de Appel and The Fair Gallery have launched The Gallerist Programme, a professional development programme designed to offer aspiring gallerists a year of reflection to develop ideas, and gain skills and experiences before starting their own galleries. Read more…

Hong Kong's Para/Site Art Space, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to contemporary art, has named Cosmin Costinas as its new executive director and curator. Prior to his new appointment Costinas was the curator at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst. He was also an editor of the magazines project of documenta 12 from 2005 to 2007.

At the opening of Trenton Garratt's exhibition What's the Sun, Clinton Watkins (with Garratt) performed a response to one of the works in the show. This link takes you to a video of the performance.

The Busan Biennale Organising Committee has appointed Roger M Buergel (artistic director of Documental XII) as the artistic director of Busan Biennale 2012.

The Israeli government has approved a plan to build a museum dedicated to tolerance and co-existence over a centuries-old Muslim graveyard in Jerusalem. The project, which has been delayed for years by Muslim opposition, is being sponsored by the US-based Jewish Group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The irony of a Jewish-sponsored Museum of Tolerance going up in part on a Muslim cemetery has made the project a target for critics since it was announced in 2003. The building will be designed by Israeli firm Chyutkin Architects following Frank Gehry's decision to withdraw from the project. Read more

Jin Jiangbo and Hye Rim Lee are represented in Crystal City, an exhibition of works by seven Asian artists that opens at The Dowse in Lower Hutt tomorrow night. Curated by Emma Bugden, the exhibition runs from 16 July – 16 October 2011. Read more

Trenton Garratt's first solo show at Starkwhite opens tonight at 6.00pm. At around 7.00pm artist and musician Clinton Watkins will perform a response to one of the works in the exhibition.

Clinton Watkins' Test Tone is an interactive video and sound artwork that invites participants to freely generate sequences of sonically affected broadcast test tone colours through physical movement. Employing both unique custom made analogue video technologies and sophisticated computer programming, Test Tone is based on the premise of technological feedback and improvisation.

The Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu remains closed until further notice so that it can continue to be a base for the planning and coordination of the city's rebuild. Life is not easy for gallery staff in the quake-ravaged city, but recently they received some good news in the form of a gift from Japan – a gift valued not in dollars, but rather generosity of spirit.

After researching ways to upgrade picture hanging systems to offer greater protection for artworks during earthquakes, the Gallery settled on double-ended, spring-locked hooks. When they approached Japanese manufacturer Takiya to buy the hooks they were told they would be supplied free of charge. The president of Takiya, Nobuo Nakamura, donated around $10,000 worth of product to the gallery – an especially touching gesture because the donation came after Japan's own horrific earthquake and tsunami.

Upstairs we are showing works by a number of represented artists, including Glen Hayward's Closed Circuit. Hayward is at the end of a three-month residency at Altes Spital in Solothurn, Switzerland and will return to Auckland later this month to take up a McCahon House residency in August.
Image: Glen Hayward, Closed Circuit (2011), acrylic on wood

Seung Yul Oh is represented in Social Animals, which opens today at Space 15h, Seoul. After a short trip back to Auckland he heads to New York as the recipient of the 2011 Harriet Friedlander Award, which allows him to stay for as long as the $80,000 award lasts.

After nearly a decade of lawsuits and bitter debate, the $20 billion art collection of French impressionist, post-impressionist and modern art amassed by a Philadelphia physician Dr Alfred C Barnes is on the move. When he died in in 1951 his will stipulated that the collection never be broken up or leave the two-story villa that houses it in suburban Merion. However, for 60 years the city's power brokers have manoeuvered to assert their vision to relocate it downtown to be positioned as a major tourist destination. The power struggle between the parties is recorded in the documentary The Art of the Steal, released in 2010.

The plan to relocate the collection to a new $150m gallery in downtown Philadelphia has won the day. The Merlion gallery closes today and while one more court hearing is scheduled for August at which a group called The Friends of the Barnes Collection will ask the court, once again, to order the collection to remain in Merlion forever, Barnes watchers believe the odds are against the group because the judge who will rule on the suit has previously decided it could move.
Images: Barnes Foundation, Lower Merion Township, Philadelphia; and a rendering of the Foundation's future home in downtown Philadelphia, due to open in 2012

Starkwhite will be closed this week from Monday to Thursday for renovations. During this time access to the gallery will be by appointment.

Dane Mitchell presents part three of Radiant Matter at Auckland's Artspace, continuing his exploration into perfume and the 'vaporous', the state of suspension or in-between poetic potential of liquids, gases and solids. The exhibition opens today from 1 – 6pm and the artist will talk about his work on Sunday at 3pm.

Critics of an urban improvement effort in the South Korean capital that requires developers to provide public art say the law generated too many works that many find objectionable. Recently the law was changed and under the new guidelines developers have a choice: they can commission a piece of art, or they can donate the money (1% of the cost of the building) to a government-administered public art fund. While this is likely to address many of the issues surrounding the public art scheme and the proliferation of artworks (sometimes less is more) the question remains: what does Seoul do with all the unwanted art that dominates the cityscape. Read more…
Image: Frank Stella's Amabel stands in front of a South Korean steel company in Seoul, caught up in the controversy surrounding public art

Are the collectors who spend thousands on conceptual works crazy – or on the cutting edge? Read more…

The plan to build a Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth received a boost today with the announcement by the The Minister for the Arts, the Hon. Christopher Finlayson, that a $4m grant has been approved from the Government's Regional Museums Policy for Capital Construction Costs. The new centre is to be designed by the New Zealand architectural firm of Patterson Associates.  
Image: Len Lye, Self Portrait (With Night Tree), 1947

Following the public opening of Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animal/Zodiac Heads at the Pulitzer Fountain, New York's Asia Society is set to open a large show of his photographic work, featuring 227 photos he took during his New York days. The exhibition runs from 29 June to 14 August 2011. Read more…