Nick van Woert, Haruspex (Installation View), Courtesy Yvon Lambert Gallery

The work of American artist Nick van Woert is currently on view at the Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris.  Taking its name from a 2010 work, Haruspex refers to the practice of divination in Etruscan or Roman religious practice, called Haruspicy involving the interpretation of mens or predicting the future based on the entrails of animals. Inspired by the images of divination and dismemberment, the artist has constructed a series of pieces that approach modern economic and social conditions of the world through the deconstruction and application of material runoff.

Nick van Woert, Untitled (2013), courtesy of the Artist (more…)

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Con te Partiro (2009), via Brooklyn Museum

Shrouded in anonymity, the Bruce High Quality Foundation has made a career for themselves out of playful irreverence.  Rising out of the post-9/11 New York art scene, the anonymous collective has launched a campaign of physical aggression against public installations (Public Art Tackle), initiated their own free education classes, staged socio-politically charged morality plays on gentrification, all under the guise of a production of the Broadway musical Cats, all alongside a number of pieces and installations that embrace the juxtaposition of art history, pop culture and contemporary society to “invest the experience of public space with wonder.”

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Ode to Joy (2001–2013) (Installation View), via Brooklyn Museum (more…)

Rapper Jay-Z appeared at New York’s Pace Gallery today, performing his song Picasso Baby for 6 hours straight.  The marathon performance was part of the artist’s “Docu-music” video for the song, and featured a moment where the rapper danced with Marina Abramovic.  Other notable attendees included Marilyn Minter, Laurence Weiner, Klaus Biesenbach, Aaron Young, among many more. (more…)

Laurel Nakadate, Portland, Oregon #1 (2012), via Leslie Tonkonow

Strangers and Relations is a two-part project by American photographer and filmmaker Laurel Nakadate, in which the artist photographs strangers she connected with through the Internet, and arranged to meet in 31 different states within the US. and parts of Europe. The exhibition is being held at Leslie Tonkonow in New York City. (more…)

With the opening of Richard Artschwager! (previously at the Whitney Museum) at the Hammer Museum this month, the institution welcomed Richard Artschwager’s contemporaries, John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha to sit down and discuss his influential practice, output, and creative legacy. “Whether he’s well known or not is not important because he’s seen widely, and if you’re interested in art you’re going to be familiar with his work.” Ruscha said. (more…)

Bill Viola, Chapel of Frustrated Actions and Futile Gestures (Detail) (2013), via Blain Southern

Several new works by American video artist Bill Viola are currently being hosted by the Blain Southern gallery in London through July 27. Viola is considered a leading voice in the field of New Media, and is known for the existential and essentialist themes that surface in his work. Drawing from Buddhist, Zen, and mystical tradition, Viola approaches human mortality and spirit through video, sound and digital installation.  (more…)

The New York Times reports on the growing contemporary arts scene in Bangkok, Thailand, increasingly bolstered by expats and foreigners.  Referred to as “farangs” in Thai, many have opened galleries, nonprofits and other organizations promoting the city’s artists and institutions.  “Farangs play a very important role in the image of what goes on here,” says curator Pier Luigi Tazzi.  “They are still connected to their own countries so these links are still very attractive in terms of communication.” (more…)

Empire State (Installation View), via Palazzo Delle Esposizioni

“Empire State,” a classic nickname denoting New York’s central position in the art world, takes a new spin in Rome this summer, thanks to the curatorial talents of Alex Gartenfeld and Norman Rosenthal. (more…)

Artist Miranda July has launched her email project We Think Alone, a curated series of quotidian emails from celebrities, artists, and other public figures on a variety of themes.  Including emails from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lena Dunham, Kristen Dunst, Etgar Keret and more, the piece welcomes an intimate peek into the sender’s day to day life.  “Privacy, the art of it, is evolving. Radical self-exposure and classically manicured discretion can both be powerful, both be elegant. And email itself is changing, none of us use it exactly the same way we did ten years ago; in another ten years we might not use it at all.”  Says July. (more…)

The controversial installation of a neon Playboy logo and cement sculpture by curator Neville Wakefield and Richard Phillips in Marfa, TX has been ordered to be removed.  After complaints from a local resident, the Texas Department of Transportation found that the installation was in fact corporate advertising, which requires a permit for installation. The Texas Department of Transportation has ordered the property owner to remove this sign because the owner does not have a Texas License for Outdoor Advertising and a specific permit application for the sign was not submitted,” explained Veronica Beyer, the director of media relations for the Texas DOT, in a statement. (more…)

Gerald Lee Jones, a former supervisor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s admissions department, has filed an affidavit detailing the museum’s policy towards rewarding higher cashier receipts.  In his statement, Jones claims that museum employees who brought in lower admissions receipts, regardless of the museum’s “suggested” admission price, were rebuked for their performance, while cashiers who aggressively pushed for higher admission prices were rewarded.  “Cashiers are not only trained to avoid disclosing the truth about the museum’s admission prices; their compensation and their continued employment may largely depend on them not revealing it,” He says in court papers. (more…)

The winning design has been announced for the M+ Museum in Hong Kong, an inverted “T” by Pritzker Prize winners Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.  Featuring 183,000 square feet of exhibition space, the design will be more than twice the size of the Tate Modern, and will stand as the centerpiece of the expanding cultural district in the West Kowloon area of the city.

