Image: Jasper Johns, Ballantine Ale Cans, 1960 via Artinfo

The Royal Academy of Arts is currently exhibiting over 150 sculptures around the theme of bronze. The selection of works spans the medium’s five-millennial lifespan, which spread from the Near East to Europe and China. Illustrating the complex and nuanced history of bronze as a medium, intertwining historical relevance with artistic production, the exhibition sheds light on the evolution of civilization in the context of these two undercurrents.

Image: Giovanfrancesco Rustici, The Pharisee, St. John the Baptist and The Levite from The Sermon of St. John the Baptist, 1511, Royal Academy of Arts

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Bruce Nauman, Days (2009) (Installation View)

At Bruce Nauman‘s “Days” at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, a voice recites the days of the week, moving at its own pace, order and cadence along the seven item list, repeating it ad infinitum.  It is joined by thirteen other voices doing the same, each one listing the days in their own unique rhythm and order, creating a cacophony of human sound, calling to attention our own treatments of time, and gently playing with the concepts of relative values.

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Scottish painter Peter Doig speaks about his life in Trinidad as he prepares for his upcoming exhibition, New Works at Michael Werner Gallery in London, opening  this September 27th. Doig, who moved to the Caribbean island ten years ago, discusses his “hoarding” of images, and how this enables him to combine mental pictures in his work. The Scottish artists works have sold for up to £6 million, making him at one time the most expensive living painter in Europe.

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Olafur Eliasson – Little Sun (2012), The Tate Modern

As part of the London 2012 Festival, the Tate Modern is hosting a special exhibition in collaboration with artist Olafur Eliasson and engineer Frederik Ottesen.  Spotlighting the duo’s new creation, Little Sun aims to bring solar-powered lighting to parts of the world with no electricity.

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Ryan Gander – The Fallout of Living (Gallery View), Lisson Gallery

The work of Ryan Gander is an exercise in polysemy.  The British sculptor continually explores concepts of loose association and interaction in his work, combining disparate elements to form complex relational narratives. Working in a diverse range of media that includes found objects, plexiglass, wood and marble, his pieces blend intimate symbolism with common artifacts, creating pieces rich in interpretive significance on any number of planes.

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Julian Opie – (Installation View), Lisson Gallery

Billed as “the largest single display of his practice to date,” Lisson Gallery is currently exhibiting a broad selection of works from British multi-media artist Julian Opie.   Bending the artist’s fascinations with traditional portraiture and painting through his own aesthetic lens, the show continues Opie’s explorations of modern visual language and its relation to art history.

Julian Opie – (Gallery View), Lisson Gallery

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Zhang Huang, The Mountain Is Still A Mountain (Gallery View)

In the work of Zhang Huang, Buddhist incense ash frequently makes an appearance.  It is a potent medium that stands at the intersection of the physical and the spiritual, the personal and the universal,the detritus of a tangible object destroyed for the sake of spiritual prostration.  It represents the willing departure of the mind beyond the immediacy of flesh towards a higher power.  For Huang, it also bears the signature of his own heritage , and serves as a fittingly specific medium to bring the political and social issues of modern China into the public eye.

Zhang Huang, My Literary Teacher (2008)

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Tracey Emin‘s ‘The Central line’ design released as the 16th cover of the London Underground Tube Map.

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Banksy releases three Olympic-themed works in anticipation of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

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Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Olympic Rings (1985)

During the 1980’s, the personnages of both Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat loomed large in the New York art world.  Warhol as one of its most visible older guard, and Basquiat as one of its prominent, up-and-coming stars.  But the two were also friends, and it was in this context that Basquiat and Warhol collaborated on a number of paintings that would end up being some of the last of their lives.  Blending Basquiat’s striking, often visceral approach with Warhol’s measured explorations of pop culture iconography, these pieces offered a marked commentary on both the style and subjects exhibited.

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Jenny Holzer, Sophisticated Devices (Gallery View)

On view currently at Sprüeth Magers’s London gallery is a collection of solo works from multimedia artist Jenny Holzer, exhibiting Holzer’s unique interplay of semiotics and text used to create the art object.

