Archinect - News

Thomas Phifer and Partners completes new MSN Warsaw museum project in Poland

2024-11-12T10:52:00-05:00

An opening for the forthcoming new Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland (MSN Warsaw) from Thomas Phifer and Partners is right around the corner, timed to the 20th anniversary of its founding early next year. The commission, says the museum's director Joanna Mytkowska, helps the MSN Warsaw "take on a new role as a centre for conversations animating contemporary art of all kinds.'

Image: © Nate Cook, courtesy of Thomas Phifer and Partners

The firm has provided a preview of its 213,000-square-foot concrete addition to the city’s cultural fabric, which recaptures the heart of the city’s Parade Square. It represents Phifer and Partners’ first completed project in the EU as well as the first purpose-built home for the institution whose operations had been spread throughout different temporary spaces in the capital for many years.

Image: © Nate Cook, courtesy of Thomas Phifer and Partners

Phifer describes: 'Our mission with this project was simultaneously to recognize the legacy of Parade...

Jean Nouvel and Fondation Cartier mark 40th anniversary with new building announcement

2024-09-17T16:34:00-04:00

Jean Nouvel has put forth a new plan for the Fondation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain in Paris. The adaptive reuse project, which was announced Tuesday by the 40-year-old private foundation, will take shape within an existing Haussmann-era building on the Place du Palais-Royal across from the Louvre for the end of 2025.

Novel’s effort will address the current architecture's urban context while opening up the former Louvre des Antiquaires facility to the Parisian public in a whole new way.

Photo: © Martin Argyroglo

First and foremost, this will be a space dedicated to what the Fondation Catier’s founder Alain Dominique Perrin called the "transversality" of art-making. A total of 6,500 square meters (or, 69,965 square feet) will be available for a flexible layout of exhibitions. The space is augmented by five mobile platforms that allow the building’s surface areas to be modified and reconfigured into a layered series of vertical spaces up to 11 meters (36 feet) high.

Photo: © Martin ...

Richard Serra, monumental steel sculptor and inspiration to many architects, has died at 85

2024-03-27T11:20:00-04:00

Richard Serra has died. The 85-year-old sculptor who made architecture more or less a permanent condition of his art was known for inventing a process for bending corten steel to create works he explained were about eliciting sensation and intended to display the unseen physical forces of nature.

More than any other contemporary artist (Sarah Sze, Robert Irwin, Richard Estes, etc.) whose work is informed by or makes as its subject architecture, Serra’s use of steel as a means of organizing space and sequencing experience within it is, arguably, the greatest primer for any learner embarking on academic studies in the field.

He began his experimentations first with rubber before advancing to cast lead and then finally steel, a material whose properties and building potential he understood innately thanks to time spent working in steel mills during his early years in California. The opportunity to study art at Yale University changed his life thereafter.

Serra's 'Bend' sculpture at the...

Sou Fujimoto designs Pace Gallery Tokyo expansion inside Heatherwick's Azabudai Hills development

2023-09-05T16:57:00-04:00

The new home of the Pace Gallery in Tokyo will feature interior spaces designed by Sou Fujimoto inside a three-story portion of Heatherwick Studio’s exciting new Azabudai Hills development, according to plans revealed today by the gallery.

The total 5,500-square-foot design includes some 3,000 square feet of exhibition spaces split between the first and second floors of the gallery. A third floor will also include a private terrace and sculptural garden connected to the landscape component of the 20-acre site, which sits prominently at the nexus of several other cultural destinations in the city’s busy Toranomon commercial district.

Rendering © DBOX for Mori Building Co., Ltd

The designer of the 2013 Serpentine Pavilion and Musashino Art University Museum and Library will deliver a space that is evocative of his personal explorations and approach to architecture.

Rendering © DBOX for Mori Building Co., Ltd

Pace says it has been interested in a Japanese expansion since at least the la...

