Vancouver

Goodby gallery row  Landmark galleries are leaving the South Granville strip for a new art district emerging around Great Northern Way.  Vancouver Sun, July 27, 2012

Public artworks grace city.  10 memorable works create lasting impressions against a background of natural beauty. Vancouver Sun, August 2, 2012

Artists dig deep for inspiration.  "It's about getting out of the gallery, playing with scale," says Montreal-based curator John Grande, who invited three of the world's most prominent earth artists from Europe and New Zealand to join a pair of Vancouver artists for the show. "Generally in the museum culture, nature has no place other as a video or a photograph. These artists are awakening us to the context of nature that we live in." The Province, August 1, 2012

West Vancouver

10 historic homes of distinction.  Created by 'Vancouver School' architects, designers and artists like Arthur Erickson, Ron Thom and BC Binning, the West Coast Modern home style saw its greatest expression in West Vancouver during the 1950s and 1960s. Vancouver Sun, August 2, 2012

Victoria

Looking at the world with a critical eye.  Robert Enright, the Winnipeg-based cultural journalist will be at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria Thursday to share his perspective on one of the Prairies' most famous painters. Presented alongside The Messenger, an exhibit of William Kurelek's work, Enright says he will talk about the way the late artist fits into today's Canadian art landscape.  Times Colonist, August 1, 2012

Banff

German art exhibit finds outpost in Banff.  This year, for the first time, dOCUMENTA has extended its footprint beyond Kassel simultaneously with the 100-day long exhibition, with outposts in four other locations – including Banff, Alta. The Banff component – a first for North America – begins on Thursday. It’s called The Retreat. The Retreat is largely a private event for artists and cultural thinkers. The faculty is made up of an impressive list of cultural thinkers: media theorist Franco (Bifo) Berardi, philosophers Bruno Bosteels and Catherine Malabou, artists Claire Pentecost and Pierre Huyghe, and Christov-Bakargiev herself. For the public, each faculty member will give a talk, and the Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery will premiere a film collaboration by Brian Jungen and Duane Linklater, Modest Livelihood.  Globe & Mail, August 1, 2012

Toronto

Keeping an eye on Christian Marclay’s clock. “Only 1,416 hours (give or take!) until the exhibition opens in Toronto. But who’s counting? Um, Christian Marclay, that’s who — a master counter, among many other things. Dubbed “the most exciting collagist since Robert Rauschenberg” in a 12-page profile in The New Yorker — and, heck, the only artist to make it on to this year’s Time magazine list of the world’s most influential people — Marclay comes next to Toronto’s Power Plant Gallery for contemporary art” National Post, July 31, 2012

Montreal

Of Art & Comedy. “Two years ago, Just For Laughs Group President Andy Nulman and his wife Lynn left Westmount and headed downtown. The couple now lives in an oh-so-gorgeous apartment located in Montreal’s chic Golden-Mile neighbourhood. The man knows, loves and makes art and I knew his home would be an ode to his passion.”  Montreal Gazette, July 30, 2012

Tacoma

Chihuly art on display in glassy Tacoma. Artist Dale Chihuly was born in this West Coast city, and often met tradesmen for a pint at the student pub, The Swiss,  while they were building a museum in his honor a decade ago. Chihuly liked the ambience, and convinced owner Jack McQuade to exhibit his renowned glass sculptures above the bar.  Toronto Star, August 2, 102

New York

$4M piece found "A multimillion-dollar Roy Lichtenstein painting that disappeared 42 years ago has popped up in a Manhattan warehouse - and its owner is trying to make sure it doesn't pull another vanishing act." The New York Post, August 1, 2012 (includes video)

Djenne-Djenne, Mali

Imperiled Legacy for African Art.  “Physical assaults on Djenne-Djenno may be, at least temporarily, in abeyance. But ethical battles surrounding the ownership of, and right to control and dispose of, art from the past rage on in Africa, as in other parts of the world.” The New York Times, August 2, 2012

Rome

Rome's Colosseum, Now Beginning To List, Will Finally Get Renovation "Long-delayed repairs to the 2,000-year-old Colosseum will begin in December in a project funded by Italian billionaire Diego Della Valle to save the crumbling monument." Agence France-Press, July 31, 2012

Crakow

Poland's long-lost Raphael found "Portrait of a Young Man, around 1513-1514, from the Czartoryski family collection in Krakow, was confiscated by the Nazis in 1939 for Hitler's Fuhrermuseum, Linz. It disappeared in 1945 shortly before the end of the Second World War." Polish authorities won't say where it was found, except that it is "in a region of the world where the law favours us." The Art Newspaper, August 1, 2012

Burgenland, Austria

Walter Pichler, an Artist Who Bucked the Status Quo, Dies at 75.  Walter Pichler, an architect who became a leading artist in Austria’s postwar avant-garde movement, eventually distancing himself from the art establishment by moving to a farm and creating works mainly to please himself, died on July 16 at his home in Burgenland, Austria. He was 75. The New York Times, July 28, 2012

Tehran

Iran is sitting on a modern-art goldmine The last Shah assembled a major collection - Cassatt and Degas and Magritte, Pollock and Lichtenstein and Warhol, even Picasso - and it all got stuck in a basement in the early days of the Islamic Republic. Three decades on, asks Jonathan Jones, why shouldn't this mother lode be gracing the walls of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art? The Guardian (UK), August 1, 2012