Tacita Dean, c/o Jolyon, 2012-2013 (detail), courtesy Frith Street Gallery

The current exhibition on view at Frith Street Gallery in London features Tacita Dean’s 2012-2013 projects, JG  (a 26.5 minute film shot on 35mm anamorphic film) and c/o Jolyon, a series of 100 original postcards of pre-war Kassel in Germany, overpainted with contemporary scenes from the same place.

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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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As auction houses clamor to enter the Chinese art market, a number of independent auction houses have already sprung up in Hong Kong.  Focusing on narrow, more focused thematic sales, companies like Spink Phila China, China Guardian and Bonhams have sought to capture a larger size of the already thriving market for art and antiques.  “Once I was in London visiting Sotheby’s, and I was told they are jealous of China Guardian since some of their international markets are narrowing while our market is expanding,” said Kou Qin, director and vice president of China Guardian. “China’s economy is booming while other countries have been depressed over many years.” (more…)

A collaboration between Robert Motherwell’s The Dedalaus Foundation, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Jamestown Charitable Foundation has resulted in Come Together, a selling exhibition benefitting artists and New York residents affected by Hurricane Sandy last year.  Including works by Alex Katz, Mark di Suvero and the Bruce High Quality Foundation, the show opens on October 20th.  “Hurricane Sandy affected the art community more directly than 9/11,” says Phong Bui, an artist and the publisher of the Brooklyn Rail, who is organising the show. (more…)

The Enchanted Pose, a Magritte painting long thought to have been lost or destroyed, has been discovered in segments below the surfaces of two other Magritte works.  Using X-Ray imaging, researchers discovered the painting while working on the Museum of Modern Art’s current exhibition The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938, focusing on the artist’s work.  “It’s very exciting. Here is this Magritte that’s been believed to be missing, that was clearly a large and important work for him at one point in time.”  says MoMA curator Anne Umland. (more…)

Experts have identified a work found in a private Swiss collection to be a portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, which has been considered lost for over 500 years. The portrait, depicting noblewoman Isabella D’Este, is believed to have been painted by Da Vinci and several of his assistants.  “There are no doubts that the portrait is Leonardo’s work,” said Carlo Pedretti, an emeritus professor of art history at the University of California. (more…)

Following the open letter written to Sotheby’s by Daniel Loeb, the auction house has responded to its shareholders, detailing a “poison pill” strategy to ward off any attempts at a hostile takeover of the company.  The plan, which initiates a dividend offer for any share of outstanding stock, is triggered if any shareholder takes over 10% of the company’s stock. “The board had to respond to the attack and it is unsurprising they took this type of stance. But observers will be much more concerned after the events of this week. They are not out of the woods yet,” said Michael Plummer, a principal at ArtVest Partners. (more…)

A New York man is claiming that a Basquiat drawing sold recently at auction was stolen from him in 2000.  Francesco Pellizzi is claiming that he had not seen the work since it was stolen from a drawer in his apartment, until this year, when he saw the work in a Christie’s auction.  The work was sold by dealer Jennifer Vorbach and lawyer David Ruttenberg, who had purchased the work after researching the work’s history.  “It changed hands a number of times, but Vorbach and Ruttenberg are not able to trace it back to anyone who obtained it from Mr. Pellizzi,” Lawyer Peter Stern said. (more…)

Robert Indiana, Red Gold Alphabet, (2011), via Woodward Gallery

On view at Woodward Gallery in New York is American pop artist Robert Indiana’s most recent series on paper and canvas entitled “A – Z,” serving as a fitting accompaniment to the artist’s current show at The Whitney Museum.  Born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana in 1928, Robert Indiana is best known for his iconic LOVE series. He has also created similar works in the same style with short words such as EAT, HUG, and more recently, HOPE, from which all proceeds were donated to Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. (more…)

Eva Rothschild, Narcissus (Installation View), via Galerie Eva Presenhuber

Currently on view at Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, is a comprehensive solo exhibition of work by Eva Rothschild, her third exhibition at the gallery.  Entitled Narcissus, the show features a body of experimental sculptures, combining freestanding and wall-mounted forms, Rothschild appears to be formulating a new vocabulary of sculptural shapes. While similarities can be seen between Rothchild’s site-specific series Sightings at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas in 2012, the works currently on view delve deeper into the possibilities of shape and media. In the works, Rothschild employs the use of wood, leather and other woven textiles to incorporate complex details into the larger more bold forms.

Eva Rothschild, Narcissus (Installation View), via Galerie Eva Presenhuber

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A Chicago gallery owner has been sentenced to a 6 month prison sentence, with an additional 6 months of home confinement for the sale of fake artworks.  Alan Kass, 76, was also ordered to pay his buyers restitutions of up to $350,000.  “I misled people who, like me, enjoyed art,” Kass said in his court statement. “I disappointed my customers who put their trust in my knowledge. For this I am sincerely sorry.” (more…)

Following pressure from both Michigan art-lovers and the broader art world, an ArtPrize installation has been removed from the surface of Alexander Calder’s La Grande Vitesse.  Fleurs et Riviere, a magnetic work by David Dodde, had been attached to the surface of the sculpture, in an attempt to add “whimsy,” but instead received harsh criticism from the Alexander Calder Foundation in New York.  “The Calder Foundation wasn’t pleased, and the relationship with the foundation is important to us, so it’s a lesson learned,” said Grand Rapids city manager Greg Sundstrom. (more…)

