Collector and NY Academy of Art Founder Stuart Pivar speaks of his longtime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein for a piece in  Mother Jones this week.“Jeffrey was profoundly sick,” he says. (more…)

Gustave Caillebotte’s Iris Bleus, Jardin du Petit Gennevilliers, has been acquired by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). It has been the subject of an ownership battle for several years. “We know from letters that this work was part of an active dialogue he had with Monet about gardening,” says Caroline Shields, the AGO’s associate curator and head of European art.  (more…)

Jason Moran is interviewed in Vogue this week, as the musician and artist talks about his upcoming show at The Whitney, which will re-create a series of New York jazz clubs inside the museum.  “A lot of cultural weight is in these spaces, but somehow they can also go undocumented,” he says of these overlooked spaces. “Revolutions happened on those very humble stages.” (more…)

A piece in the New Yorker profiles Vija Celmins and the artist’s life and work, including her story of her escape from war-torn Europe to the States during the 1940’s. “My biggest nightmare was losing hold of my mother’s hand, and never seeing her again,” she says. “It wasn’t until I was ten years old and living in Indiana that I realized being in fear wasn’t normal.” (more…)

Economies (Installation View), via LTD

Currently on view at LTD Los Angeles, the gallery’s summer exhibition, Economies, explores the notion of observation and exchange, suspending the images and objects of the world of art as transactional properties, bound up in a flow between the work’s circulation and its effects.  The show, delving into the possibilities of simple materials suspended in flow, or twisted up into strange assemblages.  (more…)

Claiming that German society has become intolerant of refugees, Ai Weiwei is leaving his home in Berlin for Cambridge. “Europe was a civilised, modern society which was supposed to uphold humanism, democracy, freedom and human rights,” he says. “Europe may no longer remain Europe beyond geography.” (more…)

Entertainment unions have published an open letter decrying the decline in arts journalism and its impact on the creative industries.  “Having a properly funded arts media is vital to supporting theatre, film and TV productions, ensuring that we celebrate the UK as a centre for the creative industries and to encourage people to get involved in the arts either as writers, directors, producers, performers, behind the scenes workers, patrons and audience members,” the letter reads. (more…)

Simone Leigh, Loophole of Retreat (Installation View), via Art Observed

Over the course of her career, Simone Leigh has continuously and insistently centered the black female experience, creating a range of works that pose the body in arrangements twisting architectural elements, sound, and other items into shared space. For her show with Guggenheim for her 2018 Hugo Boss Prize, the artist explores fusions of sound, text and sculpture to create broader narratives of resilience and relation.  (more…)

This fall, Christie’s in New York will auction off more than 260 pieces of art and design from the collection of philanthropist and theater producer Terry Allen Kramer. The collection “reflects the spirit of adventure and sense of fun she was legendary for, spanning the best of modern art from the late-19th to mid-20th centuries,” says Max Carter, the head of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department. (more…)

The Venice Beach compound once owned by artist and sculptor Billy Al Bengston is on sale at $5.495 million, the LA Times reports.  (more…)

The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art is in the process of acquiring the papers of Andrea Rosen Gallery, and will catalog its contents. “The day that I started the gallery—even though I was quite young—I was very clear that a large part of its responsibility was to create archives that were as complex and as thorough as possible for each of the artists we worked with and represented,” she says. Read more at Art News. (more…)

New York dealer Simon Preston, who will become a senior director at Pace, leaving his eponymous LES gallery. “Primarily, my role is to develop new artist relationships—bring new artists to the program, to create more contemporary programming,” he says. (more…)

My Head Is a Haunted House (Installation View), via Sadie Coles HQ

Currently on view at Sadie Coles HQ in London, My Head is a Haunted House explores the weird and eerie from a range of perspectives, mixing together works from a broad group of artists.  The show, curated by writer Charlie Fox, is an intriguing investigation of materiality and motive, swapping pathos for a suspended sense of presence, and a concrete subject for a creeping sense of a body, either present or withdrawn. (more…)

Andrew Kuo and dealer Pascal Spengemann are profiled in GQ this month for their ongoing clothing collaboration, creating bootlegged homages to Marc Chagall and Claude Monet, among others. “My memories of the Met store and museum shops growing up in New York were a big part of my experience with art, not necessarily the actual object,” Kuo says. “Like my mom wearing a Marc Chagall shirt all summer. It’s less cynical and more emotional, I think, to kind of dredge up all of these memories of your experiences with art and reframe it as something affordable, fun, whatever.” (more…)

The Guardian profiles recent trends towards showing works in collectors and artists’ homes. “Last year we exhibited a work that was a kind of ecosystem, stretched out over the floor of our living room,” says artist Isobel Atacus. “There was was a block of ice melting through an unfired clay disc into a bowl below and the sediment water was pumped into a tank. It was a beautiful piece to live with for a few days.” (more…)

The British Museum will bring hundreds of thousands of stored artifacts currently to a new £64m storage and research facility in Berkshire, UK, the Art Newspaper reports. The move comes as an effort to make more of its collection publicly accessible. (more…)

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver has selected Nora Burnett Abrams as its new director. “They want to continue in the direction we have been heading,” she says of her selection, calling it a “vote of confidence.” (more…)

British museums and art galleries saw a 6% increase in attendance last year, recovering from several years of dropping numbers.  “It’s not surprising to see our museums and galleries returning to the top spot, confirming England’s position as a cultural hub,” says VisitEngland Chief Executive Sally Balcombe.  (more…)

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Lynda Benglis gets a profile in the NYT, as she gives the paper a tour of her New Mexico studio, and talks about her process. “My mind is always working with ideas but sometimes they pop and quickly disappear,” she says. “I have to wait until the idea crystallizes again before I go back to working. Otherwise, I have no reason to work.” (more…)

Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery has tapped Betti-Sue Hertz as its new director and chief curator. “I think we absolutely need to be part of that ecology and playing a leadership role in the Upper Manhattan community,” she said.  (more…)

The Harrisons, On Making Earth (1970-ongoing), via Various Small Fires

Currently on view in Los Angeles, gallery Various Small Fires has compiled a selection of works from the careers of Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, affectionately referred to as “The Harrisons.”  A visionary pair who embraced early warning signs of a global ecological catastrophe, The Harrisons have used their lives and careers as a spring board for investigations and experimentations in just how artists mights provide alternatives and opportunities for global preservation in the face of global climate change and political indifference.  (more…)

The parents of a six-year-old boy allegedly thrown from a Tate Modern viewing platform have made a statement, claiming their son is in stable condition, but that the full extent of his injuries are not yet known.  “Our son has already undergone two long and difficult operations,” they said in a statement. “But he is alive, struggling with all his strength, and we remain hopeful.” (more…)

The Met is reviewing its holdings of Indian art donated by dealer Subhash Kapoor, after pressure from the country to recover thousands of looted idols and relics. “As we have since learned of the multiple law enforcement actions, and in the spirit of our enhanced procedures over recent years, we are now seeking to identify additional provenance information,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)