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Filmmaker Jem Cohen’s recently opened Museum Hours has garnished considerable attention, setting a story of friendship and art within Vienna’s Kunsthistoriches Museum.  “The use of the Kunsthistorisches is heartfelt and also very funny,” Says film critic Christoph Huber, “a slice of everyday life that I hardly see covered in my national cinema.” (more…)

A recent study of laboratory mice at Keio University in Japan has sought to uncover whether the small animal could distinguish between various works of art by Kandinksy, Renoir, Picasso and Mondrian.  Using various rewards for the animal, the researchers discovered that mice were able to distinguish works as unique, and were also, in some cases, able to identify an artist’s work by their style of painting.   (more…)

Andy Ralph, Manifold Destiny (2013), via L&M Arts

L&M Arts’ current exhibition, Neo Povera, presents a group of works in the spirit of the 1960’s Arte Povera movement, meant to exist purely in and of their own material while pushing the boundaries of acceptable art.  The Arte Povera movement attempted to strip symbolic implications from an object, leaving only the true material, thus making art that is unassuming, present, undivided from reality, minimal in material cost, and devoid of signifiers.  At its conception, the group of Italian artists brought together by Germano Celant intended to dissolve the boundary between elite art and a common experience.

Neo-Povera (Installation View), via L&M Arts (more…)

Artist Imran Quereshi recently sat down with Bloomberg to discuss his current installation on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his inspiration for the work, and his attempts at bringing a certain understanding of violence to his audience.  “We’ve had so many bomb blasts and people suffering in Pakistan, and when these things happen, people are asked to stay away and officials investigate. And nobody really knows what the reason behind the violence was. I made this work interactive so that people could investigate it themselves and get multiple meanings out of it.”  He says. (more…)

The  New York Times writes on the ongoing contention between the nation of Turkey and the J. Paul Getty Museum over a number of potentially looted items currently held in the American museum’s collection, highlighting the difficult issues at play in repatriation claims.  While many museums are speeding up their processing of these claims, many factors must be taken into account before handing over past property.  “Museums must untangle a lot of knots before making such an irrevocable decision,” said Stephen K. Urice, an expert on cultural heritage law at the University of Miami School of Law in Florida. (more…)

Israeli Shipping mogul Eyal Ofer has made a £10 million donation to the Tate Modern, bringing the museum within reach of its £215 million fundraising drive to fund a major expansion program. “I am delighted that the Eyal Ofer Family Foundation has chosen to make such a major contribution towards Tate Modern’s future.” Says Sir Nicholas Serota, the Tate’s current director. “It is exciting to see such outstanding philanthropy continuing from one generation to the next. The generosity of Eyal Ofer and his family will help to make Tate Modern a truly 21st-century museum.”  (more…)

The Tate Modern has announced a selection of new exhibitions focusing on artists from the African continent.  Featuring retrospectives of work by Sudan’s Ibrahim El-Salahi, 82, and the Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda Choucair, as well as a large-scale installation by Meschac Gaba (where the artist created his own, fictional museum), the move underlines the museum’s more global view towards the contemporary landscape.  “These are all exhibitions that 20 or 30 years ago were quite impossible,” says Tate Modern director, Chris Dercon. “At some point it will be absolutely normal and absolutely necessary to have all these kinds of work, all these artists, together in one museum.” (more…)

Mark di Suvero, Little Dancer (Installation View), via Paula Cooper Gallery

Mark di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor that often works in kinetics, incorporating dynamic movements to add an element of illusive grace to his monumental sculptures. Continuing his exhibition partnership with Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, the artist is currently exhibiting a new sculpture, Little Dancer, as well as a number of other works in both sculpture and canvas.

Mark di Suvero, Little Dancer (Installation View), via Paula Cooper Gallery (more…)

Takashi Murakami (Installation View), via Galerie Perrotin Hong Kong

After 20 years of collaboration, Galerie Perrotin Hong Kong and Takashi Murakami present what will be the artist’s 9th solo show at the gallery, featuring new paintings he created under his alter-ego Mr. Dob, as well as self-portraits of Murakami surrounded by his own characters.

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Jeff Koons has partnered with Champagne makers Dom Pérignon to release an extremely limited edition packaging design or the company’s 2003 Rosé.  Made in stainless steel, the design is a miniature of Koons’ Balloon Venus, and is available for the price of $20,000 a bottle.  “I’m very proud of the ‘Balloon Venus,’” says Koons. “It’s a work that I enjoy and I think really represents my oeuvre of work. ‘Balloon Venus’ represents the continuation of life’s energy. A great vintage also represents the vintages that will come, and so it’s about the continuation of something. It’s a continued creative process.” (more…)

Artist Maurizio Cattelan’s Toiletpaper magazine, done in collaboration with photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari, has just announced a special edition of collaboratively designed sweatshirts with Italian fashion house MSGM.  Incorporating a number of images from the magazine, the sweatshirts work between a nostalgia for past italian fashions and an irreverent take on the sweatshirt itself.  “I don’t like nostalgia,” says designer Massimo Giorgetti. “I prefer irony.” (more…)

Controversially held for centuries outside of China, two bronze zodiac statues looted from Beijing’s summer palace were returned by François-Henri Pinault on Friday.  The Christie’s owner first promised to return the heads in April, during a visit to the country by president Hollande and a number of ranking French businessmen.  “This donation is a token of our family’s appreciation for China as well as our passion for the preservation of art and cultural heritage,” Mr. Pinault said in a statement. (more…)