Annabelle Selldorf goes inside her long-awaited Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego design

2022-04-29T12:06:00-04:00

“People always think we do sensitive historical renovations, but that’s not all we do,” “It matters a great deal because it’s new,” Ms. Selldorf said of the San Diego museum. “It’s my biggest new-built institution. And it stands on its own two feet.”

NYT writer Ted Loos went to San Diego for a visit to the just reopened Museum of Contemporary Art with the doyenne of the typology who talked about the renovation’s overarching mission to “greater clarity across the history of all the building types” and her personal desire to leave Irving Gill’s original 1916 structure “completely unencumbered.”

Image courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Selldorf acknowledged the early preservation effort championed by Denise Scott Brown indicating that it was a major focus not to alter her 1996 design as much as possible, adding that it was her “only regret” that they didn’t meet before the project was inaugurated in 2015. She described the end result as “a space that is well-balanced, well-proportioned, calm, focused and not about gesture” and closed by mentioning its intention in the context of the development of the museum's audience.

“I thought about how I can bring people in, and make them feel like they are welcome there,” she said...

Pope Francis moves the Vatican's cultural program forward with a new contemporary art space

2021-11-11T09:00:00-05:00

The Vatican is making another foray into contemporary art with the launch of a dedicated space for exhibitions of works by 21st-century artists. [...] The move comes after the Vatican Museums cancelled an exhibition in 2018 of works by Andy Warhol which was intended to explore the Pop artist’s “spiritual side”.

The transformation of a hall in the Vatican’s historical Apostolical Library was underwritten in part by the heirs of US film producer and philanthropist Kirk Kerkorian. Pope Francis has been behind the push to incorporate contemporary artists into the Vatican’s cultural program since his ascension eight years ago. The new space will be inaugurated with an exhibition from Rome-based artist Pietro Ruffo titled Everyone: Humanity on the Move on view until February 25th.

“I appreciate this endeavour to open a dialogue. Life is the art of encounter. Cultures become sick when they become self-referential… when they exclude instead of integrate,” the Pontiff said at last week’s unveiling of the new exhibition space. “We are in need of a new beauty.”

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New installation by Sichong Xie opening at the Wende Museum's East German guardhouse

2021-09-08T16:47:00-04:00

The Wende Museum in Culver City, California has announced that a new installation by Los Angeles-based contemporary artist Sichong Xie will open in the museum’s former East German guardhouse this Sunday, September 12.

The guardhouse, which once monitored and controlled access to the state-run East German news agency, Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst, now hosts rotating installations by contemporary artists.

As stated by the museum, Xie’s installation, Memory Structure, Scaffold Series, “features objects and arrangements emblematic of memory and temporality: bamboo scaffolding, embroidery on industrial mesh, and a set of laser-engraved drawings that will fade from continual exposure to light, through which the artist reimagines architectural drawings created by her grandfather in the late 1950s and early 1960s.”

According to the project description, none of her grandfather’s building plans were realized after being exiled to a labor camp by Chinese authorities following the...

Frank Gehry is once again exhibiting new sculptures at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles

2021-07-08T17:43:00-04:00

A new examination of Frank Gehry’s sculptural work is swimming into Los Angeles this summer.

Spinning Tales will showcase new and old pieces from the architect at the Gagosian Gallery. Gehry has been very active in the art world recently, using this latest show to piggyback off of the much-anticipated opening of his new LUMA Tower in Arles this past week.

The 92-year-old Gehry has been a frequent exhibitor at the gallery’s Beverly Hills outpost with eight shows since 1999.

Spinning Tales, 2021, installation view. © Frank Gehry. Photo: Joshua White. Courtesy of Gagosian

The exhibition combines new works from the Canadian-American architect with a trio of sculptures that trace their beginnings to a 1980s commission Gehry received from the Formica Corporation. Gehry had at the time been tasked with using a plastic laminate called ColorCore. After shattering a piece of ColorCore in his workshop, an allusion became clear: Gehry eventually glued the scale-like shards together over wire arm...

