CNN profiles Sifang Art Collective, a massive architectural and art project funded by businessman, Lu Jun, and his art collector son Lu Xun, which features an impressive private museum and buildings by a number of prominent architects and artists, including Ai Weiwei, Chinese Pritzker prize winner Wang Shu and David Adjaye.

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The Financial Times has a profile on the generations of Brazilian collectors that rose to global influence during the 1990’s, and those in market today as Brazil deals with its economic struggles.  “We live in a country of highs and lows, a country that went through a period of euphoria in which many people made money, giving a boost to the art market. But I don’t think that’s what Brazil truly is. Today we’re going through one more crisis, that for those of us who are a bit older has already become a habit from time to time,” says collector Bernardo Paz. (more…)

Jim Shaw is profiled in the New York Times this week, in advance of his retrospective opening at the New Museum this month.  “Jim has always been very important and influential to me because of the way he blurs the distinction between insider art and outsider art, which is something I’ve been involved with for a long time,” says Massimiliano Gioni. (more…)

Chantal Akerman, the Belgian filmmaker whose relentless experimentation and prolific output as both a director and writer defined her as a major influence on late 20th century film, has passed away at the age of 65.  Akerman’s work had achieved wide acclaim for her embrace of experimental and groundbreaking techniques, particularly in her landmark work Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which was shot in real-time.  French newspaper of record Le Monde is reporting the death as suicide. (more…)

Sarah Sze, Hammock (2015)

Following her acclaimed 55th Venice Biennale presentation for the U.S. Pavillon in 2013 and her current participation in this year’s Okwui Enwezor-curated 56th installment, Sarah Sze is the subject of a solo exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery for her new body of work, returning to common themes that have informed her particularly interdisciplinary practice over two floors of the gallery space.  As is frequently the case with Sze’s work, architecture is often used as a meditative force on the space surrounding her pieces, rather than a utilitarian system of constructing materials.  Here, these explorations fall into conversation with Sze’s use of visually calm and fluid materials, as she strips the physicality of such objects from their primary definitions and purposes. (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced a major commission for its fall sale in New York, one of Andy Warhol’s iconic Mao works, estimated to sell for $40 million or more.  The work is the artist’s first in the series of Mao paintings, and came from an idea by dealer Bruno Bischofberger, who suggested Warhol paint the most famous person in the world.  “‘I was just reading in Life magazine that the most famous person in the world today is Chairman Mao. Shouldn’t it be the most famous person, Bruno?'” Interview editor Bob Colacello recalls the artist saying. (more…)

Antony Gormley has contributed a special piece to the Financial Times this week, describing his vision for the future of sculpture.  “Our need is to leave a trace: a trace of our living and dying on the face of an indifferent universe,” he writes.  “Sculpture’s central purpose in confronting the body with another materiality is to engage the imagination, to make links with all that lies beyond the palpable and the observable, deep in space or deep in the unconscious mind.” (more…)

Painter Luc Tuymans has reached an out-of-court settlement with the photographer Katrijn Van Giel, following the artist’s conviction of plagiarism and subsequent lawsuit over a work that had allegedly borrowed from one of Van Giel’s works.  The work, A Belgian Politician, was originally claimed as “a parody” by Tuymans. (more…)

Olga Hirshhorn, the collector and widow of Hirshhorn Museum founder Joseph Hirshhorn, has passed away at the age of 95.  “I had to choose whether to learn about art or finance or mining,” Mrs. Hirshhorn said of her early years married to her husband, “and I chose art.” (more…)

A Bulgarian artist has delivered a coy sculptural work to the European Central Bank, a giant chunk of aluminum that will be replaced with a finished sculpture when the institution achieves all of its stated goals and its staff is fully “satisfied.”  “This will of course never happen because a serious institution is never satisfied,” artist Nedko Solakov says. “I just let the people imagine what the sculpture would look like.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei has reportedly found what he thinks are “listening devices” in the walls of his studio.  The artist posted photos and video of the devices, which were found during a renovation of his studio.  “There will always be surprises,” he noted. (more…)

Serge Lasvignes, the President of Centre Pompidou, has announced a string of new plans for the institution, including a series of pop-up exhibitions in Korea and China, and exhibitions focusing on Arte Povera and Beirut. “My aim is to start a dialogue with foreign [art] centers which will enable us to build our collections for the future,” he says. (more…)