The New York Times profiles artist Omer Fast during the final stages of the artist’s newest video project, set to premiere in two weeks at Frieze Art Fair in London.  Examining the impact of pornography on the psyche, Fast’s work will be included in the Arratia, Beer booth.  “I can show it as nasty as it gets, or I can pull back,” Fast says. “It would be totally hypocritical to clean it up.” (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…)

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York has received another $5 million allocation from the city to add to its fundraising target of $79 million for new renovations.  The project will expand the building and its surrounding gardens.  “The renovation will make design accessible to museumgoers with expanded gallery space, the restoration and preservation of historic rooms, innovative landscape design,” says cultural affairs commissioner Kate D. Levin. (more…)

Chris Burden, Shoot, (1971), Performance at F Space, Santa Ana, California November 19, 1971

The New Museum’s Extreme Measures, a career retrospective of the work of Chris Burden, begins modestly: an orange flatbed truck sits in the museum’s ground floor exhibition space, holding a 1 ton block of steel on its mounted crane.  Silent and imposing , the work hints at Burden’s preoccupation with scale and weight, his focus on material scale and industrial affect.

Chris Burden, Ghost Ship (2005), Courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery (more…)

The sense of alarm surrounding the Detroit Institute of Arts is taking its toll on the museum, the New York Times reports.  Concerned about the future of the museum’s collection, some wealthy patrons are less likely to donate works to the institution, and museum staff are dealing with consistently low morale.  “We can take the threat. It’s the uncertainty we can’t stand. It’s the uncertainty that is clouding everything we do.”  Says Director Graham W.J. Beal. (more…)

A new project aimed at British schools is bringing major art works to the classroom.  Masterpieces in Schools, as it is called, will lend a series of masterworks to schools across Great Britain, in an attempt to attract children who would not normally attend a gallery or museum exhibition.  The project began this week, when a classic Monet landscape was sent to a school in Northern England.  “We hope all the children will be left with the lasting memory of the day a Monet, Turner or Gainsborough came to their school,” says Andrew Ellis, director of the Public Catalogue Foundation. (more…)

Street artist Banksy has announced a monthlong exhibition on the streets of New York City, beginning this week.  In a message posted on the artist’s website, Banksy revealed that his show Better Out Than In, would be spread across the city, with each work accompanied by a toll free phone number viewers can call to hear witty descriptions of the work.  The first piece has already appeared at 18 Allen Street downtown.  “Hello, and welcome to Lower Manhattan,” the recorded message says. “Before you, you will see a ‘spray art’ by the artist Ban-sky (sp). Or maybe not; it’s probably been painted over by now.” (more…)

A Tale of Two Cities, one of the most impressive works on view at Chris Burden’s current New Museum retrospective, was almost destroyed by the artist before the show.  Fearing the requirements of rehabilitating the long unexhibited piece, Burden had planned to destroy the piece as a last conceptual gesture, but museum authorities stepped in to convince him to try saving the work with a small restored section of the original piece.  “Once he saw the first mock-up, it was like a problem had been solved, and he was on to asking about specific toys,” says Donna Williams, the curator of the Orange County Museum (which owns the work). (more…)

The 2014 edition of the Armory Show has announced its commissioned artist for the fair, welcoming Chinese “chameleon of concept” Xu Zhen to exhibit work throughout the fair’s grounds.  The announcement comes as part of the fair’s Focus: China section.  “I am very honored to be named the The Armory Show 2014 Commissioned Artist. The fair offers an strong platform for exchange, and for dialogue around art, the market and its many interrelated institutions and ideas,” the artist says. (more…)

Alexander Calder, Rouge Triomphant (Triumphant Red), (1959–63) © 2013 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Jean Prouvé, Chaise Métropole n°305 (1953), courtesy Galerie Patrick Seguin.  Courtesy Gagosian Gallery and Galerie Patrick Seguin.

Currently on view at Larry Gagosian’s Paris location is an exhibition focusing on the communications, collaborations, and creative dialogues shared by two of the pioneering minds of art and design: Alexander Calder and Jean Prouvé.  Exploring the pair’s elegant distillation of sculptural and architectural forms, the show catalogues a moment of shared concerns that helped to define the path of mid-20th century modernism.

Installation view, Calder | Prouvé, Gagosian Gallery, Le Bourget, Paris. Artwork by Alexander Calder © 2013 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Artwork by Jean Prouvé, courtesy Galerie Patrick Seguin. Photo by Thomas Lannes, courtesy Gagosian Gallery and Galerie Patrick Seguin. (more…)

Hedge Fund Billionaire Daniel Loeb has gone on the offensive towards Sotheby’s Auction House today, calling for the resignation of company chairman, CEO and president William Ruprecht for his alleged lack of leadership and excessive pay.  Loeb recently became a leading stock holder in the auction house with his activist investment firm Third Point, and many forecast that he will use his position to force major changes in Sotheby’s operating model.   “Our research suggests Sotheby’s crisis of leadership has created dysfunctional divisions and a fractured culture. There is a demoralizing recognition among employees that Sotheby’s is not at the cutting edge,” Loeb writes in an open letter. (more…)

Further extending its commitment to live performance work and new media, the Tate Modern has announced plans for additional performance space inside its museum spaces, as well as a website for the broadcasting of performance works live around the world.  “It’s a completely new thing.” Says Dutch artist Nicoline van Harskamp. (more…)