Billionaire business man, art collector and philanthropist, Eli Broad, passes away at 87

2021-05-05T18:05:00-04:00

Eli Broad, a businessman and philanthropist whose vast fortune, extensive art collection and zeal for civic improvement helped reshape the cultural landscape of Los Angeles, died on Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87. [...] Mr. Broad (pronounced “brode”) made billions in the home-building and insurance businesses and spent a significant part of his wealth trying to make Los Angeles one of the world’s pre-eminent cultural capitals.

Broad is best known for his extensive philanthropic work focused on public education, scientific and medical research, and the visual and performing arts. He, along with his wife Edythe, has given more than $4 billion to support these efforts. Their work has placed them among the leading philanthropists in the United States.

His lasting legacy on Los Angeles is considerable with work including the creation and preservation of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the creation of the Broad, a $140 million art museum that he financed himself that features his collection of more than 2,000 contemporary works, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, in which he granted $50 million to complete the project.

In recent years, Broad has dedicated a majority of his time to his philanthropic work via his foundations, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and The Broad Art Foundation. With assets of $2.4 billion, they advocate for public education reform and promote the revitalization of Los Ang...

Kate Fowle announced as new Director of MoMA PS1

2019-06-26T14:43:00-04:00

Assuming her new role as Director of MoMA PS1 in September, Fowle will use her previous experience as Chief Curator at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and director of the Independent Curators International (ICI) to lead the institution. Her global curatorial expertise and directorial experience will allow her to continue with the museum's mission.

Since its founding in 1976, MoMA PS1 has grown to become the largest site for contemporary art in the nation and is considered to be one of the largest in the world. Upon receiving the news of her appointment, Fowle shared in MoMA's press release, "It's an honor to take the helm of MoMA PS1 at this juncture in its rich history, I look forward to working with the team and board to create a generative environment where our outlook is transformed through artists and their perspectives on the world."

Image © MoMA

Before her career as an accomplished curator, writer, and museum director, Fowle grew up in the U.K. and is a trained ar...

The Garage Screen summer movie theater is now open, but for a limited time

2019-06-25T16:13:00-04:00

Russian firm Syndicate Architecture Bureau won an architectural competition organized by the Garage Museum and Strelka KB to design a temporary summer movie theater space in Moscow's Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure.

Aerial view of Garage Screen summer movie theater. Photo by Iwan Baan.

The design is a palpable contrast: while the lightweight material palette of the structure hints at its own temporality, its pyramidal profile makes it appear as though it will be standing well after its intended purpose has been fulfilled. The architects intended for the design to be "a self-sufficient central object" in the plaza, with a glowing, iridescent skin that changes appearance throughout the day.

Top of Garage Screen summer movie theater. Photo by Iwan Baan.

Garage Screen was launched in 2012 to show museum goers the best of Russian and international filmmaking, including documentary, experimental, and feature films. Garage Museum was founded in 11 year ago by Dasha Zhukova and Roma...

Steven Holl Architects releases short video spotlighting VCU Institute for Contemporary Art

2019-01-03T16:11:00-05:00

Steven Holl Architects recently released a short video by Milkbox NY that highlights the VCU Institute for Contemporary Art that opened last April in Richmond. Hear Steven Holl and Chris McVoy talk more about the ICA's dynamic design, while artists and VCUarts faculty and alumni comment on the building's impact on the local community over the last nine months. You can watch the 6-minute feature below.

Exhibit claiming to show works by contemporary Japanese artists Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami faces legal action

2018-10-26T14:16:00-04:00

An exhibit traveling around China is facing legal action by the artists the exhibit claims to be showcasing. According to Nikken Asian Review, a Chinese company has been putting on pop-ups since April that have been displaying forged works meant to be by contemporary Japanese artists Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami. A recent iteration in Shanghai that began in mid-September has already been shut down after Kusama and her representatives were made aware of the fake works.