Jenny Holzer, WITH BLEEDING INSIDE THE HEAD … TEXT: LIVING SERIES (1980-1982), 1981

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Visitors traverse Jeppe Hein‘s “Invisible Labyrinth” (2005) via The Independent

A new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London is eliciting a good degree of attention among members of the public and press alike.  Titled “Invisible: Art of the Unseen 1957-2012”, this joint showing contains otherwise empty rooms, save for a number of blank canvases and empty pedestals.  The exhibit’s purpose however is less to display and showcase than it is to survey past and current ideas related to the unknown and push the boundaries of art as we know or perceive it.

Tom Friedman‘s “Untitled (A Curse)” via the Independent

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Joan Miró, Peinture (Étoile Bleue) (1927)

Tonight in London begins three consecutive weeks of auctions – commencing with the Impressionist and Modern Sales this week. An upwards of £ 500 million in sales is expected from Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary Art. This week alone is expected to fetch in excess of £ 159 million between the two major houses. Although New York is generally deemed the art auction capital, London’s geographic positioning is advantageous to the billionaire collectors of Russia and the Eastern world. Based upon the record breaking sales held this past May in New York – namely the $120 million paid for Munch‘s The Scream – London’s summer auctions are hoped to follow suit.

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James Stourton, chairman of Sotheby’s UK, to leave company to pursue a 2016 completion of a biography on Kenneth Clark, a controversial director of the National Gallery in London. Contrasting other opinions in the art world, Stourton calls Clark the “grandest of grandees in the art world.”

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The NY Times elaborates on Lakshmi Mittal‘s celebration and the public’s reception of the recently completed ArcelorMittal Orbit at Olympic Park in London, remarking on the mixed praise and criticism of the visual design of the public art piece. Turner prize winner, Anish Kapoor, comments that “the experience will be about winding up and in on oneself. You want to forget the construction and engage with what you’re experiencing.”

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‬Frieze London announces 2012 fair details, namely a list of 170 exhibitors and the addition of a new section ‘Focus’, featuring post 2001 established galleries. “Every year, Frieze London gets tens of thousands of people thinking about how we see the world through art,” says Michele Faissola of Deutsche Bank, Freize sponsor for the 9th consecutive year.
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‬The Guardian interviews Turner prize winner Rachel Whiteread, revealing the thought process and controversy behind her latest endeavor, a frieze on London gallery Whitechapel. “You can’t make a good piece of public art by consensus; it’s just not possible. So I really had to stick my heels in,” says Whiteread.

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The Guardian UK, claiming that East London’s art scene was “dying” less than a week ago, now reports that the East End will stay ‘vibrant’ positing that although galleries have moved out of the East End, the area holds many advantages over the tourist-centered Fitzrovia.

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National Portrait Gallery in London purchases portrait of famous transvestite Chevalier d’Eon. “The painting sheds fascinating light on gender in history…[D’Eon] is a positive role model for modern LGBT audiences,” says Lucy Peltz, curator of 18th-century portraits.

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The Guardian, by looking into Vyner Street galleries, examines macro factors causing East End of London galleries to move West, “The East End has only really flourished during a boom…in 2005 it felt like a critical hub. As the galleries I really admired moved out, collectors came less and less,” says Fred Mann, owner of Fred Ltd, one of the latest galleries to move West.

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‬The Tate has revealed its 2013 program, which will include exhibitions of LS Lowry at Tate Britain, Marc Chagall in Liverpool, and a major Roy Lichtenstein at retrospective at The Tate Modern as well as shows of Gary Hume and Paul Klee.

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A self-portrait by the late Jean-Michel Basquiat is expected to fetch $20 million in the June 27 Christie’s International sale of postwar and contemporary art in London. “The vivid acrylic, oilstick and spray-paint canvas will be offered after another untitled 1981 work sold for an artist-record $16.3 million at Phillips de Pury & Co. in New York, on May 10.”

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This summer the recently opened Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London celebrates its 12^th anniversary.  Since 2000, this architectural event has featured temporary structures by such designers as Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel.  This year, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, along with Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (Herzog & de Meuron), known for their design of the Tate Modern and previous collaboration with Ai on Beijing’s Bird Nest National Stadium, has dug down into the Kensington Gardens to create an underground pavilion commemorating its long history.

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