The Washington Post notes Director Melissa Chiu’s unprecedented fundraising since taking her position as head the Hirshhorn last year, having raised $1.55 million from this year’s museum fundraiser gala (a tally several times higher than the museum has ever achieved), held in New York City.  “I would characterize my first year as doing all the tough foundational work that is largely invisible to the public,” Chiu says. (more…)

Ai Weiwei has begun his three-year tenure as a visiting professor at Berlin’s University of the Arts this month, and introduced himself to the student body with some unique musings on the nature and definition of art.  “It’s a bit like with sex,” Ai told the gathered audience this week. “One can have a lot of experience, and nevertheless find it extremely difficult to define.” (more…)

Richard Bell, Embassy (2015), via Performa

Performa, New York’s iconic and ongoing performance art Biennial has returned to the city this month, kicking off this past Sunday with a full calendar of events running through the 22nd.  The 15th edition of the event, Performa is offering a particularly strong calendar of events over the coming weeks, mixing high art stage performances, conceptual exercises, live poetics and confrontational pieces across the city’s range of venues, institutions and galleries. (more…)

Doris Salcedo is the recipient of the Nasher Sculpture Center’s first $100,000 Nasher Prize.  “Through her use of meaningful, everyday materials, often in unexpected and socially-charged public spaces in her native Colombia and elsewhere around the world, Doris Salcedo has created a body of work that is both aesthetically striking and politically resonant,” says Nasher Sculpture Center director Jeremy Strick. (more…)

The Rodin Museum is spearheading the sales of newly cast bronze sculptures from the artist’s original molds, in an effort to finance a $17.7 million restoration of the Left Bank exhibition space.  “They don’t have many more big pieces, because most editions are sold out,” says Gilles Perrault, an art expert for France’s high court. “They may have a few more examples left. But today, what the Rodin museum makes are mostly little pieces and variations.” (more…)

An article in Vanity Fair traces the controversies of the Taubman family in recent years as patriarch Alfred Taubman’s estate goes to auction at Sotheby’s this week, including a note on the estate’s inflated guarantee.  “Bobby [Taubman] is a board member; he’s supposed to increase shareholder value,” says one anonymous insider.  “It’s going to be very hard for Sotheby’s to earn out that guarantee.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal notes an increasing number of collectors donating works to smaller non-profits and institutions like hospitals, in an effort to have these works kept in public view rather than sitting in museum storage, and points to the increased benefits these works have on patients and visitors.  “Studies have shown that artwork helps to reduce stress and boredom, reduces blood pressure and increases white-blood-cell count, all of which are factors in the healing process,” says Jessica R. Finch, art program manager at Boston Children’s Hospital (more…)

Gilbert and George are profiled in The Guardian this week, as the pair open a new show of works at White Cube, featuring cryptically inscribed banner works with texts like “Fuck the Planet,” which the artist’s argue carry parallel meanings.  “We need to just leave nature alone,” says George. “Human beings should only be in the city because it makes them freer and more tolerant than the ones isolated on top of the mountain.”  Gilbert agrees: “It’s the same as the love of God, who is just another dictator.” (more…)

The WSJ investigates the occasionally opaque practice of art gallery waiting lists, which it points out are often used to sort buyers and build relationships, or to help sell works which are still held in inventory.  “They may make you buy works by other artists they represent, pieces they haven’t been able to sell and which you may not like,” says Pace Gallery President Marc Glimcher. “They may say, ‘We’ll let you buy a work you want, but you’ll also have to buy one to donate to a museum, and we’ll tell you which museum.’” (more…)

The Financial Times profiles Ed Ruscha this week, as the artist opens a new show at Sprüth Magers in Berlin.  “Things that catch my attention are things that are usually negligible or forgotten, or overlooked or denigrated in some way or another,” he says. (more…)

The EU has stepped down on its proposed ban of cadmium paint pigments, after studies showed that the type of cadmium used in the paints were not as harmful as previously reported.  “While we discussed the technical case for cadmium pigments, many artists were passionately able to stress the economic and artistic importance of cadmiums as they uniquely bring warmth, light, strength and color to paintings to stand the test of time,” says Rachel Volpé of Spectrum Paints. (more…)

A new drama produced by Sony Television for its Crackle streaming-unit will focus on the competitive nature of the contemporary auction house. the New York Times reports.  The Art of More premieres on November 19th, and will star Dennis Quaid, Kate Bosworth and Cary Elwes.  “Because of these high prices, it’s seen as a very glamorous place — the drama of auctions, the high spectacle of it,” says Christie’s Brett Gorvy. “We’ve got $100 million paintings, celebrities in the auction room — a DiCaprio — a cattle call of names, the sense that the art market is a very sexy place, a lot of conniving and innuendo that might be part of this. I’m not surprised it makes for a TV program.” (more…)

Liam Gillick, A Broadcast from 1887 on the Subject of our Time (1996)

On view at Maureen Paley through November 22nd is a solo exhibition by prominent British conceptualist Liam Gillick, continuing the artist’s vastly interdisciplinary practice mining fluid and interconnected social norms, and scrutinizing the overt or arcane methods that agents of society pursue in response to such dynamics. (more…)