Veit Laurent Kurz at Weiss Falk, all images via Art Observed

Returning to its recently transplanted site in another hall of the Messe Basel, the Liste Art Fair makes its voice felt on the landscape and layout of Basel Art Week this season with another edition of its event showcasing works by a range of galleries presenting the latest and newest voices in contemporary art. Running in conjunction with the Art Basel fair just a few minutes away in another hall of the expansive exhibition center, Liste welcomes 82 galleries, each centering on younger artists, new concepts and exploratory work. For gallerists, participating at LISTE, the fair is an opportunity to network globally and present their program to professionals and art lovers that gather in Basel during this important week on the international art calendar.

Tomas Diaz Cedeño at Peana

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A recently unearthed Michelangelo sketch, considered to be the artist’s first nude, has sold  at Christie’s Paris for a record 23 million euros ($24 million). “Michelangelo has decided to make the figure into something that corresponded more to his aesthetic by making him much more robust and monumental, while at the same time keeping the fragility of the figure, who is exposed and shivering” as he awaits baptism,” says Christie’s Old Masters expert Stijn Alsteens. (more…)

The Jean-Michel Basquiat work from the collection of Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa had a strong return to auction last night at Phillips, where it achieved $85 Million, part of a total sale of  $224.9 million, the highest in the company’s history.  (more…)

The Independent Art Fair will launch a new fair in September this year that will focus on 20th Century Works. “Over the years, there has been a shift, with next-generation dealers showing a more diverse group of artists and territories, geographically, socially, politically,” says Independent director Elizabeth Dee. “They are looking forward and looking back, saying, ‘We need to have a canon that looks like our program.’” (more…)

The second leg of Sotheby’s sale of works from the collection of real estate magnate Harry Macklowe and his ex-wife Linda Macklowe has netted $246.1 million, bringing the total sale price for the collection to a record $922 million, with fees. “Either art is one of the few assets that seem to have a good immunological protection against recession, or inflation is much stronger than we think,” says specialist Loic Gouzer. “The art market feels very close to the spare parts market — good works are hard to find and very expensive.” (more…)

An Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 Million last night at a Christie’s charity auction, making it the most expensive American work of art to sell at auction. “We did sell the most expensive painting of the 20th century,” says Christie’s specialist Alex Rotter. “This is a big achievement.” (more…)

The artist Matthew Wong gets a profile in the New Yorker this week, reviewing his work and untimely death at the age of 35.  “Something in me was pushed by an urge to visually reproduce the uncalculated, almost accidental slice of poetry in front of me,” the article quotes him. (more…)

Cornelia Parker has an interview in The Guardian this week, discussing her work, vision, and thoughts on changing her citizenship to Germany. ” I’m thinking of applying for German citizenship because I’m half German. I don’t like feeling not part of Europe,” she says. “I don’t want to be a little Englander.” (more…)

Police are searching for a group of 5 people who stole a portfolio of photographs from Fergus McCafferty Gallery in Manhattan.  (more…)

The Art Gallery of Ontario has contracted Selldorf Architects, Diamond Schmitt and Two Row Architect to lead the design phase of AGO Global Contemporary, the museum’s proposed expansion project. “A project with global impact requires an international perspective, grounded in this land and this city,” says Director and CEO Stephan Jost.  (more…)

Japanese multimillionaire Yusaku Maezawa will sell the Basquiat piece he purchased six years ago for the estimated price of $70 million this May at Phillips. “I believe that art collections are something that should always continue to grow and evolve as the owner does,” he said in a statement.

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Russian artists Kirill Savchenkov and Alexandra Sukhareva will withdraw from the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year, leaving the national pavilion closed during the exhibition this year. “There is no place for art when civilians are dying under the fire of missiles, when citizens of Ukraine are hiding in shelters, when Russian protesters are getting silenced,” they wrote in a statement. (more…)

Sohrab Mohebbi will take over as director of SculptureCenter, where he previously served as curator. “We look forward to working with Sohrab to achieve a dynamic vision for SculptureCenter that we saw emerging in his curatorial work with our institution. He brings an energy, perspective, and deep understanding of global cultural movements from his extensive collegial relationships with artists and institutions worldwide. Mohebbi is uniquely qualified to lead us into an exciting new phase as we deliver on our mission to lead the conversation on contemporary art,” said SculptureCenter board chair Carol Bove. (more…)

