A banner placed in an Oscar Murillo installation was forcibly removed by a museum security guard at the Centro Cultural Daoiz y Velarde in Madrid this week.  The sign, which Murillo had taken from protestors against the museum’s high price tag and public funding, was installed in a work playing on the intersection of aesthetics and protest, and was eventually placed back on view after the artist complained.  “This is a work in motion,” the artist said. “What I do depends on the things happening around me.” (more…)

Thieves in Madrid have broken into Puerta de Alcalá art gallery, stealing 70 paintings worth an estimated €600,000.  The thieves reportedly entered the gallery through a hole punched through the wall of an adjacent building.  “This has destroyed us. It’s left us in a really tough situation,” gallerist Pedro Márquez says. “Forty years of work and they just walked out with it.” (more…)

Las Meninas, the classic work by Diego Velázquez which hangs at the Prado Museum in Madrid, may in fact be a later version of the work, a Spanish art expert argues.  At a recent event at the Royal Academy of Art in Spain, Dr Matías Díaz Padrón maintained that a version hanging in Dorset, England may be an earlier version of the painting, overturning current opinion that the work was in fact a copy.  “Today, the moment has arrived to revise these judgments, and restore the painting’s authorship to Velázquez.” Díaz Padron said.
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The Art Basel festival has announced the gallery list for its 44th edition in Basel, Switzerland, welcoming 304 galleries from across the globe.  The festival will also feature several special exhibitions, including presentations by  Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City,  Parra & Romero in Madrid, and Take Ninagawa in Tokyo, alongside its usual lineup of talks, exhibitions, installations and special commissions. (more…)

With the Spanish economy in the throes of stagnancy, the annual ARCOMadrid Art Fair is looking abroad to ensure a productive year.  The fair has compensated 150 VIP guests to attend from the United States, Asia, and elsewhere in order to ensure a strong turnout this February.  “We’re very aware of the difficult moment the Spanish economy is in, so we’re trying to compensate with foreign buyers,” said ARCO director Carlos Urroz. (more…)

Vik Muniz, Pictures of Magazine 2 (Installation View), via Galeria Elba Benítez

Currently on view at Galeria Elba Benítez in Madrid, Pictures of Magazine 2 is a solo show for Brazilian artist Vik Muniz.  The works in this exhibition are created using Muniz’s unique collage process, combining magazine images to recreate the works of famous artists, all while incorporating his own artistic bent. He then takes photographs of his finished collages, enlarges them, and prints them to create the finished piece. (more…)

Anish Kapoor, Shadow IV. Yellow (2011), Courtesy Galería La Caja Negra

Over the past several decades, Indian artist Anish Kapoor has distinguished himself across a variety of media, including granite, limestone, glass and polished steel.  The artist has also, in recent years, expanded his oeuvre to include paper-based works, of which his current show, Shadows at Galería La Caja Negra in Madrid consists. (more…)

Five Points/Triangles by Alexander Calder, 1957
All images via Gagosian Gallery unless otherwise noted

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, New York is an exhibition of the large-format sculptures of Alexander Calder, produced between 1957 and 1970. The exhibition pays tribute to the late oeuvre of this renowned American sculptor, illuminating the period when Calder almost exclusively dedicated himself to sculpture of monumental proportions – the genre that brought him the international acclaim.

More text, images and related links after the jump…..
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