Neither Kusama, who is known for her playful installations, nor Murakami, whose work blends Japanese traditional and pop culture, are claiming any involvement with the various exhibitions. Kusama’s lawyer, Yoshifumi Onodera has said they are looking into taking legal action against the organizers who have not yet been identified. Murakami’s attorney, Hiroshi Kamiyama, echoed this sentiment, telling reporters at the Asian Review that they are considering a similar response.

As China's art market has grown into an 8...

Doug Aitken's Detroit Mirage opens up in once-abandoned bank

2018-10-10T19:14:00-04:00

Doug Aitken's new art installation Mirage Detroit has opened in the once-abandoned State Savings Bank, a century-old Beaux-Arts building in downtown Detroit that has sat empty for decades.

Aitken's latest work brings back his much beloved project for Desert X, which saw a reflective suburban home plopped into the Coachella Valley desert. For the city of Detroit, the art world giant has taken this ranch-style home, given it a perfected mirrored surface, and placed it in the decorative interiors of the old bank.

Installation view of Doug Aitken, Mirage Detroit 2018, photography by Conner MacPhee, courtesy the artist and Library Street Collective.

Covered in hundreds of pieces of mirrors, the large sculpture reflects the Roman arched colonnades and bronze flourishes of its architectural surroundings. A light show choreographed by longtime Radiohead se...

'Detroit Skybridge' lights up abandoned walkway with work by contemporary artist Phillip K. Smith III

2018-09-14T14:47:00-04:00

The 100-foot-long skybridge connecting two of Detroit's most iconic buildings has been brought back to life with the colorful, site-specific work of Phillip K. Smith III, who has transformed the abandoned passageway into a floating bar of light hovering above the streets of downtown Detroit.

Phillip K. Smith III's Detroit Skybridge, 2018; Acrylic, aluminum, LED lighting, electronic components, unique color program; Photo by Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Library Street Collective.

Sandwiched between the Guardian Building and One Woodward, the 16th floor passing was constructed in the late 70s to allow employees of the Michigan Consolidated Gas company and the American Natural Resources Co.—which occupied the two buildings—to pass freely. When the American Natural Resource Co. relocated in the 90s, decreased usage led to the walkway's subsequent closure and it has since sat abandoned.

Phillip K. Smith III's Detroit Skybridge, 2018; Acrylic, aluminum, ...

Doug Aitken's 'Mirage' to be installed in downtown Detroit's State Savings Bank building

2018-09-13T14:51:00-04:00

The historic State Savings Bank in downtown Detroit will soon play host to the award-winning artist Doug Aitken's latest site-specific work. Opening to the public on October 10th, the former bank building will see a ranch-style suburban home erected inside its century-old walls.

The project titled 'Mirage Detroit' is a continuation of the California artist's ongoing investigation into what he calls 'liquid architecture,' described by the desire of wanting to make 'the Building' disappear.

Last year, for the inaugural Desert X event which saw various artworks scattered across the Coachella Valley, Mr. Aitken created a sculptural installation in the form of a typical ranch house, fully covered in mirrors inside and out. A riff on this elaborate structure will now be presented inside the archaic bank building.

Image by Doug Aitken Workshop.

Entirely reflective, the mirrored installation transforms the classic one-story house into a 'human-scale kaleidoscope'. Placed within the Beaux-ar...

Pratt Institute hosts Robert Irwin 'Site Determined' exhibition and panel discussion

2018-09-06T12:15:00-04:00

The post is brought to you by Pratt Institute.

When Robert Irwin: Site Determined opened last year at the University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), it was the first museum exhibition dedicated to the creative process of one of the most significant American artists of the postwar generation. The visitor is invited to explore four decades of Irwin’s outdoor environmental projects through rarely exhibited drawings and architectural models.

