In an effort to raise $30 million for scholarly and educational programming, the Willem de Kooning Foundation is selling ten works by de Kooning from its collection.  Rather than selling at auction, the works will go on view at Gagosian Gallery this November, bypassing the often harsh public spotlight for a more subdued, conservative sale.  “It’s as much about presentation as it is about money,” says foundation board member John L. Eastman, who also served as de Kooning’s longtime lawyer, executor and conservator. (more…)

Acknowledging a recent petition that the Manifesta 10 Biennial boycott Russia in light of its recent anti-LGBT laws, the organization has responded, refusing to abandon the festival location, and emphasizing the festival’s role examining contemporary Russian society.  “We are conscious of the political climate and the significant conservative shift taking place in Russia, of which this issue is but one example. It is also helpful to know that the leading LGBT organizations in Russia do not support a boycott of the Olympics or other events. They know engagement is important.”  Said Viktor Misiano, Chair of the Manifesta Foundation. (more…)

Robert Therrien, no title (folding table and chairs, beige) (2006), Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. Sarah Norton Goodyear Fund, 2007. © 2006 Robert Therrien. Photograph by Tom Loonan.

Robert Therrien is represented by Gagosian Gallery.  He has shown in major exhibitions worldwide, and is in the collections of some of the most prestigious museums around the globe, among them the Centre Pompidou, LACMA, MoMA, and the Tate Modern. Yet his work is often noted for its absence from the mainstream body of post-war conceptual and pop art.

Robert Therrien, no title (table leg) (2010), Courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery. ©2010 Robert Therrien. Image courtesy of Robert Therrien studio. (more…)

Emphasizing the recent vote by Michigan’s Oakland County to withdraw support for the museum if any works were to be sold, DIA Director Graham W. J. Beal has stated in the September museum newsletter that “selling any art would be tantamount to closing the museum.”  Beal continues by questioning the valuation of the museum’s assets, particularly the Tintoretto ceiling painting in its lobby.  “You may have read in the Detroit Free Pressthat an expert valued the painting at $100 million. This came as a surprise to us as, a couple of years ago, for insurance purposes, a different expert assessed the painting at $2 to $3 million.”  He writes.
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Over 40 years, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel built up a collection of some of the most significant contemporary artworks of the post-war contemporary era, paid for on meager working class salaries as a postal worker and librarian.  By the time of Herbert’s death last year, the couple had amassed a collection well over 4,000 works, half of which they set about donating to 50 institutions in each of the fifty states.  A new film by director Megumi Sasaki, titled Herb and Dorothy 50×50, will be released soon, the second film to focus on the story of the couple’s love for art, and the process of donation to museums across the country. (more…)

The LA Times traces the path of 8 Cézanne canvases originally intended for donation to the White House, and the political maneuverings that eventually sent the majority of them to the National Gallery. Through a series of closed door meetings and forceful persuasion, then chief curator John Walker III convinced the donors (who had previously intended to give the works to the White House), to instead donate them to his museum.  “I still feel ashamed,” Walker once wrote. “I behaved abominably and frightened a dear friend nearly to death.”   (more…)

An investigation into the death of David Hockney’s studio assistant, Dominic Elliott, has revealed that the young artist died as the result of drinking acid.  Elliott, whose autopsy revealed the presence of several drugs in his system, had been drinking with Hockney’s former partner, John Fitzherbert.  “I cannot comment on any of the lifestyle habits he has,” Mr Hockney said in a statement. (more…)

Gianfranco Gorgoni, Francesco Clemente and detail of General Animal (1984), Courtesy Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich

The work of Italian contemporary artist Francesco Clemente is as diverse in style and influence as the life of its creator.  Transcending traditional borders of culture, artistic movements, intellectual spheres and even medium, Clemente has developed a sense of decentered lexicality; his work standing as a testament to the synthesis of his personal travels and influences – among them, the artists he met and collaborated with in New York City in the 1980s. Portraits of the 1980s, currently on display in the Thomas Ammann Fine Art Gallery in Zurich until September 27, chronicles this engagement with New York’s intellectual and social community through a series of portraits, speaking to the friendships which both redefined Clemente’s own style and thrust him into the limelight of the international art scene. (more…)

