The Art Newspaper spotlights new measures and methods artists, art dealers and curators are exploring to survive in the current art market, from temporary shows and pop-up exhibitions to selling work directly online, bypassing gallery models entirely. “There’s a sense of things being cyclical,” says curator Holly Willats. “Despite the overwhelming difficulties, artists are finding new initiatives to continue to make and exhibit their work.” (more…)

Former Tate head Nicholas Serota has gone on record calling for the protection of artists during and after Brexit negotiations, claiming that their right to travel and move in and out of the country is essential to the British nation. “We owe much of how we see ourselves – especially our romantic side – to the perspective of incomers,” Serota says. “Where would the visual arts in this country be without the contribution made by artists like Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud in one generation, Chris Ofili, Mona Hatoum or John Akomfrah in another?” (more…)

The Met has set a new attendance record this year, counting 7 million visitors over the last 12 months, a boost in visitors created by the addition of the Met Breuer to the museum’s exhibition program. “The Met is thrilled to see our visitors responding so enthusiastically to our collection, exhibitions, and programs” said Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO of The Met. “We’re honored that so many people decided to spend their time with us this year.”  (more…)

The Shed, the soon-to-open New York City arts center headed by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Alex Poots, has appointed Emma Enderby as one of its curators. Enderby formerly worked as an associate curator at New York’s Public Art Fund. “Emma’s experience in contemporary visual art and across other artistic disciplines is impressive and wide-ranging. Her work in New York and internationally reflects the Shed’s commitment to creating a local and global program,” Poots said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to begin working with her.” (more…)

Artist Arthur Jafa has been tapped to direct the most recent video for rapper JAY-Z, whose new album 4:44 was released this month.  The video is only available for subscribers to Tidal, the artist’s music-streaming service, but a short preview of the eight minute-long video is available on his artist page. (more…)

Ai Weiwei has publicly called for the release of dissident activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who is currently in the custody of the Chinese government, and who is suffering from liver cancer. “I think the government should release him. This is a historic mistake,” he said. “The government should just release him and have a better record – because this is going to be remembered by the whole world … what they are doing.” (more…)

Artist Martine Syms is the subject of a profile in the New Yorker this week, as the artist closes her first exhibition at MoMA this month. “I wanted to give the museum a social life,” Syms says. “Ideally, you’ll hear it from the hallway.” She gestured to the emptiness of the atrium outside of the gallery. “I wanted to enlarge it all, to make it obnoxious.” (more…)

The landscape of Armory Week is changing in 2018, with the ADAA Art Show holding its dates to February, while the Armory Show and NADA will open a week later in the second week of March. “After the ADAA and our partners at Henry Street Settlement confirmed the dates for the rental of the Park Avenue Armory for the 2018 fair, the Armory Show informed us that their leadership had decided to push the fair back a week for the first time in many years,” says ADAA president Adam Sheffer. (more…)

The Dia Foundation is expanding its collection of Asian art from the 1960s and 1970s, adding works by Kishio Suga and Lee Ufan to its collection. “Since arriving at Dia, I have had a strong desire to deepen the institution’s commitment to reflect a greater understanding of the seminal work that was being made internationally during the period that Dia has championed,” says director Jessica Morgan. “The addition of Lee Ufan and Kishio Suga to Dia’s collection was a natural progression for our foundation. Both artists were contributing to parallel conversations around Minimalism and post-Minimalism in the 1960s and 1970s, and are still developing their resonant and influential practices today.” (more…)

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a lawsuit by the Cassirer family, pushing Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum to return a Camille Pissarro work believed to be Nazi loot. “The Cassirers have created a triable issue of fact whether (the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection) knew the painting was stolen from Lilly (Cassirer) when TBC purchased the painting,” Circuit Judge Carlos Bea wrote. “There is a triable issue of fact as to the Baron’s good faith.” (more…)

Artist Conrad Shawcross is profiled in Bloomberg this month, as the artist explores new modes of funding his projects. “It really became about how to get things made,” he says of his work. “It’s about how to get people to be enthused about helping.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper takes a closer look at the work of Ukrainian artist Oksana Zhnikrup, who created a trove of statuettes for mass production in Russia, and whose work serves as the bedrock for Jeff Koons’s recent Seated Ballerina pieces.  Koons bought the rights to Zhnikrup’s family in 2006, says Elena Korus, a Ukranian art historian. “Of course they weren’t against it” she continues. “There was no longer any factory and this art had been forgotten.” (more…)

