Artist Nancy Kienholz, who worked alongside her husband Ed on a series of  challenging, occasionally controversial sculptural installations, has passed away at the age of 75.  The announcement came via L.A. Louver gallery, which represented the duo in Los Angeles. “Nancy will be deeply missed. Her collaborative work with Ed, and thereafter her solo studio activity, has been a powerful cornerstone of L.A. Louver for the past 38 years,” the gallery said in a statement. “We suffered a huge loss upon Ed’s death in 1994, which deepens with Nancy’s passing—a void that can only be filled with the enduring legacy the couple left behind. Their work, and their relentless charge against social injustice, will remain a guiding light that leads us through our darkest times.” (more…)

UK national museums loaned nearly 450,000 objects around the globe in the last year, according to figures from the newly released Museum Partnership Report for 2017/18, published by the UK culture department. The results were described as “UK soft power at its best,” by arts minister Rebecca Pow. (more…)

Andrew Sim, A pink Christmas tree (2019), via Karma

“What is the weird?” queries Karma in the exhibition text for its summer group show, which brings together the work of Henni Alftan, Matt Hilvers, Ruth Ige and Andrew Sim. Quoting from Mark Fisher, the show’s press release seems to trace a subtle line around the show as a whole: “When we say something is weird, what kind of feeling are we pointing to? I want to argue that the weird is a particular kind of perturbation. It involves a sensation of wrongness: a weird entity or object is so strange that it makes us feel that it should not exist, or at least it should not exist here.” (more…)

Artist Xu Zhen’s show of live performance sculptures at MoCA in LA has the city’s main newspaper looking at recent efforts by museum’s to acquire performance works.  “You’re collecting an idea and the documentation, if the artist has stipulated, but sometimes they prefer it to be fleeting and ephemeral and totally experiential,” says director of education and senior curator of programs Amanda Hunt. (more…)

A piece in Art News this week charts artists’ in Puerto Rico’s response to the political upheaval in the country. “A lot of us are proud to be Puerto Rican because we are experiencing our collective power at history-making levels,” says poet and performer María José. “I feel very proud, but I am also worried that people’s main goal is to kick a misogynist out of office, and not to kick out misogyny from our society.” (more…)

The New York Times charts the recent focus on massive flagship galleries for New York’s biggest blue-chip dealers, as galleries like David Zwirner and Pace race to build massive spaces. “Retail is suffering because it’s replaceable in a virtual world,” says Marc Glimcher. “Art galleries are not suffering; they’re growing because we offer an experience.” (more…)

Harland Miller, Me (2019), via White Cube

Mining a unique fusion between graphic design, painting and other tenuously associated aesthetic fields, artist Harland Miller’s work, on view this summer at White Cube’s Hong Kong location, lends itself to a striking and detailed interrogation of the language of design, and the design of language. Miller draws on a wide range of cultural references, including ’60s and ’70s graphic design and the bold, upbeat covers of post-war psychology books, yet set these graphical icons in conversation with the language of American painting, explicitly drawing links between the energetic abstraction of the era and the graphic design that seemed to bubble up alongside it.

Harland Miller, Boss (2019), via White Cube (more…)

Ai Weiwei has sent a team of researchers to Hong Kong to make a record of the massive demonstrations in the city of its proposed extradition law revisions.  “We are really on the front line; we are fighting for human rights, for freedom of speech, and we are fighting for all the values we care about [alongside] those people who also care about those same values,” he says. (more…)

Forensic Architecture’s video work Triple Chaser, and its projects investigating architectures and their complicity in state-sanctioned violence, gets a profile in Daily Beast this week.  “My desire to be an architect was to use architecture as a social and political tool, and I realized that architecture is not about designing buildings,” says founder Eyal Weizman. “Architecture is a way of seeing the spatial dimensions of relationships of people, of societies, and the way they exist in space. Architecture is a way to analyze a violation of human rights, to unpack the politics in a way that other frameworks are perhaps not.” (more…)

Hans Ulrich Obrist Eulogizes Marisa Merz in Frieze this week, recounting her work and her dedication to her craft. “This resistance to the idea that any material or encounter was forever was something she insisted upon. Nothing should ever be fixed, she explained to me – the works have to be alive,” he writes. “This is one of the reasons she disliked the concept of exhibitions: freezing artworks in time was not something that corresponded to their vivacity. The transformative quality of objects and materials is key to her oeuvre.” (more…)

Richard Prince has a sit-down with 303 Gallery’s Lisa Spellman this week, as the two recount the early years of the gallery, and her perspectives on the art world. “I think the bigness is like getting shot of novocaine, it just dulls everything around it,” she says. “It takes all the oxygen out of the room; at this point, it’s a little boring and expected.” (more…)

