge about and cavort with semi-nude men. It is worth noting that while the hyper-sexualized women remain the dominant characters, the inclusion of men in her work is a fairly new departure for Yuskavage. (more…)

Despite attempts by Donald Trump to defund the NEA, a bill guaranteeing future funding for the organization has won approval this week from the House appropriations committee, the New York Times reports. “It is a very solid rejection of the administration’s proposals to terminate the two agencies,” says Narric Rome, who heads up government affairs at advocacy group Americans for the Arts. “We consider the House number to be a very good starting point for the appropriations process.” (more…)

A young Israeli art student, Rotem Bides, is facing major criticism and potential criminal from the Polish government, after she reportedly stole artifacts from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum for a show at Beit Berl College in Kfar Saba. “The college believes that this move points to a lack of public sensitivity and a misunderstanding of its criminal significance,” Bides’s college said in a statement, after deciding to cancel her exhibition. (more…)

New York City embarked on an ambitious plan to refocus its orientation towards the arts in modern urban life. “We are clear: there are no cultural deserts in New York City,” Tom Finkelpearl, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, says. “There are arts organizations and artists in every part of the city, but there are not necessarily well-resourced artists and arts organizations in every part of the city. There are parts of the city and communities that remain underserved.” (more…)

Three of five Francis Bacon pieces stolen from the Madrid home of the artist’s friend José Capelo have been recovered by Spanish police, the BBC reports. The works were recovered after a string of arrests in the past months led to the work’s discovery. (more…)

The Centre Pompidou has confirmed an expansion to Shanghai, with plans to stage a series of exhibitions at a new pop-up space called Le Centre Pompidou Shanghai (West Bund). “This cultural partnership [with the West Bund Group] will also allow the Centre Pompidou to present Chinese contemporary art in Paris,” says a gallery statement. (more…)

The daughter of Brazilian artist Lygia Pape is suing electronics giant LG for is reportedly unlicensed use of the artist’s sculpture Tteia 1, C in packaging materials, advertising and promotions for one of its phones. “That LG and others stole her work for their crass commercial purposes is not only against the law, it is an affront, an ugly reminder that enormous corporations such as LG believe themselves beyond the law,” Paula Pape says. “They can steal now and pay later from their profits,” she said. (more…)

Louise Lawler, Life After (Faces), (2006/2007), via Art Observed

The Museum of Modern Art has opened the first New York museum survey of the work of Louise Lawler, moving throughout a broad range of the American artist’s conceptual exercises and investigations into the power dynamics and aesthetic underpinnings of the art world at large.  Running from the artist’s early photographic investigations and her explorations into the presentation, representation, and, as she titles it “re-presentation,” of various works and images from the expanse of modern art history, the exhibition is a bold reflection on the artist’s work throughout the past 40 years, as well as a rumination on the continued role of the museum as a site for the understanding of the field’s history more broadly. (more…)

A Manhattan Federal Court judge has dismissed a request for dismissal by Richard Prince and Gagosian Gallery regarding a lawsuit over one of the artist’s Instagram pieces, which features the work of photographer Donald Graham. “The judge applied the wrong standard,” Prince’s lawyer, Joshua Schiller, of Boies, Schiller & Flexner says. “We will be able to show fair use.” (more…)

The New York Times spotlights the friendship between painter Andrew Wyeth’s son Jamie, and Andy Warhol, and the time the two shared at Wyeth’s home in rural Pennsylvania. “Andy would spend most of his time down here watching soaps on TV, because he said the TV reception was better than in New York,” Mr. Wyeth says.
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The Brooklyn Army Terminal will become home to around 50 artist studios, with non-profit ArtBuilt launching construction work on-site.  The project came to fruition following an extensive research process. “This research quickly led us to realize that the affordable workspace market was entering a period of unprecedented crisis,” says Esther Robinson, co-executive director of ArtBuilt. (more…)

Following on a string of closures for New York art galleries, Chelsea space Off Vendome will close at the end of July, Artforum reports. The gallery was originally founded in Düsseldorf in 2013. (more…)

