Friedrich Kunath, My Loneliness Shines (Installation View) all photos via Daphné Mookherjee for Art Observed

This past month, VNH Gallery opened German artist Friedrich Kunath‘s first solo exhibition in France.  Titled My Loneliness Shines, the artist’s new paintings, drawings, and neons contributed to an installation specially conceived for the space, exploring themes of melancholy, existentialism, loneliness and romance. Blending cultural codes and histories of composition, while mixing various narrative worlds and historical epochs with pop forms and kitsch, the show further cemented Kunath’s already unique approach towards free-ranging inventiveness.

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Lucas Blalock, An Other Shadow (2014-2016), via Art Observed

Artist Lucas Blalock’s Low Comedy is currently on view at Ramiken Crucible on the Lower East Side, weaving digital and traditional photography into a hybridized form to create surreal and often comedic images and prints.

Lucas Blalock, Low Comedy (Installation View), via Ramiken Crucible (more…)

Ai Weiwei has spoken out on the current refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, calling out the UN Decision to return refugees to Turkey instead of providing them homes.  “It is not legal or moral, it is shameful and it is not a solution. It will cause problems later,” he says. (more…)

A group of 59 Renaissance sculptures, originally thought lost in a Berlin fire, have been rediscovered in the archive of Moscow’s Pushkin Museum.  “Most of the sculptures were damaged, some are even in fragments,” says Neville Rowley, curator of Italian Renaissance art at the Bode Museum. “They can’t currently be shown because of the state they are in. But there are plans to exhibit the sculptures at the Pushkin Museum after they’ve been restored.” (more…)

Following in the footsteps of MoMA and the Met, The Brooklyn Museum has announced a round of employee buyouts to address possible budget issues.  “The cost of running the museum has substantially grown over the past few years,” says Anne Pasternak. “The museum is therefore being proactive.” (more…)

Richard Tuttle, Red Dots, Deep Maroon Over Green (1986), via Art Observed

If there’s one thing to be said for Richard Tuttle’s work, there’s at least 26.  That’s the argument Pace Gallery is making with its newest exhibition of the artist’s work, which compiles 26 works from his 50-year career into a single gallery show, offering a unique opportunity to re-evaluate both Tuttle’s continuous and consistent output alongside his focused approach to art-making. (more…)

Martin Creed is profiled in The Guardian this week, as the artist prepares for his major exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory, and another at Hauser and Wirth Somerset.  “I don’t throw anything away. One of the ideas of the show was to try to make work out of things that I have kept over the years,” he says.
“What you think you are creating or making is not necessarily what you’re really doing. It’s like body language – it’s for other people to say what you are expressing or doing. It’s not a matter of being in control, really, but more like recognizing that that’s the way you are.” (more…)

Google has developed an extreme hi-definition camera designed to archive and digitize images of renowned artworks around the globe.  The camera’s gigapixel resolution is designed to explore art works’ surfaces in far more depth than the human eye, and is being taken around the globe to photograph important works. (more…)

The Telegraph notes the recent critical and market re-appreciation of the work of Jean Dubuffet, as a number of high-profile museum exhibitions and a moderately valued market see the artist gaining impressive exposure as of late.  Of particular note is a recent show at Timothy Taylor Gallery, which expands on the artist’s legacy beyond easy historical touchstones.  “It doesn’t have much to do with ‘art brut’,” Taylor says. (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports on the opening of The Palestinian Museum in the town of Birzeit, which has opened its doors without a collection to show.  The space has had a long struggle to open, and is currently showing works at a satellite show in Beirut, while the main space consists currently of “only the beautiful building and gardens,” according to acting director Omar Al-Qattan. (more…)

A profile piece in the New Yorker this week focuses on artist Kader Attia, and his recent project at the Guggenheim, in which he recreated the  M’zab hilltop fortress in the Algerian city of Ghardaïa from over 700 pounds of couscous.  “Everyone knows that Braque and Picasso were strongly influenced by the tribal, primitive art of Africa,” he says. “This never happened in architecture. We don’t know the influence of traditional architecture on architects like Le Corbusier.” (more…)

Continuing their ongoing efforts against the BP sponsorship of British arts institutions, a group of protesters gate-crashed an exhibition at the British Museum this week focused on Egyptian artifacts.  “BP’s sponsorship is a story of gaining favor with repressive regimes, extracting fossil fuels and driving the rising sea levels that will cause people to flee sinking cities in the future,” says protester Jess Worth.  “That story is already unfolding in Egypt. Meanwhile, the British Museum peddles the myth that BP is generous and ethical when it displays the company’s logos.” (more…)