Artist Takis, a pioneer of kinetic sculpture, has passed away. “A prolific and visionary mind, whose ingenuity, passion and imagination was endless, Takis explored many artistic and scientific horizons, as well as music and theatre, and redefined the boundaries in art,” the artist’s foundation wrote in a statement. “Thanks to his creative genius on so many levels, his generosity and his exceptional intuition, Takis was ahead of his time, which widely contributed to his success throughout the world. Today, we have all lost an extraordinary mind.” (more…)

Kelley Walker, Untitled (2006), via Paula Cooper

Exploring the convergence of varied aesthetic concepts and interesting overlaps between their artists respective practices, Paula Cooper Gallery’s summer show has opened, presenting a selection of sculptures and installations by Sam Durant, Liz Glynn, Walid Raad, Kelley Walker, and Meg Webster. Titled Non-Vicious Circle, the show draws its title and conceit from the 2014 mobile by Sam Durant on view. (more…)

Artist Kara Walker has designed a tribute to the late Toni Morrison for next week’s New Yorker.  The silhouette image was unveiled on the magazine’s Instagram this week. (more…)

Artist Sam Gilliam gets a profile in the WSJ this week, and the recent acclaim the artist has earned late in his life. “No one has ever discovered me!” he says proudly. “I mean, I’m pretty advanced at what I do.” (more…)

The NYT has published a list of “15 New Creative Talents,” charting young artists, designers and creatives across a range of fields, including a spotlight on the performance artist Okwui Okpokwasili. (more…)

The Mead Art Museum at Amherst College in Massachusetts has received 170 works from an anonymous donor, including pieces by Cindy Sherman and Carroll Dunham, among many more. “We are so incredibly fortunate to be the recipients of a gift of contemporary art of this scale and scope. The addition of more than 170 works of contemporary art will have a tremendous impact on our collection, and supports us in our ongoing efforts to expand our holdings in ways that reflect the diversity of the Amherst College community,” says David E. Little, the museum’s director and chief curator. (more…)

Collector Marc Baradel has filed suit in New York Supreme Court, claiming his Brancusi sculpture Le Poisson, valued at $22.5 million was damaged due to negligence by Asher Edelman’s Artemus, and insurance companies HUB International and Lloyd’s of London. “Given the amounts of money involved, a jury could find that they were acting in their own interests,” says Stephen Weingrad, the arts lawyer representing Baradel. (more…)

Painters Reply: Experimental Painting in the 1970s and now (Installation View), via Lisson

In September of 1975, Artforum published a special issue on painting. In addition to articles such as “Painting and the Struggle for the Whole Self” and “Painting and Anti-Painting: A Family Quarrel”—in which Max Kozloff said “brush wielders were afflicted by a creative halitosis”—were the responses to a questionnaire polling 21 painters on the state and prospects of the medium. Decried for a distinctly fatalist bias towards the medium, the issue seemed to present the painted canvas as an object moving towards artifact, an icon of the post-war era that was swiftly losing its potency. (more…)

A fourth Sotheby’s shareholder, Phillip Stevens, has sued in attempt to halt its sale to Patrick Drahi, Art Newspaper reports.“We believe that any claim that the preliminary proxy statement is inaccurate or misleading in any way is without merit, and we will vigorously defend against any assertions in these or in any similar actions that may be filed against Sotheby’s,” the auction house said previously regarding lawsuits over the deal. (more…)

Theaster Gates will curate a show of works from the collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody at his arts space, Stony Island Arts Bank, this fall.  “For me, always, the frustration is I’d like more of the work to get out there,” Rudin DeWoody says of her collection. (more…)

Boris Johnson is planning to open 10 “freeports” in the UK, following through on his campaign promise to make the UK a center of the global art trade. “We are exploring freeports as an innovative way to drive growth and support thousands of high-skilled jobs across the UK,” says Rishi Sunak, Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

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A piece in the Columbia Journalism Review charts the recent challenges faced by Artforum over sexual misconduct allegations towards former publisher Knight Landesman, and the path charted by new Editor in Chief David Velasco. “I didn’t have time to even think about logistical concerns,” he says. “My first instincts were, How do I reassure everyone that if they want to have a job here, they have a job here?”  (more…)

The New Museum’s basement bathroom design has been nominated as one of “America’s Best Bathrooms,” as chosen by Cintas Corporation. “We’re proud to spotlight businesses that provide quirky, well-maintained restrooms that are as creative as they are clean. These finalists understand the importance of ensuring patrons leave the restroom with a positive, lasting impression,” says Sean Mulcahey, Marketing Manager, Cintas.  (more…)