A coalition of the largest creditors in Detroit’s current bankruptcy has made the initial movements in court to push Detroit to sell works from the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts.  The motion formally brings the dispute into court, which has been hinted at for several months.  “We recognize that this is a very sensitive issue,” says Derek Donnelly, managing director of Financial Guaranty Insurance Co.. “Whatever process we undertake here, we would hope would create a win-win situation — that ultimately there will be a viable DIA that will survive this process and possibly even thrive. But at the same time there needs to be a construct that addresses the fact that the DIA, or art, is not an essential asset and especially not one that is essential to the delivery of services in the city.” (more…)

Sotheby’s first auction in mainland China closed today with an impressive final sales tally of over $37 million.  The final results included a record-setting $14,725,457 final price for Zao Wou-Ki’s 1958 canvas, Abstraction.   (more…)

Architect Maya Lin and her husband, art dealer and collector Daniel Wolf, have purchased a former jail house in Yonkers, NY, with the intention of converting it into an arts space.  The 10,000 square-foot space will include place for performances, lectures, and exhibitions of the couple’s large collection of works.  “The jail offers enormous potential but the breathtaking view of the Palisades from the doorstep of the Hudson inspires a vision as unique and beautiful as the building itself,” Lin says. (more…)

Steven Parrino, Skeletal Implosion, 2001

Dedicated to the movement of abstraction throughout the past decades of art, and equally to the divisive concept of “the end of painting,” The Show is Over is an exhibition presented by Gagosian Gallery in London, combining works from a variety of artists to point to a single thesis: that painting as a medium of expression will never be quite be “over.”

Richard Prince, “Untitled,” 2012

(more…)

The global recovery rate for stolen art has been placed at a strikingly low 1.5%, The Art Newspaper reports.  Partially caused by the low priority given to such crimes by most police forces, the field is generally led by private companies, which charge a high percentage of the work’s value for recovery, leaving many dreaming of a better system.  “There is a certain need for an international database,” says Mark Dalrymple, a loss adjuster at London’s Tyler and Co. (more…)

A once Nazi-looted painting has been returned to its rightful owner, who in turn donated it to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  The donation is a rare occurrence for looted works, which are often sold to cover inheritance claims.  The 17th century Baroque portrait by Bernardo Strozzi was installed Monday on the third floor of LACMA. (more…)

A group of Detroit’s creditors are pushed for an independent valuation of the Detroit Institute of Arts collection, marking a tense escalation between the city and its debt collectors, with the embattled museum caught in the middle.  “This motion doesn’t compel a sale,” said Derek Donnelly of Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. “It just establishes a communal framework for addressing value maximization of the artwork.” (more…)

The 2014 edition of The Armory Show has announced its Exhibitors List, marking a smaller offering than previous years with 203 galleries on hand for the March art fair.  A higher number of international exhibitors will be at the fair next year, with new appearances by notable galleries including  Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Almine Rech Gallery and James Cohan Gallery.  The fair will also feature a spotlight this year on Chinese artists. (more…)

Leon Black, the head of Apollo Global Management LLC, has been named in the top 10 of Art & Auction magazine’s list of the 10 most powerful art world participants for the first time this year.  Black, who purchased Edvard Munch’s The Scream for a record setting $120 million in 2010, joined a list headed by Jeff Koons, whose balloon dog auction this month places him as the highest-selling living artist.  Other inclusions include dealers Larry Gagosian and David Zwirner. (more…)

The thieves behind last year’s audacious heist of works from the Kunsthal Rotterdam have been sentenced to six years in prison for their thefts, which included works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin, and which held a total value of over $24 million.  The 2012 theft has yet to see the paintings recovered, and officials say that some of the works have been destroyed. (more…)

Aurel Schmidt, Fruits (2013), via Art Observed Staff

Once again turning heads with an evocative, sexually-potent set of works, artist Aurel Schmidt is currently showing a new set of works at a former bodega on Stanton Street on New York’s Lower East Side.  Affixing sexual organs and fetishized body parts to drawings of fruits and vegetables.

Outside of 200 Stanton for Aurel Schmidt’s “Fruits”, via Art Observed Staff (more…)

Francesco Vezzoli’s planned installation of an Italian church in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 in New York has been cancelled after Italian authorities intervened to block the artist’s export of the ruins.  Vezzoli is now under criminal investigation for the deconstruction of the church, despite the prior blessing of the Mayor of Montegiordano, where the church was located.  Vezzoli is searching for a new way to show his work at MoMA, but has yet to fully commit to a new plan.  “It’s like love — if this church turns you down, you can’t fall in love again right away,” he said. “My Juliet is being kept captive.” (more…)

Balthus, Untitled (1990 – 2000) ©Harumi Klossowska de Rola.  Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Inaugurating a new ground-floor gallery at 976 Madison Avenue, Gagosian presents The Last Studies, a never before seen exhibition and the gallery’s first partnering with the Estate of Balthus – on display until December 21.

