Joan Miró, Bird in the Night (1967), via Art Observed

Joan Miró’s impact on the landscape of twentieth century art can hardly be ignored, an artist whose fluid, lithe figurations and adventurous approach to both color and line helped to pave an alternative to the dense cubism of his fellow countryman and friend Pablo Picasso.  Taking a reflective look at the artist’s contributions and continued artistic growth during his late Nahmad Contemporary is currently presenting Oiseaux dans L’Espace, a minimal, yet stunning show that reflects an impressive curatorial vision towards the artist’s later works.   (more…)

Jeff Koons is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as the artist prepares to open his traveling retrospective at the Guggenheim Bilbao this month, and his views on critiques of his work as trophies for multi-millionaires.  “It happens to everybody – the work is held by someone who doesn’t even particularly enjoy the work, and just has it stored in some warehouse and will sit there for 20 years,” he says.  “Or someone doesn’t understand it physically, and their motivations are just to show that they have the power to purchase. There’s not much you can do; that’s about educating people, and the way you can educate them is through your art. And I try to educate people about materialism through my work. I try to show them real visual luxury.” (more…)

Paul Gauguin’s Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When will you Marry?) seems to have had its massive $300 million price tag confirmed by the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, which has currently taken the work on loan for a new exhibition.  “Nafea Faa Ipoipo was recently purchased by the Qatar Museums Authority from the Swiss collection of Rudolf Staechelin for more than $300m,” reads text released by the museum, further supporting its new place as the world’s most expensive piece of art. (more…)

The New York Times notes the city of Malaga’s recent push to become a new hotspot for art in Spain, as the city opens its arms to out of country spaces run by the Centre Pompidou and the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg.  “One of the cancers of Spain is that culture is seen as a public good that can’t somehow generate real revenues and be turned into a profit center,” said Salomón Castiel, the director of La Térmica, an arts center in the city. (more…)

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…)

A major ring of forgers focused on Old Masters works has been uncovered in Spain, with over 27 pieces priced to sell for over €1.2 million confiscated in the city of Castellón.  The works varied widely in quality, including a number of Goya etchings which were, in fact, photocopies of the artist’s work.   (more…)

The New York Times reports on the criminal case in Spain between the city of Barcelona and the daughters of wealthy industrialist Julio Muñoz Ramonet, who stand accused of stealing over 352 paintings and drawings, as well as tapestries and other works from the collector’s home when he donated them to the city.  “We’re talking about a quantity and a quality of missing works of art that could probably fill a first-class museum,” says Marc Molins, a criminal lawyer representing the city. (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…)

After five years of renovations, delays and even the replacement of former head Anne Baldassari, the Pablo Picasso Museum in Paris’s Marais District has reopened to strong reviews and even stronger attendance.  “There is a lot of fluidity,” says new director Laurent Le Bon. “One can move around much more easily than before, one has a freedom which goes well with the spirit and the works of Picasso.” (more…)

The Centre Pomidou has announced that it will be opening a temporary pop-up location next year in the Spanish city of Málaga, the home town of Pablo Picasso, and will bring a series of exhibitions of works from the Pompidou Collection to the city.  In turn, Málaga will pay a fee of €2.1 million, which offsets the deficit currently faced by the Pompidou for its 2014 operating budget.  “The current financial situation is pushing us to be creative in ways we did not have to be before,” said president Alain Seban. (more…)

With the busy summer season in full swing, popular European museums are examining new methods of crowd control in an effort to curb the ever-growing hustle and bustle that could cause damage to both visitors and the art itself. Some museums such as the Louvre and the Prado in Madrid have pursued softer methods like timed tickets and extended hours. Others such as the Vatican Museums and the Uffizi in Florence have taken a harder line. Within the next year the delicate frescoes of the Sistine Chapel will be protected by a crowd-limiting climate control system while the Uffizi has already established a cap of 980 visitors at a time. (more…)

Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz, the suspected accomplice in the fraudulent art sales made through Knoedler Gallery, has been apprehended in Southern Spain, the Wall Street Journal reports.  Bergantino is expected to appear before a judge this week, who will decide on a potential extradition to the U.S. (more…)

Amalia Ulman, Used & New (Installation View), via LTD Gallery

Used & New, the Argentinian-born Amalia Ulman’s current solo show at Los Angeles gallery LTD, explores the slippery relations between consumerism, gender and class. A participant in Hans Ulrich Obrist’s and Simon Castets’ 89plus initiative, the young artist has quickly become known for an art practice that, with a deceptive slightness, investigates the way in which objects are mobilized towards shaping and maintaining social status. By paying close attention to the aesthetic patterns of consumer stratification from the vantage point of economic lack, Ulman’s work proposes a way of looking at the impact that the design, contour and flow of cheap, globalized production have on the gendered construction of the self.

Amalia Ulman, Accepting Donations (Thank you) (2014), via LTD Gallery (more…)

A 1975 drawing by Joan Miró has been discovered in the offices of a Spanish art handling company.  The work disappeared in 2010, following an exhibition at the Kursaal Arts Centre in San Sebastián, but was not noticed missing until 2011.  An investigation into the disappearance of the work is underway. (more…)

Joan Miró, Sans titre, (n.d).,courtesy Fondation de l’Hermitage

On view at the Fondation de l’Hermitage are 80 seminal works from Joan Miró, on loan from the Foundation Pilar í Joan Miró in Palma, Majorca. The exhibition focuses on the last phase of Miró’s career, when he was able to work with the most freedom in his own workshop and laboratory in the midst of a natural environment.  What followed was a series of loose, spirited works that highlighted a poetic, highly graphic approach to his work that distilled the whimsical forms of his early pieces into a new aesthetic freedom.

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Belgian-born Carsten Höller has announced a major site-specific installation for his first major exhibition in Spain, at the soon-to-open, €62 million Botín Centre in Northern Spain.  Designed by Renzo Piano, the new museum will house the visual arts program of the Bótin Foundation, and Höller’s installation will seek to mirror its mission as “a laboratory to investigate how art influences emotion and creativity”. (more…)

Claes Oldenburg, Pastry Case (1961-62), via Guggenheum Bilbao

Guggenheim Bilbao is currently exhibiting work by legendary American pop artist Claes Oldenburg (born 1929), focusing on the sculpture, performance and installation artist’s early work from the 1960s.  Pulling from the conceptually dense and thematically broad practice of his formative years, this is the largest show of work ever exhibited from this period in Oldenburg’s life.

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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…)

‬Police in Spain arrested four people involved in the sale of a counterfeit copy of Picasso‘s “Buste de Jeune Garçon”, which would have potentially fetched up to $2 million.

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The expected £25 million sale of John Constable‘s “The Lock” elicits protest in Spain, revealing a deep family rift and sparking criticism against the owner of the piece, the Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza.

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