Marina Picasso is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as she prepares to sell off an extensive collection of her grandfather’s ceramics and paintings, a gesture she feels will help to heal a painful childhood. “Being Picasso’s granddaughter was very hard. I don’t snub the inheritance, not at all, I just want a lighter way to live and to be able to devote myself to my humanitarian work,” she says. “There is absolutely no hatred, no bitterness, no vengeance on my part.”  (more…)

The court case between relatives of Peggy Guggenheim and the Guggenheim Foundation has been decided in favor of the museum.  The ruling was issued in a Paris courtroom this week, giving the museum free reign to show art as it deems fitting at the collector’s Venice palazzo.  “The Foundation is proud to have faithfully carried out the wishes of Peggy Guggenheim for more than thirty years by preserving her collection intact in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, restoring and maintaining the Palazzo as a public museum and contributing to the knowledge of modern and contemporary art in Italy,” the Guggenheim said in a statement. (more…)

Björn and Dieter Roth, Selbstturm (1994-2013), via HangarBiocca

HangarBicocca, Milan’s 12,000 square meter former industrial space turned gallery, is the perfect place for Björn and Dieter Roth’s Islands exhibition. The huge interactive installation, curated by HangarBicocca’s Artistic Advisor Vicente Todolí (the former Director of the Tate Modern in London), interacts with the space beautifully, creating a unique environment defined by the artists. Visitors are drawn into the artwork as they walk through the several “islands” created by groupings of work: walls of paintings and prints, sculptures, an installation of repurposed materials, musical instruments, furniture, screens and household items that visitors are encouraged to interact with, including the 131 screens of Dieter Roth’s well-known video diary, the floors from the artists’ studio, and their sculptures: Zuckerturm (Sugar Tower), 1994-2013 and Selbstturm (Self Tower), 1994-2013. (more…)

The family of sculptor Alexander Calder have filed a complaint that Klaus G. Perls, the artist’s longtime dealer and friend, held onto tens of millions of dollars of the artist’s art after his death, and sold forgeries of the artist’s work.  The Perls family has asked that the claims be dismissed.  “It gives me no pleasure to talk about this,” said Calder’s grandson, Alexander S. C. Rower, but “there is just example after example after example after example of misdeeds.”   (more…)

The 2013 edition of Art Review’s annual Power 100 is out, documenting the most powerful players in the art world today, with Sheikha Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, the head of Qatar’s powerful Museum Authority, taking the number one position.  Al Thani has rocketed up the list in past years, especially after paying a reported $250 million for one of Cézanne’s The Card Players in 2012, and after considering her government’s rumored $1 billion budget for acquisitions.  The top spots on the list are rounded off by David Zwirner at #2, Iwan Wirth at #3, Larry Gagosian at #4, and Serpentine  co-directors Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones sharing the #5 spot.   (more…)

Tony Smith with Daughters, (1969), via Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein

In its current exhibition, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein remembers the work of sculptor Tony Smith (1912-1980), placing it alongside work from his daughters Kiki Smith (1954) and Seton Smith. The exhibition traces multiple generations of work by the smith family, beginning with Tony’s pioneering work in the 1960’s and 70’s, and will includes sculptural work, paintings, architecture, photography, and tapestries.

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