Site-determined art, Irwin has explained, “draws all of its cues (reasons for being) from its surroundings.” This exhibition promises insights into Irwin’s working process as he developed aesthetic responses to such cues, including his Window Wall on the CSULB campus, Central Garden at the J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles, and his most recent site-determined work, Untitled (dawn to dusk), in Marfa, Texas. Robert Irwin: Site Determined at Pratt Institute will include a new piece never shown before publicly.

This exhi...

Morphosis reveals design for new Orange County Museum of Art in California

2018-06-04T15:57:00-04:00

Morphosis recently unveiled their design for the new Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) in in Costa Mesa, CA. The design features a 52,000-square-foot building, nearly doubling the OCMA's current exhibition space and expanding access to museum's permanent collection of modern and contemporary art.

In the entrance lobby, light-filled atrium space is crossed by bridges to educational hall and mezzanine gallery spaces. Image: Morphosis Architects.

A grand outdoor public stair joins the building to Arts Plaza to the north, creating an inviting gathering space for pedestrians and visitors
to the museum and adjacent performing arts venues.

OCMA’s ground floor and mezzanine hold open, flexible galleries for permanent collection installations and temporary exhibitions. Image: Morphosis Architects.

The main floor of the new museum building will be dedicated to reconfigurable, open exhibition space supported by the mezzanine, black-box, and jewel-box galleries which will accommodate temporary a...

Steven Holl's Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU to open April 21

2018-04-17T15:14:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects' new Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) will open to the public on April 21, 2018. The ICA's new building named the Markel Center will debut with its inaugural exhibition Declaration, an exploration of contemporary art’s power to respond to pressing social issues. This will be Virginia's first art institution dedicated exclusively to exhibiting contemporary art.

Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU Markel Center at night. Image: Iwan Baan.

Aerial view of the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Image: Iwan Baan.

The building features dual entrances opening to the city’s arts district on one side and VCU’s Monroe Park campus on the other, providing a connection between the two.

View of the Royall Forum at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Image: Iwan Baan.

Steven Holl Architects activated the 41,000 square feet of space with an open design to create flexibility. With an inviting 33-foot-high central forum, ...

Artist Rachel Whiteread creates two "ghost" cabins in the desert outside of Los Angeles

2017-07-25T12:15:00-04:00

Rachel Whiteread is known for her architecturally-relevant art practice, in particular her casts of the inside of buildings. One such sculpture, a cast of a Victorian townhouse, helped secure her the Turner Prize, making her the first woman to ever win the illustrious award.

The London-based artist has reprised this strategy for two installations in the California High Desert, which are featured in WSJ. Magazine. Located near Joshua Tree National Park, her concrete sculptures reveal the negative space of small cabins from the 1950s that had been left in the desert.

Photography by Iwan Baan for WSJ. Magazine

These aren’t the only sculptures to have recently touched down in the arid landscape outside of Los Angeles. A slew of artists, including Doug Aitken, gathered together a couple months ago to create Desert X, which was something of a festival of contemporary, site-specific works.

Superflex to take over the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern

2017-03-21T12:32:00-04:00

Each year, the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London houses a site-specific work designed specially for the massive space. This year, the Danish collective Superflex will install a work, the details of which are under wraps until October 3.

Founded in 1993 by the artists Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Nielsen, Superflex are known for their participatory and engaging installation work. The group describes their work as Tools, or proposals that invite audiences to join in experimental models intended to alter economic production conditions and engage in democratic processes.

“Their work raises timely questions about the role of the artist in contemporary society, exploring how we interpret and engage with the increasingly complex world around us,” states Frances Morris, director of the Tate Modern. “I can’t wait to see how they tackle these themes within the unique scale and public context of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.”

Doug Aitken among artists in Palm Springs-adjacent art show, "Desert X"

2017-02-23T19:53:00-05:00

Amid the dust and clamor is the steel skeleton of Aitken’s “Mirage,” which takes the form of a 1960s-style suburban California ranch house. The seven-room structure, to be fully mirrored on the outside and inside, is perched on a hillside with city and desert views, which are key to the piece. The structure has gaping holes where doors and windows might be, and its interior walls are built on angles to reflect the sky and contrasting surrounding terrain...