Artist Pyotr Pavlensky, held for setting the doors to Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation ablaze, has reportedly had his ribs broken by a guard at the prison where he is being kept.  “Every breath gives me pain,” Pavlensky wrote in a letter.  (more…)

MoMA PS1 has announced its selection of performers for its annual Warm-Up Concerts, with highlights this year including a show featuring Detroit techno and house mainstays Theo Parrish and DJ Stingray, and a set early in the summer by New York Hip-hop legend DJ Premier. (more…)

Sculptor Mark di Suvero is the subject of a thorough profile in the Paris Review this week, which explores his evolving aesthetic sensibility, and his realization of systemic relations between his works when shown together.  “They had resonance between them,” he says of seeing a large selection of his works at the Storm King Sculpture Center.  “Suddenly, there was this kind of family grouping.” (more…)

Christie’s is still facing over $23 million in lawsuits from damages to its storage facilities after Superstorm Sandy, the Art Newspaper reports.  The lawsuits range from collectors seeking to recover damages to their works, to insurance companies seeking to reclaim their own funds from damages to clients’ works. (more…)

The uptown studio of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, where the Whitney Museum was born, are set to open its doors to visitors next month.  “We think this place is a treasure,” says Stephanie K. Meeks, president and chief executive of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, “and one that deserves more recognition for its history and more of an opportunity for the public to engage with it.” (more…)

Robert Longo, Bullet Hole in Window (Detail), All Images courtesy Galerie Thaddeus Ropac

Now through May 22nd, 2016, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris is hosting Luminous Discontent, an exhibition of new work by American artist Robert Longo. Spanning three floors of the gallery’s Marais exhibition space, Longo is presenting a series of large-scale charcoal drawings and sculpture, constructed by the artist specifically for this space. This new work follows from Longo’s production of large-scale monochromatic, photorealist compositions, engaging with historical and political themes in new ways. (more…)

Elmgreen & Dragset, Van Gogh’s Ear (2016), Courtesy of the artists and K11 Art Foundation, Galerie Perrotin, Galleria Massimo de Carlo and Victoria Miro  Gallery Photo: Jason Wyche, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY

This month, the Public Art Fund unveiled Van Gogh’s Ear, the organization’s ambitious collaboration with artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset.  Presented to the public on a fittingly drizzly wet April morning (considering the sculpture’s subject matter), the completely drained pool recalls those of 1950’s Los Angeles.   The impressive 354-inch high sculpture, designed and crafted by the duo in the form of an ear, makes explicit reference to Van Gogh, whose dismembered ear has been the subject of various speculations in art history, stands on the hectic corner of 5th avenue, showing off its intricately detailed aqua blue interior, stainless steel ladder, glowing lights and accompanying diving board.  (more…)

The New York Times interviews Adam Lindemann after the past week’s auctions, where he sold the record-setting Jean-Michel Basquiat lot at Christie’s, and explores the collector’s perspectives on bidding and winning lots.  “The question is, do you want to be the lead in a smaller movie,” he says, likening sales to acting, “or do you want to be in a film with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio?  If you know that you can deliver, you do the smaller movie, where you’re the lead and the movie is about you.” (more…)

Collector Steve Tisch is the subject of a New York Times profile, as the movie producer and Loews stakeholder offers the paper a tour of the small-scale museum he built to show his collection.  “The building is dramatic,” he says, “but it’s not pretentious and it’s not overwhelming.  I’m not Charles Foster Kane, and this isn’t Xanadu. Nobody took away my sled.” (more…)

The New Yorker looks at the recent wave of major museum expansions and construction, and notes the trend towards decreasing space for physical art, while spaces for performance, film screenings and talks have expanded.  The article notes Tate Modern director Frances Morris’s vision of the modern museum moving “from being a museum that people come to and look at, spend time in, to a museum that opens its doors to collaboration, conversation, and participation.” (more…)

Cheyenne Westphal, one of Sotheby’s top sellers and a “secret weapon” according to Harper’s Bazaar, will leave the auction house to chair Phillips.  “We are delighted that Cheyenne has agreed to join Phillips,” says current chair and CEO Edward Dolman. (more…)

Daniel Buren has installed a massive striped work on the outer facade of Paris’s Fondation Luis Vuitton, using his signature style to emphasize Frank Gehry’s unique architecture.  (more…)