On Tuesday, Detroit-area voters cast their ballots in favor of a new property tax slated solely to fund the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). As of last night, the election results were undecided; the vote was split 50/50 and voter turnout was low, hovering around 10 percent. The final numbers submitted this morning, though, show that the “DIA tax” will pass.

Russian art collective and punk band Pussy Riot is this week’s target in Putin’s general, persistent crackdown on everything. Three of the collective’s ten members defended themselves against state charges of “hooliganism” when the case went on trial Monday, July 30th.

Six Years is a book of art-based lists that was compiled by curator and critic Lucy Lippard between 1966 and 1972. Now that book is being transformed into an exhibition, opening September 14th at the Brooklyn Museum’s Sackler Center. I caught up with Catherine Morris, one of the exhibition’s curators, about how the idea for the exhibition came about, what to expect, and the importance of launching historical surveys today. From description alone, this exhibition sounds like a breath of fresh air from the spectacle-driven exhibitions that have lately dotted the museum exhibition landscape.

Un-Scene II, curated by Elena Filipovic and Anne-Claire Schmitz, is the second installment of what is to be a triennial inquiry into the practices of Belgium-based artists. It is not, however, a show about Belgian artists. Half the artists are non-Belgian. Rather, the ambition is to investigate art-making at this particular moment in Belgium.

Since its inaugural show in 2009, Un-Scene’s curatorial approach has been characterized by its resistance to any impulse to define a Belgian “scene”. Because Belgium is composed of two primary language communities, attempts to define Belgian art are dismissed as “mischievous” by curators Devrim Bayar, Charles Gohy and Dirk Snauwaert in the catalogue for the first Un-Scene. Stereotypes such as “French-speaking artists [tend] toward sardonic humour and language games, whilst Flemish artists … tend toward melancholic descriptions and mystifications” are avoided by including artists actively working in Belgium, regardless of citizenship.

In a letter to trustees, MOCA’s executive committee announced it would steer its curatorial department in a new direction by hiring a chief curator to replace Paul Schimmel. According to the letter first published on Bloomberg, MOCA will form a search committee once “the necessary financial commitments [are] in place for a special curatorial fund to endow the position.” The change follows public outcry against MOCA’s prior decision to leave the chief curator position unfilled, thereby consolidating curatorial duties to Jeffrey Deitch, the museum’s director.

Like most press releases for painting shows, the latest from Mitchell-Innes & Nash has something to say about The State of Painting. While we’d assumed that realist painting is willfully ignorant of progress, it tells us, we now realize that painting is “just one of many ways to process an image.” Is it?

Celebrated critic, scholar, and cultural commentator Robert Hughes died on Monday aged 74, at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx after a long battle with illness.

This week, we crawled out of our blog cave to set out on a new adventure for our “We Went to _____” series: the Upper East Side. To be expected from the UES, we saw some blue chip art, but we also found some surprises, like a show by emerging net artists. What we liked, and what we should’ve skipped, within.

At the sold-out Alexander Ernst Voigt show at Cosar HMT in Düsseldorf, the insider buzz was not only about Voigt, the young Berlin-born painter who studied under Jörg Immendorff. “Poland is the new China,” a vernissage attendee whispered discreetly into the welcoming ears of collectors. Ever on the hunt for new, collectors were immediately hooked. Conversation about where to find hot artists began.

We’re excited about ARTyleria’s latest project: BATTLE AUGUST, at New York’s Postmasters Gallery. A curatorial venture by Paulina Bebecka and Robert von Leszczynski, BATTLE AUGUST showcases two battle-style performances that incorporate everything from image-rigged turntables, to dance battles supported by YAK films.