Barnaby Furnas, The First Morning (Scarlet) (2015), via Art Observed

Presenting a new body of work that combines his prior interests in masses of color and space with geometric inversions and breaks with the autonomy of the canvas, Barnaby Furnas returns to Marianne Boesky this fall, his sixth solo exhibition with the gallery since 2002.  Continuing his ongoing interest in the formal potentials for landscape painting in the Twenty-First century, Furnas’s new work negotiates a line between modern practice and the historical innovations of his forbears over the past several centuries. (more…)

Three men in suits posing as authorities at the Beijing Biennale reportedly attempted to destroy works at the Armenian pavilion, Artforum reports.  The men entered the pavilion and sought to remove works by artist Karen Mirzoyan depicting lands contested by Azerbaijan.  “For now I can say that our team and artworks are safe,” said pavilion curator Anna Garrigan.  (more…)

The body of Sebastiano Magnanini, a former Italian art thief, was found in London’s Regent’s canal near Kings Cross this week, the Guardian reports.  “His life in Italy, before coming to London, will inevitably form part of the investigation, but at this early stage we are not looking at organized crime as a motive,” says Investigator Rebecca Reeves. (more…)

A group of artists are being evicted from studio spaces across three Ninth Street buildings in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn.  “For the overall arts and creativity in Gowanus, this is a huge loss,” says Abby Subak, executive director of Arts Gowanus.  “The implications for this go beyond Gowanus and are being felt by the entire artist community of New York City.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles the work of curator Koyo Kouoh, who has built a reputation for bringing contemporary African Artists to the wider art world.  “She has always been somebody who was interested in much more than just contemporary art, and these are the strong people of today,” says Chris Dercon, director at the Tate Modern. “She is very interested in possible links, not only in other disciplines, especially literature, but also to have a much wider view of what visual art means, especially in Africa.” (more…)

Adrián Vilar Rojas, Two Suns (2015), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The work of Adrián Vilar Rojas often occupies itself with remainders, leftovers, and detritus from the visual and aesthetic languages of human culture.  Suspending forms and materials in a timeless ruins that translates human-kind’s greatest accomplishments into a faded wreckage, the artist still manages to incorporate a certain degree of grace and elegance to his work, allowing the natural elements and human impulses that underscore his project to gradually take the foreground. (more…)

The Dia Foundation is no longer planning on a new building project in Chelsea, the Art Newspaper reports, as new Director Jessica Morgan is pushing for a more active use of the Foundation’s existing space in the city.  “I want to be programming constantly in Chelsea again because it makes no sense to have this incredible real estate and to be renting it out,” Morgan says. “It’s essential that we have a presence in the city.” (more…)

London’s Royal College of Art has suspended admissions for the incoming year’s design interactions course due to a shortage of teaching staff for the program.  “Several tutors left this summer instead of working their notices until December,” says an anonymous alumnus. (more…)

The New Yorker profiles the Korean art group Tansaekhwa this week, as the group of post-war conceptualists prepare a selling exhibition of work split between Christie’s locations in New York and Hong Kong.  “I am unbelievably happy,” says included artist Ha Chong-Hyun. “I’m eighty-one years old. Back in the day, Koreans didn’t live this long. I shouldn’t be here. But to have this happen in my lifetime, I can’t be more thankful.” (more…)

Rhizome has appointed Zachary Kaplan as the organization’s new executive director.  “Zach is a proven leader and a passionate advocate for Rhizome’s mission. He brings a wealth of experience and a strong vision to this evolving organization, and we’re excited for him to shape the future of Rhizome,” says Greg Pass, the chairman of Rhizome’s board. (more…)

Frank Stella, La Scienza della Fiacca, 3.5X (1984), © 2015 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Precluding Frank Stella’s career retrospective at The Whitney Museum, which opens at the end of October, Paul Kasmin Gallery has opened a similarly focused exhibition of the New York artist’s particular brand of formal innovation, moving from his early minimal and shaped canvas works during the 1960’s on through to his vividly constructed and layered assemblages of the 1980’s on through to the current day.  Pulling one major work from each of the artist’s most prominent series, the nine works trace the artist’s continued evolution and investigation of shape, space and color as his material interests have gradually changed. (more…)

Banksy has announced that the materials from his Dismaland installation in Weston-super-Mare will be sent to migrants and refugee camps in Calais, France.  “All the timber and fixtures from Dismaland are being sent to the ‘jungle’ refugee camp near Calais to build shelters,” a statement on the artist’s site read. “No online tickets will be available.” (more…)