Three members of Pussy Riot have been found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and sentenced to two years in a Russian prison colony. Judge Marina Syrova said they had “crudely undermined social order” and “their correction can only be achieved by an actual punishment.” Read more…
Image: Pussy Riot in the Russian courtroom

This year's National Contemporary Art Award has gone to Michael Parr and Blaine Western for their cantilvered bus shelter titled Parallel of Life. The award was judged by Artspace director Caterina Riva who said: “The winners have managed to address successfully local content and been brave enough to make and position their work outside the museum, and in doing that, engaging a wider conversation within the city.”

The Award exhibition continues at the Waikato Museum to 18 November.
Image: Michael Parr and Blaine Western's winning entry to the National Contemporary Art Award art at Hamilton's Waikato Museum

In 2002 Massimiliano Gioni founded the Wrong Gallery, a three-foot-square space in New York's Chelsea district, where as he said “nothing was for sale.” This led to prominent curatorial positions including the 2008 Berlin Biennale and 2010 Gwangju Biennale. He is currently the associate director and head of exhibitions and director of New York's New Museum and director of the 2013 Venice Biennale.

Gioni's latest exhibition, Ghosts in the Machine, is currently showing at the New Museum. Art in America caught up with him to talk about his unorthodox approach to curating the show and his debt to curators past. Read more…

Singapore-born Qinyi Lim has been appointed as curator of Hong Kong's Para/Site. It's the first time the not-for profit space has taken on a permanent curator. Qinyi Lim is a graduate of the Curatorial Programme of the de Appel arts centre and was formerly a curator at the Singapore Art Museum.
Image: Para/Site, Hong Kong

On Friday, Judge Marina Syrova will deliver her verdict in the trial of three members of Pussy Riot who were charged with hooliganism and incitement of religious hatred after performing their anthem “Mother of God, Cast Putin Out” on the alter of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ our Saviour.

A guilty verdict is said to be a foregone conclusion since acquittals by Russian courts are virtually unheard of. The question is whether they will receive a suspended sentence or a jail term. But in an article in The Telegraph, John Lough says the women opposed to the Putin system have scored a stunning victory over it. Read more…
Image: Pussy Riot performing in Moscow

Frieze has asked art critics and editors of cultural publications around the world to tell them how they see the role of art criticism in mainstream media today, and how they view the impact of their writing on their audience. This link takes you to the final installment of Who Do You Write For?

Gavin Hipkins' photographic installation Second Pavilion opens tonight at 6.00pm.
Image: Gavin Hipkins, Second Pavilion, 2012 (detail)

For their presentation in the American pavilion at this year's International Venice Architecture Biennale, the Institute of Urban Design has created Spontaneous Interventions : Design Actions for the Common Good, a survey of a kind of DIY urbanism ranging from urban farms to guerilla bicycle lanes, temporary architecture to poster campaigns, urban navigation apps to crowd-sourced city planning. You can read an ARTINFO interview with curator Cathy Lang Ho here.

When Kazuyo Sejima was appointed director of the last edition of the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, the central show at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Paolo Baratta, the president of the Biennale de Venezia, announced the move had “brought the exhibition back into the hands of an architect.”

This year's event has also been entrusted to a practitioner – the British born architect David Chipperfield who plans to look at architecture “from a societal point of view rather than from the self.”

His theme for the show is Common Ground. “Architecture is the most collaborative process,” he says, “and this show will focus on the notion of shared ideas over individual authorship”.

In order to present an array of generationally, culturally and geographically diverse exhibits, Chipperfield recruited 104 participants, including newcomers from five countries making their first appearance at the Biennale (Angola, Kosovo, Kuwait, Peru and Turkey), to present 58 different projects. He admits that some of the architects he invited had difficulties coming up with a concept because they were used to presenting an individual project, rather than working as a team, but he says they solved their problems as he hoped they would through dialogue, brainstorming and reaching out to others to contribute ideas.