What does the desert in Riverside County have to offer aside from a massive annual music festival, the sleek modernism of Palm Springs, and the ethereal vista of untrammeled nature? Well, starting on February 25th, it has the Desert Exhibition of Art, or Desert X for short.

Exhibitors in the self-guided, wide-ranging exhibit (you should plan on driving) include Doug Aitken, Sherin Guirguis, and Claudia Comte, who has created a 110-foot long stucco/wood sculpture that is part wall, part meditative exercise. Maps are available at the Ace Hotel; the exhibition will be up until April.

Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science to host an international art fair

2016-08-22T12:53:00-04:00

The Palace of Culture and Science, a 237 meter tall socialist realist high-rise, towers over the city of Warsaw, Poland. Given as a “gift” to the Polish people by the Soviet Union, the building was originally called the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science. It was built between 1952 and 1955 and, for many Varsovians, is an ugly reminder of the Stalinist era.

Now, it’s about to reinvest in its eponymous program with an international art fair. Hosting some 20 art galleries from Warsaw as well as other European cities, the “Not Fair” is schedule to open on September 22, 2016. Each gallery will present a solo show by one of their represented artist, which must take into account the “special character” of the Palace.

According to the founder of Not Fair, Michal Wolinski, the event is intended to “merge the mood and quality of an art exhibition with the opportunities that art fairs provide for cutting-edge galleries and young artists”.

h/t the Art Newspaper

For more news from Poland, c...

Contemporary art + gentrification = 'artwashing'?

2016-07-22T13:16:00-04:00

Artwashing. What a great new political watchword. As in, watch out that your neighbourhood doesn’t get “artwashed” too. Just look how Tate Modern has wrecked London and how the Guggenheim trashed Bilbao. Get away, ye galleries! Let’s keep urban wastelands as bleak as they already are! It’s a neat reversal of the thinking that has seen cities all over the world embrace art galleries, museums and biennials in pursuit of regeneration.

The editorial hones in on struggles by residents of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights to push back against a rapid influx of galleries, which they view as the avant-garde of gentrification.

For more on the community's efforts to resist becoming the next Silverlake/Echo Park/Culver City/etc., check out these links:

"The most useless totem pole of mayoral hubris": Oliver Wainwright rides the ArcelorMittal Orbit

2016-06-23T18:06:00-04:00

Never has an attraction promised so much yet delivered so little. It was the roller coaster without a ride, the helter skelter without a slide, a £20m mountain of steel leering above London’s lean Olympic stadium as a mocking monument to the vanity of the city’s former mayor, Boris Johnson, and its funder, the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal [...] As Guy de Maupassant said of the Eiffel Tower, being inside the Orbit is the best place to be – because it’s the only place you don’t have to look at it

Ouch.

Yet, it's not all bad: "...when you’re hurtling down through the structure’s contorted loops on the new corkscrew slide that opens this weekend, all this can be momentarily forgiven," opines Wainwright.

In related news:

Artist JR covers the I.M. Pei's Pyramid in giant image of the Louvre

2016-05-24T13:28:00-04:00

Whether it be the Middle East, the favelas of Rio, slums of Kenya, New York, Le Havre or Shanghai, JR’s works leave no one indifferent, because they return our gaze and cut to the very heart of our innermost selves. [...] Invited by the “biggest museum in the world”—which also generates the most selfies—JR has set his sights on one of the Louvre’s symbols, the Pyramid, which he intends to transform with a surprising anamorphic image.

The artist JR, best known for his series of giant portraits wheat-pasted in cities around the world, has been commissioned to create a piece for the Louvre. Documenting the progress on his Instagram account, JR has been covering I.M. Pei's iconic glass Pyramid with an anamorphic image of the edifice behind it: the Sully Wing of the Louvre.

