Mike Kelley, Balanced by Mass and Personification (2001), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

One of the most influential American artists of the past 30 years, Mike Kelley‘s considerable body of work runs a long thread of intricately connected and often curiously diverse modes of working and creating, often creating internal exchanges and conversations that further the artist’s exploration of memory, time, and personal histories.  The late artist’s Memory Ware series has long stood as one of the less explored and understood series from his catalog, even though Kelley continued to make these works until close to his untimely passing in 2012.  Consisting of hundreds of different objects, the series manifests some of Kelley’s most fundamental thematic concerns through a reliance on bizarre fusions of kitsch, often drawing collective and personal memories, American folk art, consumerist tendencies, and pop culture into close proximity. (more…)

The Art Market Monitor analyzes Mike Kelley’s work and its market, framing the current exhibition of the artist’s Memory Ware works at Hauser & Wirth as a presentation of his most commercially-viable pieces.  “This is the second time the Memory Ware Flats have appeared on the auction market and broadcast a new level of pricing,” notes Marion Maneker.   (more…)

The decision to build a statue depicting Andy Warhol is causing fierce debate in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, as politicians rally against the decision to monumentalize the artist’s contributions.  “Even abroad, Andy Warhol and Pop art are not recognized as great art but as a fad, and testifying to this is the fact there are only two monuments to Warhol, while this would make Belgrade only the third city in the world to recognize him in this way,” says Uros Jankovic, the vice president of the Democratic Party of Serbia. (more…)

Art dealer Nancy Wiener has been charged with selling illicit art objects and artifacts to both Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the WSJ reports, a note that once again raises questions about the auction houses’ due diligence procedures.  “Sotheby’s has been cooperating fully with the government’s investigation,” a spokesperson says. (more…)

The Atlantic examines the number of high-profile, all-woman art exhibitions this year, and the historical discussion these exhibitions have continued over the experience and social position of women artists, including addressing longstanding problems with diversity in museums.  “The only way you get diversity is to actually do it,” says Helen Molesworth, the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art.  “Some of the dudes don’t get shows.”     (more…)

Ragnar Kjartansson, Scenes from Western Culture (2015), via Art Observed

Like much of his previous work, artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s latest exhibition at Luhring Augustine explores a variety of idyllic, everyday moments through a variety of mediums, and spread between the gallery’s two exhibition spaces.   The artist’s work on view in Chelsea draws his series Scenes from Western Culture and Architecture and Morality, while the artist’s work in Bushwick presents a new video piece World Light – The Life and Death of an Artist (2015).  Through an examination of broad themes and varied conceptual focuses, the exhibition draws on the artist’s ongoing interest in literature and pop culture, and their abilities to explore sensations of tranquility, joy and loss.

Ragnar Kjartansson, Architecture and Morality (2016), via Art Observed

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Bloomberg looks at the art collection of Ivanka Trump, including works by Dan Colen, Christopher Wool and others, even as a number of artists protest her holdings.  “Dear [Ivanka] please get my work off of your walls. I am embarrassed to be seen with you,” Alex Da Corte wrote underneath an Instagram image of Trump next to one of his works. (more…)

Pipilotti Rist has been tapped for the next iteration of the Times Square Advertising Coalition’s “Midnight Moment” project, and will show her work Open My Glade on billboards and video screens in the intersection over the month of January.  “At a time when the larger political currents are making many women feel both the glass ceiling and the walls closing in on their bodies, this work resonates more than ever,” says Times Square Alliance president Tim Tompkins. (more…)

Painter Jonas Wood is working on a massive mural outside of the Museum of Contemporary Art on Grand Avenue in Los Angeles.  “It’s going to be pretty exuberant,” the artist says. “As the light shifts, it’ll get a great light on it. The colors will really come to life.” (more…)

The LA Times profiles the meeting and partnership between Senator Harry Reid and Michael Heizer to preserve a stretch of land in Nevada where the artist has created his monumental work City.  “What Michael Heizer has done is about as visionary as anything that one can imagine,” Reid says of the artist. “It’ll be there for a long time. It’s going to be there forever.” (more…)

A piece in Apollo Magazine this week takes a hard look at the impact a Trump presidency may have on New York cultural institutions, examining both sources of funding, and the systems of local and national government that ultimately support these museums and spaces.  “The withdrawal of tax privileges for museums could prove an irresistible weapon in any recrudescence of the culture wars, especially as the president-elect has no record of interest in the stewardship of material culture, scholarship (witness Trump University), community engagement, or any of those things that are the last resort of the museum director under pressure to legitimate their institution’s tax status,” writer Adrian Ellis, a cultural advisor, says.   (more…)

