Dane Mitchell is in the lineup of artists represented in the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana. Curated by Beti Zerovc, THE EVENT will explore the rise of the art event in recent decades, along with its distinguishing attributes and its role as a producer as well as presenter of art. The exhibition will be developed around four topics: violence, generosity, emptiness and the search for the scared and ritualistic. Read more…

One of Venice's four bridges to cross the city's Grand Canal may be torn down and replaced by a more contemporary equivalent. Designed by Alfred Neville and constructed in iron in 1854, the original Ponte dell'Accademia has been replaced twice – the steel original exchanged for a wooden counterpart in 1933, then perfectly replicated in 1986. However, plans to replace the bridge have met with strong opposition. Echoing the sentiments of local residents and other conservation groups, Lidia Fersuoch of the Italian conservation group Italia Nostra says the splintering bridge should be restored. Others argue that a new bridge will save the city money and and cater to the needs of all visiting demographics saying elderly and disabled access to the bridge is limited.

Jin Jiangbo's exhibition Dialogue with Nature opens this afternoon at 4.00pm.

Located at the Wynyard Crossing, Flooded Mirror is a sound installation by Auckland-based artist Rachel Shearer that “tells an abstract sound story of the interconnections between sea, geology and humans.” Shearer has developed sounds inspired by mineral structure as a metaphor for those processes that affect land formation, geological strata, culture and communities. She says “it is like an aural map of energy flow narrating ancient general histories and specific recent histories.”

Seung Yul Oh arrived in New York this week courtesy of the $80,000 Harriet Friedlander Residency. Administered for the Friedlander Family by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, the award has no strings attached to it. Recipients are free to stay in NYC for as long as the $80,000 lasts, and Oh picked the right time to go with the NZ dollar trading at a post-float high of between US$0.8000 and US$0.8600. While recipients of the award are not required to develop specific projects under the Residency, the inaugural awardee, filmmaker Florian Habicht, set the bar with his NY film Love Story which premiered in Auckland recently at the New Zealand International Film Festival.

Jin Jiangbo's exhibition Dialogue with Nature opens on Saturday 20 August, 4.00 to 7.00pm. You can read the exhibition release here.

As the art world awaits to see how the global market downturn will affect the art market, MutualArt looked back over the first six months of the year with a review of the top lots so far.

50 years ago LA art dealer Irving Blum, a former furniture salesman who bought a stake in Ferus gallery, persuaded Andy Warhol to mount his first solo show there. He also had the foresight to buy Campbell's Soup Cans for $1,000. The work which eventually sold for $15 million has returned to LA MOCA for a tribute exhibition to the gallery and Blum as one of its directors who also championed Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha and Frank Stella early in their careers.

Image: Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962

Tyler Cann, the Len Lye curator at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, is moving to the Ikon gallery in Birmingham. He takes up his new curatorial position at the end of this month, but will continue to work with the GBAG as a curatorial advisor and trustee of the Len Lye Foundation.

Trenton Garratt's exhibition What's the Sun continues at Starkwhite this week, closing Saturday 13 August. You can read an exhibition review here.

A new BMW Guggenheim Lab has been launched in New York. The think tank/art installation is part of a six-year enterprise that aims to better urban living through arts collaboration. Architects will design mobile structures to reflect given themes, which will then travel to cities worldwide.

For the first outing, Tokyo-based architect Atelier Bow-Wow has designed a space that will transform a gravel lot at the border of Manhattan's Lower East side and the East Village. The 2500 square-foot carbon-fibre Lab will host programmes focusing on the problems associated with art and urban planning.

The New York Lab team was nominated by an advisory committee including designer Elizabeth Diller, artist Rikrit Tiravanija and Zimbabe's mayor of Harare, Muchadeyi Ashton Masunda. It is comprised of Bronx environmental justice activist Omar Freilla, Canadian journalist and urban experimentalist Montgomery, Nigerian microbiologist Olatunbosum Obayomi, and Dutch architects Elma van Boxel and Kristian Koreman who planned the events for the Manhattan Lab including the screening of Blank City, a documentary that explores the underground arts scene of New York in the 70s.
Image: the BMW Guggenheim Lab showing the interactive installation Urbanology

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches MOMA PS1's curator Peter Eleey is preparing an exhibition that examines how our way of looking at the world has changed as a result of the attacks on the twin towers. Called September 11 and opening on that day, the show will occupy the second floor of the museum with some works located around the neighbourhood.

This link takes you to a Joanne Bamberger post on the US debt ceiling crisis and the Tea Party conservatives who are calling the Republican shots. Bamberger is the author of Mothers of Invention: How Women & Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America.