The newest issue of Garage Magazine is featuring a diptych cover, created in a collaboration between fashion photographers Inez and Vinoodh, and artist John Baldessari.  Photographing supermodel Adriana Lima, Inez and Vinoodh then turned the image over to Baldessari, who abstracted the image in his signature color overlays.  The issue also features an interview with Baldessari, whose solo show at the Garage Center in Moscow opens this fall. (more…)

The rural home of Pablo Picasso in Mougins, France, where the artist spent the last 12 years of his life, is up for sale, with a momentous asking price of $220 million.  Originally purchased for $13 to $16 million by a Belgian art dealer, the asking price stands at well over 8 times its previous sale price. (more…)

Following the news that a painting sold as a Caravaggio copy may have in fact created by the artist, Sotheby’s is facing a lawsuit from the past owner.  William Glossop Thwaytes is suing the auction house, maintaining that he believed the work authentic, while auction experts sold it as a copy, reportedly lowering the price considerably.  The work was ultimately purchased by the late scholar and collector Denis Mahon, who immediately declared the piece an original valued at £10 million, after a sale price of £42,000.  “Caravaggio is a particularly difficult artist,” Charles Beddington, a former head of Christie’s International Old Masters division. “The quality of his execution is variable, and so he’s easy to copy.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on the burgeoning contemporary gallery scene, and the numerous large-scale shows foregoing museum exhibitions in favor of names like Gagosian, Zwirner and Hauser and Wirth, many of which are opening museum-sized spaces of their open.  However, these new spaces aren’t only about space to exhibit.  “The mega spaces project what they need to—a level of power and gravitas.”  Says collector Dennis Scholl. (more…)

Carol Bove, Monel (2013), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

There’s a certain intangible spiritualism to the work of Carol Bove, located somewhere between the phenomenological minimalism of Donald Judd, and a more abstract, natural focus on the intersections of urban and rural ecologies.  Divine symbolism intersects with locational meditations, found objects with architectural forms, and rigid industrial materials with looping, whimsical forms.  Fitting then, that the artist would present a pair of shows, both including seven new works, one at the Museum of Modern Art, and one at The Highline Railyards, where construction is currently underway to convert the last untrammeled part of the elevated railway into park space.  Both created specially for their respective spaces of exhibition, the pair of exhibitions currently on view feel like two parts of a potent whole.

Carol Bove, Equinox (Installation View), via Museum of Modern Art (more…)

The New York Times reports on the arrival of Ona, a new sculpture by Polish artist Ursula von Rydingsvard at the Barclays Center.  Installed Thursday night, the 12,000 pound bronze work consists of over 100 parts which were welded together shortly before the work’s final placement.  “You don’t have to pay a fee or enter a museum, and no guard will tell you not to touch it,’ the artist said of the sculpture. “I would actually love people to touch it. The acid from fingers polishes it, like the Buddhas getting their bellies rubbed.” (more…)

The burial site of Russian avant-garde painter Kazimir Malevich has been covered in concrete, paved over by a real estate company in the process of building a new luxury housing development.  The site, outside of Moscow, was the focus of commemoration plans, before the government made a sudden turnaround.  “Developers have already talked to the bureaucrats who are making the decisions,” said Malevich enthusiast Aleksander Matveev. “They’ve already put concrete blocks on the site of the grave.” (more…)