CalArts in Valencia has added artists Martine Syms and Cauleen Smith to its staff, Art News reports. The pair have shown widely in past years, and both were included in landmark exhibitions this year at MoMA and The Whitney, respectively. (more…)

The Fondation Louis Vuitton has landed the collection of Russian philanthropists Mikhail and Ivan Morozov for an exhibition in 2020.  The collection, which includes landmark works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Picasso, will be culled from the holdings of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.  (more…)

Matthew Wong, Last Summer in Santa Monica (2017), via Sarah Cohen for Art Observed

Drawing on a continuous engagement with the poetics of the horizon and its recurring presence across the history of contemporary painting, Cheim & Read has opened its summer group exhibition, The Horizontal.  Culling together a diverse group of artists from the past eighty years of artistic practice, the show is an investigation and reflection on the horizon as a motif weaving its way throughout varied investigations of modern art-making.  Photography, painting, drawing and print-making each make their presence felt throughout the exhibition, inviting a deep perspective on how the skyline, and its attendant impact on the viewer’s perception, has continued to inspire artist’s work into the modern day.

Louise Fishman, Bitter Herb (1988), via Sarah Cohen for Art Observed

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Edward Quinn, Picasso wearing a bull’s head intended for bullfighter’s training, La Californie, Cannes (1959), courtesy of Gagosian

A true Spaniard at heart, Pablo Picasso had a great affinity for bullfighting. With a keen appreciation for the sport, it proved to be a continuous theme throughout his work. Picasso’s oeuvre is riddled with symbolism as well as direct pictorial representations of bulls, matadors and the mythological minotaur— the half-man, half-beast that so piqued Picasso’s interest. Minotaurs and Matadors, on view at Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill gallery space through August 25th, a show expertly curated by Sir John Patrick Richardson, celebrates Picasso’s passion and link to both his traditional Spanish roots and the mythological landscapes that so inspired him in turn. (more…)

Torrential rains in Paris have caused flooding at the Louvre, damaging some of the museum’s prized works by Nicolas Poussin and Jean François de Troy. The museum reports that, “water seeped into the mezzanine of the Denon wing (the Islamic Art and Eastern Mediterranean areas), the first floor of the Sully wing (Salle des Sept-Cheminées, Henri IV staircase) and the second floor of the Cour Carrée (certain French painting galleries).” (more…)

After a string of controversial reform measures for Italian museums, Italy’s Culture Ministry reports that the number of visitors to Italian museums continues to rise. Last year’s visitor count is up to 23 million, a growth of 7% over last year.   (more…)

The Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin has reached an agreement with the Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti per l’Arte to hold and exhibit the reclusive Italian millionaire’s art collection, valued at over $600 million. “He specialized in the concept of perfection,” says Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum. “His collection is very personal, and it doesn’t have any particular geographical  or historical boundaries.” (more…)

An exhibition on Amedeo Modigliani at the Doge’s Palace in Genoa has been closed after 21 works in the show were discovered to be fakes. “They did the right thing. This was absolutely shameful,’ says art critic Carlo Pepi, who first suspected the fraud. “A Michelangelo is a Michelangelo. A Picasso is a Picasso. But when a painting is a fake, it is missing its soul, and these were missing that three dimensional elegance of Modigliani – even a child could see these were crude fakes.” (more…)

Roni Horn, Water Double v.3 (2013-2015), via Ondine Charlesworth for Art Observed

Currently on view at Hauser & Wirth’s recently opened exhibition space on 22nd Street, artist Roni Horn is presenting a quartet of new bodies of work, running through the artist’s broad and often adventurous approach to her chosen media.  Ranging from, drawing and painting through to sculpture, photography and conceptual work, Horn’s practice is on full view here, always centering back on questions of perception, representation, identity and memory.  Deconstructing both linguistic systems and visual cues, Horn’s new pieces continue her subtly exploratory and phenomenologically resonant practice. (more…)

The Guggenheim Museum has announced plans for a comprehensive exhibition of the work of Danh Vo, which will open at the museum next February. This will be Vo’s second exhibition at the museum, the first coming in 2013 after winning the Hugo Boss Prize. (more…)