The New York Times looks at artist Spencer Finch’s special commission for the 9/11 Museum in New York, which opens this week to family of the disaster’s victims.  The memorial seeks to recreate the crystal clear blue the marked the sky on the date of the attacks on the United States.  “It was a risk, certainly, to do,” said Paula Grant Berry, lost her husband in the attack and serves on the Sept. 11 Memorial Foundation’s Board. “Even when we tested it, we never really knew what it was going to look like.” But she added: “I got to see it early and I became a real advocate. I think it’s extraordinary, and it’s so needed, and it brings in the light of day on so many levels and in so many dimensions.” (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced the cover lot for its fall auction of contemporary art in New York this November 13: a rare work from Andy Warhol’s Death and Disaster series featuring a gory car crash.  With the rest of the editions from this work already in museum collections, the auction house anticipates that the work could sell for $60 to $80 million.  “It’s the monumentality of the image that is so powerful,” said Tobias Meyer, director of Sotheby’s contemporary-art department worldwide. “It’s as if life and death come straight at you, especially the way Warhol juxtaposes the cascading images of mortality with the void of an empty right panel.” (more…)

Takashi Murakami is featured this week in a video interview with Nowness Magazine, discussing his recently opened shows in Los Angeles and Hong Kong, his film Jellyfish Eyes, and his attempts to make work in the aftermath of the earthquake and fallout from the Fukushima power plant disaster. “Those natural disasters birthed in me a desire to understand spirituality,” he says. “When I consider what art means to humanity, capitalism and the money game can longer be the main themes of my work.  As an artist, I can heal people.  Now, I feel art is just about healing.” (more…)

Embracing performance and creative theatrics, a group of protestors converged on the Tate Modern yesterday, protesting the ongoing sponsorship of the institution by petroleum giant BP.  Chanting snippets from the corporation’s court proceedings over the Deepwater Horizon spill (yesterday was the disaster’s three-year anniversary), the group sought to underscore the corporation’s ties to the art community. “It’s not only BP that’s on trial for the devastation it has caused to Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems, it’s also Tate and other cultural institutions that provide BP with the social legitimacy to continue operating with such destructive consequences,” said performer Paul Brady.  “We’re making a performance that brings the BP trial into Tate Modern because BP’s arts sponsorship cannot be separated from the irrevocable damage it does to communities and the climate.” (more…)

The Cuming Museum, located in South London, faced a major fire inside the building yesterday, threatening its collection of Roman London, Chinese and African artworks and artifacts.  120 firefighters and 20 engines were needed to stop the blaze inside the centuries-old building. (more…)

Fire at Pratt Institute, via Brooklyn News 12

A brutal, four-alarm fire broke out in the main building of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn on of the major arts schools in New York City, late last night, causing a partial collapse of the building’s roof, and massive damage to its structure and facade. (more…)