The 13th International Architecture Biennale runs from 29 August to 25 November 2012.
Image: David Chipperfield

Tomorrow we open two new exhibitions – Second Pavilion, a photographic installation by Gavin Hipkins, and Der Tiefenglanz II, a collaborative project by Hipkins and jeweller Karl Fritsch. You can read our press releases here.
Image: Gavin Hipkins, Second Pavilion, 2102 (detail)

You can see a live performance of Alicia Frankovich's Floor Resistance at the Auckland Art Gallery today. The performance takes place at 11.30 in the artist's space in the Walters Prize exhibition.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, Floor Resistance, shown at Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU3, Berlin (25 June 2011)

You can catch a live performance of Alicia Frankovich's Floor Resistance at 11.30am tomorrow at the Auckland Art Gallery. And At 1.00pm Natasha Conland, AAG Curator of Contemporary Art, gives an overview of the artworks in this year's Walters Prize exhibition and discusses topics raised by the artists.

The Eli And Edyth Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has hired Beijing-based critic and curator Wang Chunchen as an adjunct curator, making him the first China-based curator hired at an American art museum. While other Chinese curators and scholars have held prominent positions in the US – for example, Hou Hanru was formerly director of exhibitions and chair of museum studies at the San Francisco Art Institute – Wang Chunchen's continuing residence in China sets him apart.
Image: Wang Chunchen is the department head of the curatorial research department, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing and author of Art Intervenes – A New Artistic Relationship

In Moscow the presiding judge has wrapped up the Pussy Riot case and says she will issue a verdict next week. In the meantime you can see a video of their anti-Putin punk prayer service here.
Image: Pussy Riot performing in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral

Recently White Columns' Matthew Higgs interviewed Paula Cooper for Interview magazine. “At age 74, she is in many ways an unconventional icon amongst art dealers,” he says. “Her holistic approach suggests that a gallery might be more than merely a commercial enterprise, that it might play a larger role in the community. Read more…
Image : Paula Cooper

In an editorial published in The New York Observer, Adam Lindemann says Jeffrey Deitch has become a lightning rod for criticism of MOCA, but asks whether he is really to blame. Read more…
Image: MOCA's Jeffrey Deitch

Performances of Alicia Frankovich's Floor Resistance will be staged within the artist's space in the Walters Prize exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery through to 11 November. The next performance takes place on Sunday 12 August at 11.30am.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, Floor Resistance, shown at Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU3, Berlin (25 June 2011)

Independent Curators International has given the 2012 Leo Award to Dasha Zhukova. Named after the pioneering art dealer Leo Castelli, the Award honours the achievements of ground-breaking figures in the field of contemporary art. Zhukova, who has been busy turning Moscow into an epicentre for contemporary art, has been recognised for her “pioneering and forward thinking approach” to conceiving of and building new institutions and creating opportunities artists and curators.

The fate of Pussy Riot will be decided soon and after Putin said they “should not be judged too harshly” for performing an anti-Putin punk service in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Church. The group's lawyer said the judge will probably hand down a lighter punishment as a result of Putin's decision to speak, but notes that it comes as international pressure over the trial escalates. “He is maneuvering in front of the West with his words,” he said. Read more…
Image: A member of Pussy Riot being escorted into court

As his so-called celebrity-driven, populist programme at MOCA continues to divide the LA artworld Jeffrey Deitch has come out on the front foot saying he has seen the future of museum audiences and they will look a lot different from the old guard at MOCA. “They're not people who make a living as artists, art critics or professional collectors, which is the traditional MOCA audience. These are people who hear about a great new film they want to go to. They hear there's a terrific fashion store that's very cool – they want to go there. They don't differentiate between these cultural forms.” Read more…
Image: Jeffrey Deitch and Naomi Campbell

Yayoi Kusama is set to create a 120-foot version of her Yellow Trees in New York's meatpacking district. The artwork, which doubles as netting for a condo construction site, will be visible from New York's High Line, making it the latest in a number of artworks that galleries, developers and artists have staged in sight of the elevated park, hoping to cash in on the crowds that use it every day.
Image: A rendering of Yayoi Kusama's Yellow Trees, commissioned by DDG partners

Our current show, Greetings from Los Angeles, closes today at 6pm.