A hotly anticipated program offering New York artists $1000 a month in guaranteed income has opened applications. “There are guaranteed income programs that have been launching across the country, many of them pilots to understand if this work has been working,” says Sarah Calderon, the executive director of the program Creatives Rebuild New York, which is driving the project. (more…)

The Hole has opened a new space in LA, just in time for Frieze, and will stage a “live” first installation this Tuesday, opening and hanging the works in the gallery during the scheduled opening reception of its first show. (more…)

A piece in the New York Times notes that a number of collectors who made millions in crypto and NFTs are now competing for traditional, physical artworks on the secondary market. “The art market is always looking for a new territory to expand into and the NFT world is like the perfect gateway drug,” says Natasha Degen, chairwoman of art market studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “Anyone involved in a market like NFTs that is so volatile and speculative would have an easy time transitioning to the art world where those same dynamics occur.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei has sparked outrage after posting a video likening vaccine mandates to authoritarianism. “For or against the vaccine should be individuals’ autonomous decision, made for themselves and according to their social interaction, so society does not have the right to make vaccine compulsory,” he says. “I had vaccines myself but I can completely identify myself with those who do not want to get vaccinated. If individuals are forced to be vaccinated through social pressure and public opinion, it will be a very dangerous social tendency.” (more…)

Tomás Saraceno gets a NYT profile this week, as he prepares to open a show of work at The Shed. “He’s not afraid of scale,” says close friend Olafur Eliasson told me. “Ten meters, 20 meters, 30 meters — it doesn’t matter. He could scale things up easily. The other thing was how to work together. As architects, there is a division of labor. As soon as you’re not good at something, you find someone who is and have him do it, asking when you don’t know how to solve it. An artist goes down into the hyperlocal. A great architect is able to take a helicopter view.” (more…)

Kimberly Drew has joined Pace Gallery as Associate Director. “I am thrilled by the opportunity to join Pace’s team,” she says. “Over the course of my career, I’ve always been driven by opportunities to work alongside artists and in support of bringing new audiences to the world of contemporary art. Pace is a space that is vast in its offerings and always adapting and innovating. I look forward to the many lessons I will learn during this next chapter.” (more…)

Damien Hirst has been accused of forgery by the English artist and writer Joe Machine, who claims the artist ripped off his own cherry blossom paintings. “I saw Hirst’s cherry blossom paintings and, for a moment, I thought I was looking at my own paintings,” Machine says. “I was doing my cherry blossom paintings years before his.”  (more…)

A piece in Vanity Fair reports on a recently uncovered ring centered around creating forged George Condo drawings.“George is a celebrated, world-famous artist, and it is unfortunate but unsurprising that an artist of his caliber would be the subject of attempts to benefit from his success in an illegitimate way,” says Cristopher Canizares, partner at Hauser & Wirth. (more…)

A study by the U.S. Treasury has ruled that further regulation around money laundering in the art world is not needed. “We have found that while certain aspects of the high-value art market are vulnerable to money laundering, it’s often the case that there are larger underlying issues at play, like the abuse of shell companies or the participation of complicit professionals, so we are tackling those first,” says senior overseeing official Scott Rembrandt. (more…)

Cecelia Alemani speaks with Art News this week, discussing her curatorial vision for the 2022 Venice Biennale. “I love the idea of overcoming the centrality of man and then becoming earth, becoming machine, becoming nature. These are certainly the leitmotifs of the show,” she says.  (more…)

Pace Gallery has merged with Kayne Griffin, and will open a flagship in Los Angeles. “Los Angeles has always been magnet for artists, and its position as a center for world-class contemporary art has been growing stronger,” says Pace president and chief executive Marc Glimcher. “For the past five years Maggie and Bill have been our de facto partners in LA. After some serious conversations, we decided to make that partnership official. Besides running our Los Angeles operation, Maggie and Bill will be an integral part of our global team as we continue to reimagine and reinvent Pace for the future.” (more…)