The Guardian has a piece this week on photographer Alvin Baltrop, who rarely showed during his life, but whose pioneering work among the NYC LGBTQ community during the 70’s was vastly influential. “Alvin photographed the LGBTQ community differently than Robert Mapplethorpe, who shot them in a very explicit and glamorization of the S&M culture,” says Bronx Museum curator Sergio Bessa. “Baltrop wasn’t about that. He saw sexual freedom.” (more…)

JTT Gallery in New York has added Elaine Cameron-Weir, Issy Wood, and Sam McKinniss to its roster.   (more…)

Donald Moffett, Lot 090307 (O) (2007), via Lehmann Maupin

On view for the summer months at Lehmann Maupin, a group show compiling the work of Angel Otero, Donald Moffett, Carrie Moyer and many more. The exhibition, co-organized by Curator Michael Goodson and Lehmann Maupin Curatorial Director Anna Stothart and spanning both of its Chelsea locations, combines a group of artists centered around more traditional formal, material, and spatial concerns, while also explicitly engaging with social, political, and psychological areas of influence to expand the established narrative traditionally used to answer the question, “Where does abstraction come from?” (more…)

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Untitled (2011), via 303 Gallery

35 years ago, gallerist Lisa Spellman opened 303 Gallery, a space that would stand as a cornerstone of the New York art world over the coming decades, and which still stands as an icon of distinctive artistic practices, conceptual rigor, and a little bit of New York style. Now, with the gallery celebrating its three and a half-decade milestone, it has launched a publication and exhibition culling together works and perspectives from the length of its run as a gallery.

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Artist group Postcommodity have unveiled a commission in Chicago reflecting on the history of migrant cultures in the United States, and calling on the U.S. government to create space for those deprived of basic human rights. “We need to acknowledge this migration in real time and start preparing for that transformation. Rather than fight it, embrace it,” member Kade L. Twist said. “There’s a lot to learn from how Black people were treated and disregarded through most of [the Great] Migration. There’s a desperate need to humanize.” (more…)

The Guardian speaks with a group of life models on their practice sitting in a studio, and their perspectives on their job posing for learning artists. “I’d been waiting for someone to tell me it’s fine to pose for students if you’re different,” says Suzon Lagarde, a painter. “You might feel vulnerable posing, but as a painter I also know how vulnerable people can feel behind the easel – you are always questioning and judging yourself. I soon realized we are a team, all trying to be brave.” (more…)

The NYT profiles a recent digital venture, Collecteurs, which serves as a database for private collections. “If I don’t put them in some kind of public database, these works essentially disappear from the planet,” says collector Roberto Toscano. (more…)

While Donald Trump postponed a number of trade restrictions with China this week, his tariff against art and antiquities will still go into effect September 1st, Art Newspaper notes. “The US import tariff will apply to all Chinese art sourced anywhere in the world, not simply Chinese art imported from China. [It] will act as a tax on all US collectors, curators and dealers buying anywhere on the international market,” says dealer James Lally.  (more…)

Artist Judy Chicago has launched her own brand of wine, announced this week on her Instagram page.  (more…)

Arthur Jafa is profiled in the New York Times this week, as the Golden Lion winner reflects on his recent successes and the response to his video work Love is the Message, the Message is Death. “I’ve… had people coming up to me saying, ‘I was super moved,’ ‘I cried’ — a pretty moderate articulation of their experience. I’m very happy that people are moved, but I do think it’s complicated when you say, ‘I cried.’ O.K., is that what art is supposed to do? Does that make you any less whatever the hell it is you are? Is that transformative crying or is it just crying? I don’t know.” (more…)

Robert Indiana’s caretaker has been accused in court of neglect, claiming around $1.1 million while the artist lived in “squalor and filth.” “Thomas had allowed valuable archival documents, nearly all of Indiana’s personal library (which he had taken enormous pride in), and some artwork to suffer severe damage or destruction,” says James Brannan, who represents Indiana’s estate. (more…)