Recently the Observer caught up with Alison Klayman, the filmmaker whose first documentary, Ai Weiwei:Never Sorry, is screening in festivals around the world. Read more…
Image: Filmmaker Alison Klayman with Ai Weiwei

Alicia Frankovich discusses her work with ARTSPACE director and curator Caterina Riva at the Auckland Art Gallery today at 1pm. And tomorrow at 11.30am she presents the first public performance of Floor Resistance, the work shortlisted for this year's Walters Prize.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, Floor Resistance, shown at Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU3, Berlin (25 June 2011)

Recently legendary Swiss art collector Uli Sigg donated $170 million worth of contemporary Chinese art to the M+ museum in Hong Kong, which is scheduled to open in 2017. A former ambassador to China, Sigg started collecting works by artists such as Ai Weiwei, Zhang Xiaogang and Fang Lijun in the 1970s and has built one of the world's great collections of Chinese art. Under the agreement, he will gift 1,463 works and M+ will pay around $23 million for an additional 47 works from the 70s and 80s. M+ director Lars Nittve said this is common practice among museums when receiving major collections from donors.

The decision to send the collection to Hong Kong rather than mainland China, and the part gift/part purchase has drawn some flak from the mainland. Sigg answers his critics in a recent interview with ARTINFO. Read more…
Image: Uli Sigg with Ai Weiwei's Uli Sigg

We are extending our gallery hours on Saturday [9am to 5pm] and Monday [9am to 6pm] to cater for out-of-town visitors arriving for the opening of the 2012 Walters Prize exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery.
Image: Ann Veronica Janssens, Untitled (Light Painting), 2004, installation view, Greetings From Los Angeles, Starkwhite

Visitors to Casa dei Tre Oci, a grand 20th century palazzo on the Guidecca can see a fully operational soviet-style laundrette installed by artist Arsenly Zhilyaev. The project is part of the exhibition The Way of Enthusiasts organised by the not-for-profit, Moscow-based V-A-C Foundation as a collateral event at Venice's Architecture Biennale.

“Public laundries were part of the utopian urban planning that traces back to the constructivist commune houses where all aspects of private life had to be shared. This intention revealed itself in the architecture of the houses of the new type that were built in starting from the late 1920s; there were no kitchen or laundry facilities in the apartments because these types of private activities were supposed to be performed publicly,” say the curators Katerina Chuchalina and Silvia Franceschini. “Thus appeared the famous soviet canteens or laundries that lasted in Russian cities until the fall of the Soviet Union… Zhilyae's project is an attempt to re-enact this long disappeared practice into a new and unusual context.”
Image: Arsenly Zhilyaev's Laundry, 2012

The Chair of the Venice in Peril Fund, Anna Somers Cocks, has resigned along with four other trustees, paving the way for a return to its restoration roots when rising waters remains the biggest threat to the city.

Founded after the great flood of 1966, Venice in Peril focused initially on restoration, but under Somers Cocks it also financed research into the city's ecological problems and proposed solutions, such as the need for mobile barriers at the openings between the Adriatic and lagoon. But she says there is a widespread and dangerous misconception that the barriers being built are the solution to the problem of rising water levels when they are, at best, a short-term measure to buy time. Read more…

Three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot went on trial this week for their protest in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February. They could face seven-year sentences if found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by hatred” for performing an anti-Putin punk prayer service in the cathedral.
Image: Pussy Riot performing in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral

Live art is under the spotlight at the Tate Modern with Tino Sehgal's work in the Turbine Hall that consists of encounters between around 70 story tellers and visitors to the gallery, and the recent opening of the Tanks, the vast underground oil tanks that have been converted to showcase live art and the moving image. The opening programme for the Tanks addresses ways in which artists have increasingly engaged with areas such as performance and the relationship between artist and audience.
Image: The Tate Moderns's Tanks

The Biennale of Sydney has announced Juliana Engberg as the director of the 19th edition of the Biennale for 2014, making her the second woman to be appointed since Lynne Cooke curated the 1996 Biennale Jurassic Technologies Revenant. Engberg is currently director of Melbourne's Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
Image: Juliana Engberg

Over four nights last week, Hector Zamora's video White Noise was projected onto a building on Auckland's waterfront as part of Move Towards the Light, a series of video and laser projections and light sculptures forming an after-dark art trail from Brittomart to the Wynyard Quarter.

