The Art News published its annual list of the Top 200 Collectors this week, featuring short profiles on the collectors on the list this year, including Roman Abramovich, Agnes Gund, Paul Allen, and Leonardo DiCaprio.   (more…)

John Waters is the subject of a profile in The Guardian this week, as the filmmaker-turned-artist prepares to open a show of his work in London, and discussing his aims towards his most recent body of work.  “I wanted to be the most despised person imaginable, like I was when I started.  I built a career out of it. I wasn’t hated by the people I wanted to like my work – I was hated by the people it was bait for,” he says.    (more…)

Damien Hirst is the subject of a lengthy profile in The Guardian this week, exploring his often overlooked role in curating and presenting the work of the YBA’s in their early years, and his soon to open London gallery.  “I’ve always wanted a gallery like Saatchi, the original Boundary Road,” he says. (more…)

The Art Newspaper profiles the work of Zlot Buell, the art consulting firm that has earned a reputation for discretely advising tech entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley wealth in the contemporary art market, and notes the commonly assumed myth that tech collectors are interested in digital art.  “They look at a screen all day long; they don’t need to look at another,” Ms Zlot says. (more…)

Artist Cao Fei is interviewed in the New York Times today, underlining her work in recent years, and her move to Beijing from Guangzhou in 2006.  “In the beginning I felt like I couldn’t connect to the city,” she says.  “A lot of artists from southern China have that feeling when they come here. Take, for example, my husband, who is a Singaporean artist. For him to come here, the whole history and context is different. It’s not that easy.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper reviews the Whitney’s soon to open, Renzo Piano-designed space in the Meatpacking District, reviewing its tripled floor space and focus on every aspect of the museum’s presentation.  “We conceptualized [the building] as a total work of art,” says Donna de Salvo, the museum’s chief curator.  (more…)

Artist Kehinde Wiley is profiled in the New York Times this week, discussing his early life in Los Angeles, and his responses to the outrage over police violence in Ferguson, MO.  “I know how young black men are seen,” the artist says in his Williamsburg studio. “They’re boys, scared little boys oftentimes. I was one of them. I was completely afraid of the Los Angeles Police Department.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles movie producer and collector Stefan Simchowitz, who has drawn sharp criticism from many market insiders for his approach to patronage and collecting emerging artists.  “I’m looking for the big fish,” Simchowitz tells the New York Times. (more…)

Painter Peter Doig is highlighted in the Wall Street Journal this week, as he opens a broad exhibition of works at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.  “I think you only have so many ideas that you think are good ideas,” Doig says. (more…)

The New Yorker released a lengthy profile on curator Hans Ulrich Obrist today, noting the Swiss co-director of The Serpentine’s countless projects and publications, and his deep passion for conversation with the artists he works with.  “For me, there is no difference between talking to him and talking to other artists,” says Philippe Parreno. “I am engaged at the same level.” (more…)

Mickalene Thomas is on Nowness this week, talking about her recent film profiling the life of her late moth, Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman.   “It allowed me to look at her not only as a subject—as my muse—but as a person. I really tried to understand her world, her own sexuality and femininity and beauty,” Thomas says. (more…)

The New York Times covers the impact philanthropist and MoMA Board President Emeritus Agnes Gund has had on the cultural landscape of New York City, and her ongoing commitment to arts patronage, including selling works in her collection to cover her charitable giving.  “I get income, but I don’t have a big swath of money to invest in things,” she says” “I’ve had to sell a lot of art, which I’ve hated to do because I really love the art I have.” (more…)

The New York Times highlights the challenges faced by a growing online auction market, including a relative unwillingness by collectors to exceed certain prices when bidding for work, and concerns about work authenticity and provenance.  “They feel comfortable up to about $10,000,” said Ben Hartley, a managing director at Auctionata, an online auction company. “Beyond that, people are still needing levels of trust. Online purchases are going to take time reaching the upper limits.” (more…)