London’s National Gallery is planning an “immersive experience” that will look at Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks this fall, showcasing the work’s construction and research into its history. “Much of our research takes place in closed studios, laboratories and libraries,”says Caroline Campbell, director of collections, noting that the project allows visitors “to explore and engage with what we have found.” (more…)

A piece in the New Yorker this week charts recent challenges faced by the El Museo del Barrio, as tensions between the museum and the community around it come to a head. “The institution got gentrified,” alleges one protestor. (more…)

Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was arrested in Havana this week after staging a performance where he illegally draped a Cuban flag over his shoulders. The work, Drapeau, was initiated in protest of new laws passed this year that regulate how national symbols can be displayed. (more…)

The N.E.H. has announced a round of grants totaling $29 million for the fiscal year. “As the nation prepares to commemorate its 250th anniversary in 2026, N.E.H. is proud to help lay the foundations for public engagement with America’s past by funding projects that safeguard cultural heritage and advance our understanding of the events, ideas and people that have shaped our nation,” says Jon Parrish Peede, the endowment’s chairman. (more…)

The New York Library System’s Culture Pass Project saw 70,000 sign-ups in its first year, the NYT reports. Cardholders at the Brooklyn, New York and Queens public libraries can get free admission through the program at various city cultural institutions. (more…)

Betty Woodman, Venus #7: Homey (2014), via David Kordansky

Currently on at David Kordansky’s Los Angeles exhibition space, Shadows and Silhouettes brings together a selection of sculptures and paintings by Betty Woodman, the artist’s first solo show in a gallery since her death. Meandering through the last years of the artist’s live, the show takes particular interest in the technical issues of constructing the work, and how these moments and movements in space can work in conjunction with the artist’s hand to complete the object. (more…)

Pace Gallery has launched a new venture, PaceX which is marketed around facilitating art-and-tech commissions around the world.  “Artists reflect the time we’re in,” says Marc Glimcher. “In what way is the gallery model equipped to support these artists in the way it supports painters and sculptors?” (more…)

The New York Times writes on the Louvre’s recent move of the Mona Lisa, and the new arrangements at the museum to accommodate the throngs that come to see it.  “The thing about the Mona Lisa is, supposedly, her eyes follow you,” says one guest. “I could hardly see her eyes.” (more…)

Garage has a piece this week on beloved art world haunt Lucien, and the cast of dealers and artists that frequent it.  “It was the place I first met Marina Abramovic, first time I met endless curators and artists,” says Alex Logsdail. I have endless memories of dinners with artists.” (more…)

A group of artists have removed their work from the Aichi Triennale in Nagoya, Japan after the triennial removed work from view in a move some have called censorship.  Among the artists requesting the removal of their work are Pia Camil and Tania Bruguera.  (more…)

Allan Sekula, Man sleeping under a eucalyptus tree, Embarcadero park, (SD) from Fish Story (1989-1995), via Marian Goodman

Having first shown the late Allan Sekula’s nuanced and incisive photographic and conceptual work at its London Gallery this spring, Marian Goodman has once again tapped the artist’s archive for a wide-ranging exhibition of his works at its New York space this summer, compiling works from a range of different projects the artist has embraced over the years, and moving between film, performance and photography. (more…)

Sotheby’s announced this week that the only known complete set of a portfolio titled Les Peintures-Graveurs, published by one renowned dealer Ambroise Vollard will hit the auction block this fall in London. “Vollard showed astonishing foresight,”Séverine Nackers, the head of prints in London, said. “And the portfolio stands testament to the work of one of history’s greatest publishers, and to the history of printmaking as a whole.” (more…)

The Istanbul Biennial will open in a few weeks, but will have to relocate from its original location at the city’s shipyards, due to the delay of construction and the discovery of toxic asbestos materials that need to be removed.  The site would have hosted the majority of the show. (more…)