Vancouver

Vancouver plans to create affordable studio space for artists In an attempt to support an arts community that is struggling with some of the highest rents in the country, Vancouver plans to convert two industrial warehouses into affordable studio space.  Globe and Mail, June 13, 2012

North Vancouver

Exhibition puts rising artists in the picture Presentation House Gallery is exploring the future of photography through the lens of 15 emerging Vancouver artists in its new exhibit, Phantasmagoria. According to director/curator Reid Shier, the exhibit is an informal sequel to the gallery's two previous exhibits. Vancouver Sun, June 13, 2012

Saskatoon

Mendel hires new curator The Mendel Art Gallery has hired a new chief curator who will help the institution as it plans a move into the proposed Remai Art Gallery of Saskatchewan.  Lisa Baldissera, a U.K.based curator and writer, will start her new job at Mendel on Aug. 6. The Mendel chose Baldissera from a pool of 23 applicants, the gallery said in a news release.

Los Angeles

Thomas Kinkade's Wife, Girlfriend Battle In Court Over $66 Million Estate "Amy Pinto-Walsh, a petite woman with long dark hair, has produced barely legible, handwritten notes she claims Kinkade wrote, giving her the keys to his Monte Sereno mansion and $10 million to establish a museum of his original paintings there." San Jose Mercury-News, June 12, 2012  

Paris

Sophie Calle: Tapes, Diaries, and Burial Plots Her own life and the people in it form the works of Ms. Calle, acclaimed as France's leading conceptual artist.   New York Times, June 13, 2012

Basel

Basel Fair Salutes the Rising Influence of Middle East Art Scene For the first time, two galleries from the Gulf region are preparing to open at Art Basel as the event continues to broaden its reach and the Middle East art scene flourishes.  New York Times, June 13, 2012

Art of the past has lessons for the present Modern masterpieces and contemporary works with historic references resonate at Art Basel.  Art Basel daily edition, June 13, 2012

Kassel

Emily Carr artworks headed to dOCUMENTA exhibition - ArtsHub “It’s extraordinarily important for Emily Carr for her work to be seen in this international context,” director of the Vancouver Art Gallery Kathleen Bartels.  In British Columbia, we think she’s ours and not known like she should be. This is an opportunity for the art community and hundreds of thousands of visitors who go to dOCUMENTA to be familiar with Emily Carr. The fact that these stellar works are from the Vancouver Art Gallery collection is something we’re extraordinarily proud of.”  Artshub (Australia) June 14, 2012  

Stockholm

In Stockholm, Stretching a Museum's Boundaries Daniel Birnbaum, the 49-year-old director of the Moderna Museet, likes to program exhibitions that challenge visitors' expectations. New York Times, June 13, 2012

European Union

EU Targets Money Laundering With New Regulations For Art Galleries "Lowering the threshold will not make life more difficult for money launderers. It will, however, make business more difficult for the art trade. It is the smaller dealers in antiques and lower-end fine art who accept cash: and they're the ones suffering most in this economic climate." The Art Newspaper, June 13, 2012

Tunisia

Tunisia: Conservative Islamists Riot Over Art Exhibit  Thousands of ultraconservative Salafist Muslims, angered by an art exhibition they say insults Islam, rampaged through parts of Tunis and other cities on Tuesday. New York Times, June 13, 2012

Turkey

Turkey turns up the heat on foreign museums  The list of antiquities demanded gets longer as more exhibitions are hit by the loans boycott.  The Art Newspaper, June 13, 2012

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Gains Collection of Contemporary Chinese Art Uli Sigg, the world's leading collector of contemporary Chinese art, announced on Tuesday that he was donating 1,463 works to M+, a Hong Kong museum. New York Times, June 13, 2012

Beijing

Fans Worldwide Unite To Give Ai Weiwei The Finger Riffing on one of Ai's more notorious pieces, which included photos of himself flipping off Tiananmen Square and Beijing's Olympic Stadium, the producers of the recent documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry are "inviting fans of the artist to submit photographs of themselves giving a middle-finger salute to symbols of injustice ... The photos will be assembled into a mosaic and given to Ai upon his release" from house arrest this month. Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2012

China

Public or Private? The Culture Clash in China Although the power and money in China remain with state-run and approved institutions, it is private organizations and galleries that offer a vibrant and contemporary art scene. New York Times, June 13, 2012

Perth

Bringing MoMA's Treasures To The World's Most Isolated Big City "Picasso to Warhol: 14 Modern Masters" is the first of half a dozen six-month exhibitions - all featuring pieces from the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art - at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth. Among the other "modern masters" in the show: Matisse, Miró, Mondrian, Pollock, Calder and Bourgeois. The Australian, June 13, 2012

Born on this day:  Christo, 1935