— MOCA Cancels Schimmel's Richard Hamilton Retro: Los Angeles's embattled Museum of Contemporary Art has canceled its presentation of a planned Richard Hamilton retrospective being curated by its last chief curator Paul Schimmel and former Tate Modern director Vicente Todoli. Though Schimmel will continue to work on the exhibition of the late British pop artist's work, which will open at the Tate in spring 2014, its itinerary is now uncertain — it will likely still travel to Madrid's Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, but its presentation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is unclear. [TAN]

— Cologne Launches Classy New Contemporary Art School: The new Akademie der Künste der Welt in Cologne aims to make the German city — already at the forefront of the contemporary art market with its many fairs — a destination for artists, with its ambitious program to have 40 internationally renowned artists teaching there, a year-long artist in residence program, and project-based exhibitions. Its boardmembers already include Israeli curator Galit Eilat and German artist Rosemarie Trockel. [TAZ]

— Beijing Freeport Challenges Hong Kong: Though Hong Kong has emerged as the focal point of Asia's art market, the enormous new Beijing Freeport of Culture — a tax-free state-of-the-art storage facility alongside Beijing Capital International Airport — is scheduled to be finished next year, and aims to draw collectors, dealers, and auction houses to the Chinese capital. The 893,000-square-meter complex is a collaboration between state-owned Beijing Gehua Cultural Development Group and the Swiss company behind Singapore's freeport, Euroasia. "There is a huge domestic market in China," said Singapore Freeport chairman Tony Reynard, "but the freeport in Beijing will also be important for the international market as import tax will be greatly reduced or even scrapped at the facility." [TAN]

— Chamberlain Doc Has Hamptons Premiere: The documentary "HEAARTBEAT" (see the promo below), about late car carcass sculptor John Chamberlain, will have its premiere tonight at Art Southampton, the new art fair not far from his longtime studio on Shelter Island. The film, which also screens at the fair Friday night, was begun by the artist's stepdaughter Alexandra Fairweather before his death last year, and focuses on his private life rather than his work. [Art Southampton]

— D.C. Non-Profit is Nation's Biggest Exhibition Presenter: In an alley behind Washington, D.C.'s Phillips Collection, a converted carriage house serves as the headquarters of International Arts & Artists, a small non-profit that at any given time has between 15 and 20 exhibitions on view around the world — currently including "Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami" at the Japanese American National Museum and "Lois Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color" at the Polk Museum of Art — and another 30 in the pipeline. "We are now the producer of the largest number of fine arts and decorative arts exhibitions in the U.S.,” says IA&A president David Furchgott. "We pride ourselves that we produce exhibitions that can go to museums of any scale." [WaPo]

— Walker Art Center Nets Major Mellon Grants: Minneapolis's Walker Art Center has received three grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation whose total value is more than $1 million, and which the museum will dedicate to its performing arts programming — including more than 20 new dance projects — and curatorial travel. Part of the funds will go to researching and caring for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company collection of over 2,000 objects, which the museum acquired from the late choreographer's estate in 2011. [PioneerPress]

— Close Preps Friend-Filled Pace Show: With his first solo show at New York's Pace Gallery in three years coming up in October, Chuck Close is hard at work on his latest series of photorealist portraits, which include vivid likenesses of fellow art stars including Laurie Anderson, Cindy Sherman, and Kara Walker. "I always wanted to make paintings of ordinary, undistinguished people," he said. "It's not my fault they became famous." [Village Voice]

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