Commissioned for the visual arts programme of the 2011 Auckland Arts Festival, White Noise documents a site-specific installation at Bethell's Beach on the West Coast of Auckland. Zamora invited the public to plant 500 white flags along the coast, creating a poetic 'white noise' in unison with the wind. At some point in the day the installation was politicised with the planting of a single Maori Flag by a local activist, highlighting continuing debates on the ownership of New Zealand's foreshore and seabed – an intervention that was welcomed by the artist.
Image: Hector Zamora's White Noise in Move Towards the Light on Auckland's waterfront

Yesterday Alicia Frankovich talked to Lynn Freeman about re-presenting Floor Resistance, a one-hour performance designed for a theatre space in Berlin, in the 2012 Walters Prize exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery. You can download the conversation at Arts on Sunday.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, Floor Resistance, 2011 at Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU 3. Photograph by Conor Clarke

Greetings from Los Angeles continues at Starkwhite this week through to Monday 6 August.
Image: Jorge Mendez Blake, I Would Prefer Not To (2012), installation detail, Greetings From Los Angeles exhibition, Starkwhite

This week we are at the Melbourne Art Fair (Stand B76), which runs from 2-5 August. You can read our release here.

Alicia Frankovich is one of the four artists shortlisted for this year's Walters Prize. She talks about Floor Resistance, the work selected by the jury, on Radio New Zealand's Arts on Sunday today at 2:53pm.

Named after one of New Zealand's greatest artists (Gordon Walters) the $50,000 prize is awarded every two years to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to contemporary visual art in New Zealand. A jury of New Zealand curators and critics select four finalists who present their work in an exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery and an international judge selects the winning artist. The previous judges have been Harald Szeeman (2002), Robert Storr (2004), Carloyn Christov-Bakargiev (2006), Catherine David (2008) and Vicente Todoli (2010). This year's judge is Mami Kataoka, chief curator at the Mori Museum of Art, Tokyo and co-curator of the 2012 Gwangju Biennale.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, Floor Resistance, shown at Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU3, Berlin (25 June 2011)

Move Towards the Light, a series of video and laser projects and light sculptures running after dark on the Auckland waterfront, ends tonight at midnight. The lineup of artists includes Jae Hoon Lee, Clinton Watkins and Hector Zamora.
Image: Clinton Watkins' Continuous Ship #1 at Shed 10 Queens Wharf

In an email sent to Eli Broad and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Charles Young, the former chief executive of the Museum of Contemporary Art, has called for the removal of museum director Jeffrey Deitch.

“I hope that the four-alarm fire now enveloping MOCA has at least given you pause for thought about his appointment and your continued attempts to try to save him for a job which many (including myself) believe he is unqualified,” Young wrote to Broad. “The resignation of dedicated, long term trustees, and especially four highly respected artists of international acclaim, should bother you, David [Johnson], Maria [Bell] and the other continuing members of the board. The question is 'What now is to be done?'”

“I will do anything I can to try to right the MOCA ship, but nothing will work, in my mind, without a new Captain/Director,” Young concluded. Read more…
Image: Charles Young, former chief executive of MOMA and former UCLA chancellor

Fears that Hobart's wildly successful Museum of Old and New Art may close if the Australian Tax Office goes after the eccentric gaming mogul and art collector behind it have sparked widespread concern in Tasmania where it has become a tourism boon for the debt-ridden state. David Walsh's $180 million museum has drawn 600,000 visitors in its first 18 months and is Tasmania's single most visited attraction, but it costs him around $8 million annually to keep the museum open, a contribution that may be at risk in the light of the ATO's claim that he has been running a $2.4 billion gambling business and owes $37 million in backdated taxes.
Image: Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart

Video artist Tejal Shah's art work I Love my India has been removed from the Indian Highway exhibition at the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing – not at the request of the Chinese government, but rather one from Indian Government officials. The work depicting Muslims talking about the Godhra riots upset the sentiments of the Indian community in China leading the Indian Ministry of external Affairs to intervene.

The exhibition curated by Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Gunnar Kvaran opened at Serpentine in 2008 and traveled to venues in Oslo, Lyon and Rome without incident before its Bejing outing at the UCCA. Neither of the institutions has commented on the removal of the video which focuses, according to a description by the Serpentine, on “the ignorance and lack of understanding of the genocide against the Muslim minority in 2002.”
Image: A video still from Tejal Shah's I Love my India