The New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl offers his take on the “fearful frenzy” of the art market this week, and the ominous notes that the current focus on the market by the über-wealthy strike.  “Alongside global prosperity has come a lot more political instability, and it’s in the interests of the social elite to keep their options open as to where they relocate,” he quotes from Artnet’s J.J. Charlesworth. (more…)

The Cuban government has returned artist Tania Bruguera’s passport, having held it for the past six months.  Despite its return, the artist has expressed her desire to remain in the country.  “My argument has never been about leaving Cuba; my argument is about working so there is freedom of expression and public protest in Cuba,” she says.  “People should feel free to say what they think without fear of losing their jobs or university standing, of being marginalized or imprisoned.” (more…)

Nicholas Serota has reportedly won an additional £6 million in government funding for the Tate Modern expansion set to open next year.  The move is particularly noteworthy, as it comes in the midst of widespread cuts to arts funding around the nation. (more…)

Karl Holmqvist, Bebe Coca wall drawing (2015)

The influx of summer group shows have already begun in New York this year, as galleries presenting diverting and compelling themes take the slow summer months to explore connecting themes among their roster of artists and the broader art world.  Gladstone Gallery’s Hello Walls is one of the most intriguing of these early group exhibitions, placing an emphasis on the wall as a means for contextual experiment and repositioned working structures. (more…)

President Obama has designated three new sites for federally protected land in the United States, including Basin and Range in Nevada.  The site serves as the home of Michael Heizer’s landmark installation City, effectively preserving the work within the 704,000 acres of desert being set aside for protection. (more…)

Collector and former MoMA President Agnes Gund is profiled in the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the state of the market, her focus on female artists, and her organization Studio in a School, an arts program offering training in teaching art to young students.  “If it’s taught well, art really is important to kids early on,” she says. “It helps children develop language and allows them to see themselves in a way that isn’t right or wrong, because if they draw an animal with five legs instead of four, nobody’s criticizing them for it.” (more…)

Tullio Lombardo’s Renaissance statue of Adam, which famously fell from its pedestal at The Met and was smashed to pieces, is back on view after a lengthy restoration, accompanied by a digital video project and performance that gives the work a multi-faceted, occasionally irreverent voice.  The project is a continuation of The Met’s ongoing emphasis on direct engagement of visitors with its collection through performance and new technology. (more…)

Artist Marc Quinn is interviewed in the Telegraph this week, as he prepares to show new work at White Cube this month.  “I’ve always loved beaches,” he says, noting the connections between the ocean’s form and landscape and his own work.  “I love that we come from the sea. I think that’s where my interest in liquid and solid comes from. The beach is where liquid and solid meet, so it has this incredible sense of possibility.” (more…)

Art Daily has an interview with Art Recovery Group’s founder Christopher Marinello, whose work investigating claims of Nazi-looted art and stolen works has made him a trusted authority on reclaiming lost art.  “This is one of our specialities,” Marinello says of his recent case returning a stolen Rodin to a Los Angeles family. “Getting in the middle of a case and finding a way to twist everybody’s arm to settle the case.”  (more…)

An Auguste Rodin sculpture stolen 24 years ago has been recovered after it was offered for sale to Christie’s, and returned to the owner. “In accordance with the insurance policy to which this work was subject, Young Woman with Serpent was offered back to the theft victim upon its successful recovery,”says Spokesman Jerome Hasler of Art Recovery Group, the company that assisted in the recovery of the piece.  “In this instance, however, the victim has decided that the work should be sold, and it will now be consigned later this year for a new owner to enjoy.” (more…)

The Art News published its annual list of the Top 200 Collectors this week, featuring short profiles on the collectors on the list this year, including Roman Abramovich, Agnes Gund, Paul Allen, and Leonardo DiCaprio.   (more…)

The Museum of Modern Art and Basel’s Schaulager Collection are partnering to present a major retrospective focused on the work of Bruce Nauman, set to open in Switzerland in March of 2018.  The show will then cross the Atlantic to MoMA for a September opening. (more…)