(more…)

The recent discovery of what may in fact be the last painting Jackson Pollock created before his untimely death has placed Pollock experts against forensic investigators, with many art historians debating the work’s origins.  “I don’t think there’s a Pollock expert in world that would look at that painting and agree it was a Pollock,” says Francis V. O’Connor, a co-editor of the definitive Pollock catalog.  (more…)

Adam Szymczyk, the Chief Curator and Director at Kunsthalle Basel has been named as lead Curator for documenta 14, set to take place in Kassel from June 10th, to September 17th, 2017.  “I am convinced that Szymczyk, a ground-breaking and idiosyncratic curator of art, will add new highlights to documenta,”  says Minister of State Eva Kühne-Hörmann. (more…)

The New Yorker has published an in-depth profile on dealer David Zwirner, taking time at the Art Basel fair earlier this year to watch him in action as he sells his works, while offering interesting perspectives on the current state of the art world.  “One of the reasons there’s so much talk about money is that it’s so much easier to talk about than the art,” he says. (more…)

Water leaking caused by one of the largest storms to hit Abu Dhabi in 30 years has forced the closure of the second day of the Abu Dhabi Art Fair this weekend, leaving dealers scrambling to protect and maintain works inside the fair’s UAE Pavilion.  “Whether the exhibitors have a claim for this on the fair organisers will depend on the terms of the contract between them,” says Christopher Bentley of AXA Art Insurance, although claims have yet to be made. (more…)

Artist Ryan McNamara has been awarded the second edition of the Marshall McLaren Award at Performa 13.  MEÆŽM: A Story Ballet About the Internet, was performed at the Connelly Theater this November, and won the honor of the fair’s most “innovative new work.” McNamara joins inaugural winner Ragnar Kjartansson for his work Bliss. (more…)

Lee Ufan, Dialogue (2013), all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

The work of Lee Ufan takes pleasure in simplicity.  Utilizing simple, geometrically-influenced forms, the artist walks a line between the classic theories and demands of post-war minimalism, and more nuanced, organic approach to the forms and materials of the everyday.

Lee Ufan, La peinture ensevelie…. (2013) (more…)

Artist Ryan McGinley is profiled in the New York Times, discussing the group of young protégés he has surrounded himself with at his downtown New York studio.  “In a way, it’s a curriculum, as I can give people advice because I’ve been through it,” he said.  “I was the first person to get attention within my crew, and I wanted people to share the success that I was enjoying. (more…)

The recent Sotheby’s auction of jewels designed by sculptor Alexander Calder broke all estimates at auction last week, selling for the total of $8 million, far beyond the works’ estimated $1.5 million price tag.  “This is a major development in the market for artists’ jewellery,” says specialist dealer Louisa Guinness. (more…)

Francesco Vezzoli, Galleria Vezzoli (Installation View), Courtesy MAXXI Rome

MAXXI in Rome this weekend closed the exhibition of Galleria Vezzoli, a gallery cum timeline of Francesco Vezzoli’s artistic career, and a self-created tribute to the artist, beginning from his embroideries in the 1990s and continuing to his more recent video works and sculptures made of marble.  The exhibition was part of a larger exhibition entitled The Trinity, Galleria Vezzoli and was the first in a three-part project, Vezzoli in three different locations: at MoMA PS1 in New York and MOCA in Los Angeles. The works in the exhibition at MAXXI mimiced a 19th century museum aesthetic, but were placed within the contemporary architectural context of the gallery space, designed by architect Zaha Hadid.

(more…)

Vogue Magazine’s Genevieve Bahrenburg writes on a chance encounter with artist Chuck Close, and the artist’s process of capturing her on film for a painting, and the artist’s impressive perceptual capacities.  “I know from years of experience how the incremental units of the grid will fall on an image.”  Close tells her. (more…)

Painter David Hockney’s iPad influenced works are the subject of a short piece in Wired Magazine, describing the artist’s influences from Warhol to 19th century French painting.  Part of the artist’s broader interest in new media and potentials for composition, the works feature Hockney’s signature combination of vibrant colors and quick, steady strokes. (more…)