A recent exhibition of work featuring a portrait of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wearing women’s underwear has been shut down by state authorities in St.Petersburg this week, with the offending artist fleeing the country for asylum in France.  “We are powerless facing the despotism of authorities,” says Tatiana Titova, director of the Museum of Power, where the exhibition was held. “The museum was closed for no reason.”  (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on Museum Hack, an effort by founder Mark Rosen to breathe new life into the guided museum tour.  For $39, guests are treated to a two-hour tour through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, focusing on more unconventional works and infrequently discussed histories of some of the museum’s more interesting pieces.  “You typically don’t go to a fancy restaurant, study the menu for three seconds, order everything, gorge yourself and roll out the door,” Mr. Rosen said to his Sunday-morning charges. “Yet almost everybody comes here, tries to see everything in four hours or less, Instagrams the hell out of the place and leaves, remembering nothing.”  (more…)

Peter Coffin, Untitled (Dog), 2012. Courtesy Hirshhorn Museum.

Now through October 6, the work of Peter Coffin is on view throughout the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. Here and There presents this collection of work through an installation that demands the viewer engage in the play of a hunt, or the happenstance of casual encounter.  Photography, sculpture, video installation and lithography are a few of Coffin’s mediums  scattered through both the museum and its online site.  A checklist that serves as a guide to the exhibition can be found on the museum’s website.

Peter Coffin, Untitled (Design for Colby Poster Company) (2008),  Courtesy Hirshhorn Museum. (more…)

New York Magazine has published an exclusive interview with Ann Freedman, the president of the now shuttered Knoedler and Company, who has been exonerated of any criminal involvement in the fraudulent sale of 63 forged artworks through the gallery.  “The story was credible,” she says, speaking on Glafira Rosales’s mysterious seller, “Mr. X,” a fabrication she used to justify the sudden appearance of the works. “Dealers often do not know the specifics of origin or background, or how the art left the artist’s studio. You cannot turn the pages of an auction catalogue or museum publication without seeing a majority of the works labeled ‘private collection.’ The chain of ownership is often out of order and incomplete.” (more…)

Artist Bassim al-Shaker, who was included as part of the Iraqi Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, is profiled in the New York Times this week, detailing the artist’s story of oppression at the hands of Mahdi Army loyalists, and his life in Arizona, where he is currently working on a business visa to avoid several fundamentalists who nearly killed him earlier this year.  “He’s obviously very talented,” Says Rijn Sahakian an Iraqi expat representing the country’s artists abroad, “but we were also focused on saving his life.” (more…)

The Queens Museum will reopen this fall, following a $137 million renovation that doubled the space’s square footage to 105,000.  Now, the challenge will fall to the museum’s administration to generate interest, luring art lovers out to Flushing Meadows.  “It’s easy to have a wedding,” says director Tom Finkelpearl. “It’s harder to have a good marriage. It’s about sustaining the excitement.” (more…)

Art advisor Lisa Jacobs has been accused of deceiving a wealthy client, skimming $1 million off the top of the sale of Jean-Michel Basquiat‘s Future Science Versus Man, from the collection of the late collector Hannelore Schulhof.  The suit, filed by Schulhof’s son, Michael, seeks the return of the $1 million deficit, as well as punitive damages. (more…)

Despite a vocal commitment to the return of Nazi-looted works to the proper owners by French culture minister Aurélie Filippetti, the French government has taken few steps towards a faster, more efficacious practices towards stolen works.  While over half of the over 100,000 works stolen from the country during the war have been recovered, a low percentage of works have found their way back to their original owners, which Filippetti blames on “the deaths of the victims and their direct descendants, and not because of a lack of will on the part of museums.” (more…)

Haroon Mirza, Frame for a Painting (2013), Courtesy Museum of Modern Art

As is to be expected, MoMA’s first survey into the field of sound art starts with a certain degree of theatricality: 1,500 individually micro-tuned speakers sit on the wall on the way into the exhibition space, filling the space with a sharp white hiss.  Shifting slightly with each change of position, Tristan Perich’s Microtonal Wall welcomes a lingering meditation, as viewers pace back and forth, moving their heads up and down close to the speakers or far away, the variance in intensity opening the space around it to any number of perceptual opportunities.

Richard Garet, Before Me, (2012), Courtesy the artist and Julian Navarro Projects, New York (more…)