"I will never forget this day. Today I'm going to make the Louvre Pyramid disappear," JR told the Humans of Paris Facebook account. "I want to make the Louvre Pyramid disappear because I want people to see themselves alone, just their head and the Louvre.

"I find it funny seeing people taking selfies all day in front of the pyramid but always with their back to the Louvre," he continues. "It says a lot about our society where people turn their back on things and focus on themselves."

For related coverage, check out these links:

New Kulapat Yantrasast-designed Gagosian Gallery to open in San Francisco

2016-03-11T20:56:00-05:00

Larry Gagosian’s new 4500 square foot space, designed by Kulapat Yantrasast, is set to open up on May 18, 2016, on 657 Howard Street, right across the street from SFMoMA. The inaugural exhibition there will focus on the relationships between modern and contemporary sculpture and drawing, featuring work from Picasso and Joe Bradley, among others.

Interested in other content from the intersections of architecture and the art world? Check out these recent posts:

Why does LA have so many new galleries?

2016-03-11T12:27:00-05:00

The grand openings of the Los Angeles branches of European galleries Sprüth Magers and Hauser & Wirth (called Hauser Wirth & Schimmel), on 23 February and 13 March respectively, are sure to generate even more buzz about the booming Los Angeles art scene [...] Some of the buzz is well earned, especially when it comes to cheaper downtown real estate and the great artists working and teaching here. But there is another strong incentive behind so many galleries making the move...

According to the Art Newspaper, LA's new gallery boom reflects market competition to represent the disproportionately sizable population of impressive, well-established artists who, for a variety of reasons, lack gallery representation in their hometown. The article also notes that while opening an LA satellite serves a defensive, even necessary move, the city has yet to develop a real, sustainable collector base.

For more on LA's ever-growing art scene, check out some past coverage:

Albright-Knox Gallery announces short list of firms for $80m expansion: Snøhetta, BIG, OMA, wHY, Allied Works

2016-03-02T12:51:00-05:00

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery wants to create a public space that could rival Canalside while expanding and remaking one of the city’s most recognizable institutions. And gallery officials are looking to some of the most respected architects in the world to make it happen. They have narrowed the list of potential architects for the gallery’s upcoming expansion project to five firms with experience building in challenging urban environments.

Located in the historic, Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Delaware Park, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery is one of the major cultural hotspots of New York State's second largest city. Now, the contemporary and modern art gallery plans a major expansion of its facilities, which originally opened in 1905 and later gained an addition designed by Gordon Bushaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

The Albright-Knox Gallery announced a preliminary list of prominent designers, with a plan to select one by mid-June. The firms are:

Unlike with other architectural competitions, the Albright-Knox Galley has not asked the firms to submit a near-finalized design. Instead, they've incorporated a yearlong period into the planning process, in order to foster close collaboration with the chosen architects.

“We’re not in a design competition to choose a design and then build it. We’re in a process of choosing a partner,” Albright-Knox director Janne...

What do museums have in common with prisons? More than you might think, according to artist Andrea Fraser

2016-02-25T17:37:00-05:00

The average crow takes less than two hours to travel from Sing Sing maximum-security prison to the Whitney Museum of American Art, institutions separated by just 32 miles of land along New York’s Hudson river. Yet few humans journey between them – museums and prison are at opposite ends of our society’s self-imaginings, and their populations tend not to intersect.

"The artist Andrea Fraser – provocateur, professor and performer who famously posed the question of whether art is, metaphorically, prostitution by sleeping with a collector on camera in Untitled (2003) – will focus on the relationship between galleries and jails in a new site-specific project opening at the Whitney on Friday."

Fraser, also known for her institutional criticism of Frank Gehry's Bilbao Museum, told the Guardian: "They’re really two sides of the coin of social inequality...Museums increasingly are warehouses of wealth, capturing surplus in the form of artworks that are no longer financially productive. Prisons are institutions that warehouse surplus labour and populations that have been economically excluded from the labour market."

Interested in other provocative art endeavors? Check out some of these links: