California

California man is charged with illegally importing an ancient mosaic, possibly from Syria

Indictment says the paperwork misrepresented the work’s quality and value

Compound, a space for art and wellness, to open in Long Beach, California

The inaugural programming includes displays of work by Glenn Kaino and Tavares Strachan and free yoga, meditation, and gardening classes

Los Angeles police recover $800,000 worth of stolen lithographs by Scottish artist Benjamin Creme

Missing since 2012, around 1,300 prints have been returned to their rightful owner, who used to sell Creme's works

Art storage demands flare as California fires rage

Calls for emergency art storage are putting pressure on art shipment and insurance firms

Goethe-Institut Los Angeles examines architecture and design amid housing crisis

A symposium bringing together architects and scholars from around the world takes place as homelessness surges in the state of California

Experts fear California's gig economy law may hit culture workers

Independent curators and handlers could be affected but no major changes predicted in museum recruitment practices

Oakland’s ‘museum of the people’ launches $85m capital campaign

Renovation aims to reflect the demographic diversity of the birthplace of the Black Panthers

Lawnews

Families express frustration over trial outcome in California's Ghost Ship fire

Acquittal for one man and deadlock on another on charges related to artists' compound shifts the focus to pending civil lawsuit

Main Museum’s mysterious closure serves as a cautionary tale about funding

Closure comes just weeks after three key staff members announced their departures

Action! Cinematic works abound at Frieze Los Angeles as galleries go all out for glamour

First LA edition of the British fair focuses on local artists and pieces that speak to a Hollywood crowd

Hits and misses at Palm Springs's second Desert X biennial

Some half-baked works mean this year’s event fails to live up to the promise of the first edition

Art and entertainment worlds cosy up at Frieze Los Angeles

Having for years viewed each other with suspicion, relations between agencies and galleries may start warming up

Artists’ homes and work destroyed in California wildfires

It was not just Malibu’s celebrities who lost their property in the Woolsey Fire that ravaged the beachside community

After a year-long journey in the California desert, Desert X's art rover Shybot is found

The missing and crowd averse work has been recovered in Palm Springs, a bit banged up but otherwise intact

Lawnews

Dalí foundation sues California museum for use of artist’s name and image

Monterey’s Dalí17, which displays the 500-work private collection of the Ukrainian-born real estate developer Dimitry Piterman, features the Surrealist’s face—complete with upturned moustache—on its logo

Lawnews

Appeals court largely strikes down California’s artist resale rights law

The decision limits the rule to a narrow one-year window of secondary market sales—but what does it mean for the future of droit de suite in the US?

Grants aim to find solutions to Bay Area artists’ housing crisis

Among the projects to receive $25,000 from the California College of Arts is an affordable live/work space for emerging artists and designers in Stockton

Bay Area commissions turn dismantled guns into art

The Robby Poblete Foundation, started by the mother of an aspiring artist and gun violence victim, aims to take guns off the street and draw attention to daily shootings in minority neighbourhoods

San Francisco promotes pro-immigrant projects

The programming series comes as Trump’s administration is fighting California over its "sanctuary state" laws

Marcia Hafif, California artist who found her calling in Italy, has died, aged 89

Like many other female artists of her generation, the painter and performer was overlooked by most of the art world until recently

Fury over artist’s plan to preserve prototypes of Trump’s border wall

Others, including the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, support Christoph Büchel’s proposal to turn the eight designs into national monuments

Politicscomment

Büchel’s feeble satire ignores the hateful reality of Trump’s wall

The petition to make the proposed border wall a National Landmark is one of the worst excesses of contemporary art and needs to be called out

Collectorsarchive

Californian collectors hit by tax rise

The rates for use tax and sales tax has increased to 7.5%

Californiaarchive

California and New Mexico murals go digital with the Getty

Painstakingly documented by Ernest Long, this archive may be all that is left of many

Armenian restitution claims grow

Getty case may be tip of the iceberg

California’s controversial restitution bill

Move to make it easier for claimants to recover looted art is dividing the state