The Art News has an interested examination of movements and changes in the landscape of the New York art world in the past several years, noting a number of high-profile changes in neighborhoods, and a list of galleries that have ceased operations in the turbulent months of 2015 and 2016.   (more…)

The French town of Poissy is set to build a museum dedicated to the work of Le Corbusier, where the architect built his famous Villa Savoye.  “The foundation had the long-standing ambition to create a place in tribute to [Le Corbusier]. This has crystallized in recent years because there is a real political will to go in this direction,” says Antoine Picon, president of Fondation Le Corbusier said. (more…)

The Dedalus Foundation, which represents the estate of Robert Motherwell, has won a court case against a former employee and board member who claims she was fired from the organization for being a woman.  Banach had allegedly been selling works attributed to Motherwell at various galleries without telling the foundation.  “It is not unreasonable that someone who is responsible for ensuring the accuracy and authenticity of Motherwell artwork and inventory would be terminated for not including her ownership of Motherwell artwork on that inventory,” the court said in its statement.   (more…)

John Baldessari, Pollock/Benton: Same (2016), via Art Observed

For the past several years, artist John Baldessari has continued to mine a particular mode of textual and graphic interrelations.  Combining disparate systems of images, texts and manipulations on the surface of the work (all of which have become hallmarks of his approach respectively), his images in recent years have taken on a sense of theme and variation, exploring the varied interpretive contexts that seem to emerge out of his simple juxtapositions of form and language.  This almost procedural approach to the image continues in his most recent body of works, currently on view at Marian Goodman in New York.

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The New York Times takes a first look at the 2nd Avenue Subway, which is set to open on New Year’s Day, and which will include works by Chuck Close, Vik Muniz, and Sarah Sze.  “At some point government adopted an attitude that its job was to build things that were functional but unattractive and unappealing,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement to The New York Times. “But that’s not how it has always been, and it’s not how it should be. With every public works project, I believe there is an opportunity to elevate the everyday, to build a public space where community can gather and where culture and shared civic values are celebrated.” (more…)

Protestors leaving an event at Artists Space‘s new Tribeca location were attacked by Trump supporters this past weekend.  “When we were trying to leave they followed us and one of them — a white man with a lot of tattoos — started swinging at one of us across the face,” says Michael Basillas, who was attacked. (more…)

Jeff Koons has designed a limited edition snowboard for Burton, a $5,000 board comes from an edition of 50, and draws on Plato’s allegory of the cave for its graphical layout.  The image uses large-scale foil inlays to echo this allegory.  “When you’re on a snowboard, there is a sense of oneness, and I’m just mesmerized by it, Koons says. “So I created an idea for a board that reflects the philosophy of this feeling, starting with Plato’s Cave – the idea of transcendence, freeing oneself and walking out of that cave in a higher state of consciousness. That’s what the act of snowboarding does for me.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei has expressed a desire to travel to Syria in his ongoing engagement with human rights issues around the globe.  “When I fight (for) human rights in China, I never think that’s human rights in China. I think that’s human rights everywhere,’’ the artist says. “Human rights is the value which I believe is universal.” (more…)

A gunman has assassinated Andrey Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey during a press conference at the CerModern in Ankara.   The shooting took place during the opening of “Russia Through Turks’ Eyes,” a new exhibition at the museum.  The gunman, who was also shot and killed at the museum, reportedly shouted “don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!” after opening fire.

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Salvatore Scarpitta, Untitled (1958), via Art Observed

The life and work of Salvatore Scarpitta is defined by the artist’s meandering relationships with his dual homelands.  Originally born in the United States, the artist would gain his education in Italy before fleeing the country’s fascist uprising during World War II, later returning after serving in the U.S. Navy’s “monuments men” project, which labored to capture and return looted art and artifacts to their rightful owners.  Remaining in Italy for several years after the war, he would pioneer his own brand of abstraction and conceptually-charged minimalism before returning to the States in 1958.   (more…)

Marian Goodman is profiled in the New York Times this week, as she reflects on her career, and the current state of the art market.  “I think money speaks more than it ever has before,” she says. “The auctions have been good for business, but I’m not sure it’s been so good for the art world.” (more…)

Despite the UK’s exit from the EU, several British cities are pushing to become the next “European Capital of Culture” for 2023.  Leeds, Dundee and Milton Keynes are all pushing to host the event, which is seen as a benefit to local economies.  “The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe. We want that relationship to reflect the kind of mature, co-operative relationship that close friends and allies enjoy,” says Culture Secretary Karen Bradley. (more…)

The site of the Lascaux cave paintings will open a brand new visitor center, with a monumental replica of the paintings, courtesy of international design firm Snøhetta.  Final preparations are underway to open the space in the spring.  (more…)