Art dealer Glafira Rosales, one of the central figures in the Knoedler Gallery fraud case, has been ordered by a NYC court to pay $81 million to the victims of the fraud. “Glafira has taken responsibility for her role in the situation and regrets any harm that people have suffered,” her attorney, Bryan C. Skarlatos said. (more…)

Ousted Met director Thomas P. Campbell is interviewed in Art Newspaper this  week, and offers his take on a range of issues, including the museum’s currently postponed expansion project. “We can’t go out into the marketplace to buy works of art that are $50m, $60m or $70m apiece,” he says. “What we can do, and what the Met has always done, is build beautiful galleries so that donors and collectors will see us as a worthy destination.” (more…)

The Art Dealers Association of America has added four new members, including Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York.  “We are delighted and proud to welcome these four renowned galleries as new members of the ADAA,” the organization said in a statement. “Through the wide range of artists and estates with which they collaborate, their diverse specialties, and vital contributions to art historical scholarship, each of these galleries will make important additions to our association. These four galleries advance the unique expertise and best practices that the ADAA represents and upholds.” (more…)

Leo Fitzpatrick is profiled in Vogue this week, as he opens a show he curated at Marlborough Contemporary in Chelsea. “I didn’t go to art school; I didn’t even go to high school. For me, everything was discovery,” he says. “When I was growing up, it was very intimidating to go to a gallery. I didn’t like that. I thought art should be for everybody, including kids who come to the gallery to steal a beer. Maybe they’ll see something.” (more…)

Artist Maria Balshaw is profiled in The Guardian this week, as she steps into her position at the head of the Tate, and lays out her vision for the museum moving forward. “It’s not about taking positions left or right politically, but about holding a space where things that are at issue in our world can be explored, because that’s what artists do,” she says. (more…)

Chinese artist Jia Aili is now represented worldwide by Gagosian Gallery, Art News reports. “Having followed Jia’s artistic journey thus far, we are very pleased to establish a working relationship with him, and we look forward to his first exhibition with the gallery,” Larry Gagosian said in a statement. (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports on the current blockage of Qatar, and its impact on the nation’s arts scene.  “Doha is now completely isolated. Doha now needs to take serious steps very rapidly to placate not only its neighbors but also its allies around the world,” says Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi, the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation. (more…)

Artist Grayson Perry is interviewed in the New York Times this week, as the artist elaborates on his recent exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries in London.  “I make the work I like,” he says. “But a nice spinoff benefit of that is that I bring a kind of audience that isn’t necessarily solely into difficult, conceptualized 21st-century art. Formally, my work is very conservative.” (more…)

Frieze New York is reportedly lowering the prices on its booths in the Frame section, which spotlights young galleries established in or after 2010.  The fair also announced that it has added Andrew Bonacina, chief curator of the Hepworth Wakefield, as one of its co-curators for the event.  (more…)

The Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire, UK has won the 2017 Art Fund Museum of the Year award for its dynamic programming and leadership.  “The Hepworth Wakefield was a powerful force of energy from the moment it opened in 2011, but it has just kept growing in reach and impact ever since,” says Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar.   (more…)

London Mayor Sadiq Khan spoke out against continued cuts to the city’s arts funding this week, claiming that funding to the nation’s capital benefits the whole country. “The arts in London impacts arts across the country,” he says. “It’s not a zero-sum game. I’m not saying we deserve a bigger slice of the cake for the sake of it. I’m saying that actually, if the arts in London does well, the whole country benefits.” (more…)

Artist Olu Oguibe has received the Arnold Bode Prize, the highest award for work in this year’s edition of Documenta. “For almost four decades Olu Oguibe has been working as a conceptual artist and thinker with an interest in wide-ranging themes, including social and formal issues,” the City of Kassel said in a statement. “Although the Igbo system of thought and existential principles play a critical role in Oguibe’s creative endeavors—dictating his approach to conceptualism, abstraction, and the form of the art object—the vital force behind his art is his experiences as a child in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s.” (more…)