— Matisse Breaks Tate Record: More than 560,000 people visited the Tate’s show of Matisse’s cut-outs since it opened in April, making it the museum’s biggest blockbuster ever. “The fact that the works have not been brought together for 40 years captured people’s imaginations,” Tate director Nicholas Serota said. The show is slated to travel to MoMA next and will open on October 12. [BBC]
— DC Public Art Provokes Protest: After residents complained, an installation by Abigail DeVille inspired by the Great Migration is being removed from DC’s 5x5 public arts festival. “It’s one of our main thoroughfares, and people walk down the street and look through the window and see what appears to be junk. It’s embarrassing,” explained DC Council member Marion Barry. At least locals can feel somewhat comforted that the artwork wasn’t an anatomically correct (and visibly aroused) statue of Satan, as appeared on the streets of Vancouver of last Wednesday — and was also promptly removed. [Washington Post, BuzzFeed]
— Anselm Kiefer’s Massive Studio: To celebrate Anselm Kiefer’s upcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy, the Guardian’s Michael Prodger visited the artist’s 200-acre studio in the south of France. There, he saw underground temples and sky-high stacks of shipping containers and cavernous rooms lined with lead, the entire place essentially one enormous artwork. “Metaphysics and megalomania are mixed on a daunting scale,” Prodger writes, “and the effect is overwhelming.” [The Guardian]
— Madison Square Park Gets Giant Craggs: Tony Cragg is the next artist to participate in Mad. Sq. Art’s park programming, with several 22-foot-tall works that weigh in at 8,000 to 10,000 pounds. [NYT]
— West Coast Art Goes East: Christopher Knight writes about the eastward expansion of LA’s art scene. [LAT]
— Jed Perl Reviews Koons: “That Koons will be Koons is his own business. That he has had his way with the art world is everybody’s business. No wonder the people in the galleries at the Whitney look a little dazed. The Koons cult has triumphed.” [NYRB]
— Shanghai’s SH Contemporary opened somewhat empty with a notable percentage of the art held up at customs. [ArtNet]
— RIP Rita Castleman, a curator who spent 30 years at MoMA building its impressive collection of prints. [NYT]
— Film director Wong Kar Wai has been tapped to direct the Met Costume Institute’s forthcoming show about China’s influence on the arts. [ArtNet]
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