The Hirshhorn’s new director, Melissa Chiu, is profiled in the New York Times this week, highlighting her aims at expanding the Hirshhorn’s international and experimental art offerings, and her efforts at placing the museum in the spotlight as a major patron of experimental works and forms.  “The whole art world ecology has changed,” says Ms. Chiu. “The art world has become truly transnational.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles the upcoming exhibition of Leonard Lauder’s Cubist collection (on view October 20th), a series of works collected over the years by the cosmetics tycoon who taught himself a great deal about the world of fine art as a child attending the Met.  “I didn’t discover Cubism then,” he said. “But just by looking, you learn what’s good.” (more…)

Grayson Perry is featured on the front cover of The Guardian Magazine this week, with a full interview that covers the artist’s defiant, shifting public personae, and the early responses of the art world to his pottery.  “Pottery was what sandal-wearing, windchime-lovers did,” he says.  “Art is sensitive to areas of visual culture that haven’t yet been colonized by the art world, and perhaps what they sensed back then was, here was an area that hadn’t been fully explored.” (more…)

Richard Tuttle is interviewed in the Financial Times this week, in advance of the artist’s new installation commission at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.  “There’s a whole body of my works which starts with the material and then moves to the other sides where the material doesn’t matter,” he writes. (more…)

Painter Chris Ofili is profiled in the New Yorker this week, in advance of the artist’s upcoming retrospective at the New Museum.  “Painting is a kind of pursuit, a hunt,” he says. “I think it’s more interesting when you can corral your subjects, instead of just going right to them. Enjoy and engage with the process—you want to keep going into the unknown, to the point where you don’t think about how long it’s going to take to get there.” (more…)

Maria Bukhtoyarova is the subject of a profile in the Wall Street Journal this week, as the young collector (just over 30), reviews her already impressive collection of works.  “I got interested in art in the late 2000s when I was working for L’Officiel magazine in Moscow,” she writes.  “In 2009, I went to Venice to visit the Biennale. It was an experience that brought me into the art world. I was fascinated by all the art around me and its power.” (more…)

Artist Yayoi Kusama is interviewed in The Telegraph this week, in the run-up to the artist’s show of new work at Victoria Miro next month.  In the article, the artist discusses her life between Japan and New York, and her reasons for moving to New York in the late 1950’s.  “Japan was a very feudalistic society and I felt I wanted to live more freely,” Kusama notes. “So I decided to go to America. I thought lots of people were making beautiful images in America… It was a very interesting society to me, especially the younger generation. Everyone seemed to try really hard to find their own way.” (more…)

Marlene Dumas is profiled in the New York Times this week as she prepares for a major career retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and reviews her ongoing investigations of history, painting and her take on her success as a female artist.  “It’s not that I don’t want to be known,” she says, but “I want the other women artists to do well, and then I’ll be pleased to do well.” (more…)

The Independent profiles Celia Paul, a painter who for years has lived in the shadow of her former lover Lucian Freud, and who has worked tirelessly in pursuit of her craft, including sending her young son to live with his grandmother so that she could continue her work.  “An artist has to be very selfish,” she says. “Being ruthless has been painful at times but my son is very close to me, and he has a very close relationship with his grandmother.” (more…)

The New York Times has published a profile on Jeff Koons, in the run-up to the artist’s landmark retrospective at the Whitney, particularly noting the difficulties that the artist’s monumental works are posing for the museum’s limited space.  “It’s the perfect storm of difficulties,” said Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s associate director of programs. “There are the sheer physical demands of the objects themselves, their high values and the fragile materials, to say nothing of the cliffhanger of waiting for works that have been in production for years.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles the work of the overlooked New York School painter Raymond Spillenger, who passed away last year at the age of 89, leaving behind a massive collection of paintings and drawings that speaks to the artist’s long and often unacknowledged career.  “Was it fear of failure?” says his son Clyde. “An unwillingness to be self-promoting? Some of the others had big personalities, but our father was quiet and diffident, not the type to compete.” (more…)