Grassroots, place-based arts initiatives got a boost yesterday when the artist Rick Lowe was named a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. Earlier this week, I profiled Lowe’s dynamic approach to arts-driven revitalization in “Street Makeover: Artists Bring Visibility to a Low-Lit Alley.” Lowe is currently working as a multi-year resident of the Pearl Street Project, an alleyway transformation launched by Philadelphia’s Asian Arts Initiative. — nextcity.org

The conceptual storefront Prada Marfa, 2005, by Elmgreen & Dragset, has a new lease on life. The Texas Department of Transportation reached an agreement last week with the foundation Ballroom Marfa to preserve the sculpture after nearly one year of negotiations. The government threatened to shut down the work because it could be considered an illegal roadside advertisement under state law. [...] the foundation plans to lease the land underneath Prada Marfa and register it as an art museum. — theartnewspaper.com

The São Paulo Biennial, which opened on September 6, is traditionally a contemporary art festival, but this year’s event puts new emphasis on architecture. Chief curator Charles Esche commissioned nearly 70 percent of the exhibition’s artworks, collaborating with a five-person curatorial team that included an architect for the first time in the biennial’s 63-year history (fun fact: it’s the world’s second-oldest contemporary art biennial). — blouinartinfo.com

The Aga Khan Museum, which opens Sept. 18, offers a welcome antidote to these clichés through art that celebrates the rich cultural history of the Islamic world.

The building’s architect, Fumihiko Maki of Japan, has used geometric patterns inspired by the great mosques of classical Islam, repeating them in the inlaid floor of the courtyard, etched glass, and wood screens in the auditorium. — news.nationalpost.com

Just north of where the University of Pennsylvania transformed its surroundings, and amid Drexel University’s big expansion plans, one Drexel school is looking for ways to coalesce that West Philly arts community.

Mantua, long challenged by poverty, population decline and crime, has had a higher profile in the past year due to its Promise Zone designation and the raved-about art project, Funeral for a Home. — nextcity.org

Jean-Luc Martinez, who was promoted to the directorship of the Musée du Louvre last year, is proposing the most ambitious renovation of the Paris museum since the Grand Louvre project of the 1980s. [...]

Planning the museum’s comprehensive renovation began in June and work is due to start on the main entrance this month. [...] Martinez also plans to devote 1,500 sq. m of space to major temporary exhibitions in the Napoleon Hall, which is beneath the museum’s I.M. Pei-designed entrance pyramid. — theartnewspaper.com

This month, audiences will be able to check out the first program to emerge from Vergne's nascent administration: Step and Repeat, a multidisciplinary festival of performing arts, takes place at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA over four Saturday evenings, beginning Sept. 13 [...] Step and Repeat will feature a unique nightly lineup of poetry readings, noise/experimental music, performance art, stand-up comedy, live bands and deejays, all presented side by side. — LA Weekly

The North Korean government has approved plans by two Norwegian artists to open an art academy in the country. Henrik Placht and Morten Traavik travelled to North Korea together for the first time in August to flesh out the proposal and to look for potential sponsors. So far they have received financial support from the Prince Claus Fund. [...]

“One of the reasons for us going to North Korea is that we don’t believe in sanctions and the boycott of art,” Placht tells The Art Newspaper. — theartnewspaper.com

In collaboration with fifteen poets and community activists from StartUp Box South Bronx, I recently created Memories of the Future, a location-based cinema project viewed on mobile phones. The group experimented with spoken word poetry, site specific performance, and on-site spectatorship to reframe the predominant view of Hunts Point and speak about possibilities for its future from a position of power. — urbanomnibus.net

There has long been a subculture of so-called “urban explorers” who have made a game of accessing off-limits places. [...] Urban explorers take photos mainly to document that they’ve been there, while for Deas the image is the whole point. The outlaw Instagrammers have more in common with graffiti artists, another subculture of underground creatives who make their work in the cracks of the urban landscape. — nymag.com

I can’t think of a more fitting a place for an exhibition of art and representation that aims to capture the breadth of the world than the Queens Museum. [...]

The title of Bringing the World into the World, on view through October 12th, is inspired by Italian artist Alighiero Boetti’s assertion that art and the world contain and are contained by each other. As conceived, the exhibition couldn’t happen properly anywhere else. — urbanomnibus.net

5 Pointz, New York City’s “graffiti mecca,” is being demolished right now. This morning, a backhoe began tearing into the building that has served as a legal spot for aerosol artists for over two decades. In 2011, the property owner announced that he will be developing the site and transforming it into a massive residential condo complex. — animalnewyork.com

The difficulties faced by Moca in North Miami in recent years highlight the changing cultural landscape of Miami. Moca was once one of a very few contemporary art institutions in the wider metropolis, but it has faced increasing competition for resources and support in recent years. [...] The suit cites Art Basel Miami Beach and Pamm as posing “new challenges to the relevancy and reputation of Moca’s permanent art collection.” — theartnewspaper.com

A six-story-tall floating "Rubber Duck" is making its West Coast debut at the Port of Los Angeles, where it will lead more than a dozen battleships and sailboats in the Tall Ships Festival L.A. parade [...]

Dubbed the world's largest rubber duck, the giant inflatable was created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman.

"The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties," Hofman said on the event's website. "It can relieve the world's tensions as well as define them." — latimes.com