Olafur Eliasson is interviewed in Fast Company this week, discussing his design projects and views on urban infrastructure, including the capacities for city planning and art to change how people interact and use limited urban space.  “Reflexivity is about connectivity, and connectivity is sometimes more about looking into yourself than looking at the ‘other.’ It can be hard work, and it can be uncomfortable, but sometimes public space has to make that demand of you,” he says.  “And sometimes art—and good art always—makes that demand of you. It makes you work. It makes you give. It makes you into a producer of space, of situations, of life, instead of being a consumer.” (more…)

Rachel Harrison, Magnum (2015), via Regen Projects

New York-based artist Rachel Harrison is presenting a multifaceted exhibition at Los Angeles’s Regen Projects this month, exploring notions of representation, perspective and time as they function in both the context of the gallery and in the artist’s own work.  Titled Three Young Framers, the exhibition’s tacit reference to the photography of August Sander points to this notion of the subject as a participant in the act of photography, echoed today in an era of widely proliferating photographic technology. (more…)

Andra Ursuta, Scarecrow (2015), all photos via Connie Huang via Art Observed

Andra Ursuta has never shied away from a challenging, multifaceted study of global culture, executing monumentally-scaled works that are often just as imposing in their materiality and contextual weight as they are in size alone.  For the artist’s most recent exhibition at Ramiken Crucible, she turns her attention once again to these juxtapositions of commercial and cultural might through the imposing forms of industrial, cultural, athletic and financial prowess. (more…)

The Art Newspaper notes that over one third of collectors in the top 20 of the Art News Top 200 Collectors List have opened museums or foundations to manage their collections, counting Bernard Arnault, Peter Brant and Eli Broad among them. (more…)

The New Museum has announced Gary Carrion-Murayari, the Kraus Family Curator at the museum, and Alex Gartenfeld, Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, will head up curatorial duties for the institution’s 2018 Triennial.  “I cannot think of two curators who are more in tune with emerging art today than Gary Carrion-Murayari and Alex Gartenfeld,” says Massimiliano Gioni.  “They are young, but their achievements and careers are impressive. They will form quite a dynamic team.” (more…)

Mona Hatoum is profiled in The New York Times this week, as the artist prepares for her solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou this month, and reviews the multi-faceted international upbringing that informs much of her work.  “The basis of it is a feeling of wanting to be free of all those restrictions, whether it’s social or political, that are always put on people,” she says, “so I can be whatever I want to be.” (more…)

The New York Times has a feature on Dylan Brant, the son of collector and publishing magnate Peter Brant in its Style section this week, noting 25 year-old’s passion for curating and dealing, including a recent show, Rawhide, at Venus Over Manhattan.  “As a young man, I’m really aware of the standards for being a man in America, and you see a lot of that represented in cowboys,” he says. “So they’re interesting figures in relation to the disintegration of the American landscape.” (more…)

The Park Avenue Armory has received a gift of $65 million from the The Thompson Family Foundation, bringing the total amount of money given by the foundation to the institution to a total of $129 million over the past years.  The Foundation, set up to honor the memory of businessman Wade Thompson, has long been a staunch supporter of the Armory.  “He passionately believed that the Armory should be rescued as one of the country’s most important landmarks,” says his widow, Angela Thompson. (more…)

The Snarkitecture Studio has unveiled a massive ball pit installed inside of Washington D.C.’s National Building Museum, part of a 10,000 square foot work titled The Beach.  The work will remain open to the public through September 7th. (more…)

London’s Whitechapel Gallery has announced plans for an ambitious exhibition of Arab art, pulling more than 100 works from the Barjeel Art Foundation, and noted as “the broadest single overview of Arab art to be shown in the UK to date,” the Art Newspaper reports.  “The Barjeel foundation’s guiding principle is to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region by building a prominent, publicly accessible art collection in the UAE,” the foundation said in a statement. (more…)

Shepard Fairey’s warrant in Detroit resulted in the artist’s arrest at the Los Angeles International Airport this past Monday, where he was held overnight on charges of vandalism.  The artist has since been released, and has not made a statement on the event. (more…)

The Hong Kong Museum of Arts closes its doors next month for a three-year, $120 million renovation that will expand exhibition space, as well as raise the museum ceilings in exhibition spaces, a much-needed change that had caused problems for the institution.  “There were some exhibits from overseas which could not be shown at the museum because of the height problem,” says Chan Shing-wai, assistant director of leisure and cultural services. (more…)