The New York Times profiles Joanne Heyler, the leader of Los Angeles’s Broad Foundation, and her role in establishing Eli Broad’s vision for his soon to open museum.  “She’s thinking about how to nest this institution in the community, how to engage the broader culture, how to broaden its audience and what the experience is going to be like for someone going to this museum,” says Lisa Dennison, former Guggenheim director and a chairwoman of Sotheby’s. “The book shop, lighting, conservation, storage, the plan for the opening show — it’s all Joanne.” (more…)

Downtown non-profit Art in General has decided not to renew its lease for the Soho/Tribeca space it has occupied for the last 34 years.  “We’ve occupied the space for quite some time,” board president Robert Ferguson says. “Our lease is now coming to an end in December of this year, and we’ve decided to embark on the process of finding a new space.” (more…)

A Cy Twombly blackboard painting may have sold for $60 million in a private sale, Marion Maneker of the Art Market Monitor reports, taking the news from active Twombly collectors.  If confirmed, the price would come close to the record-setting sale of a similar work last year by Nicola Del Roscio, Twombly’s former assistant and head of his foundation. (more…)

With renewed diplomatic activities between Cuba and the United States this year, the Independent forecasts massive interest in this year’s Havana Biennial.  “Most of us are expecting that for the Biennial there will be an explosion of American collectors coming to buy,” says artist Mario González. “It should be a stampede.” (more…)

Sotheby’s will bolster its May 12th Contemporary Evening Auction in New York next month with a brilliant, 1954 Mark Rothko, the New York Times reports.  Untitled (Yellow and Blue), which formerly sat in the collections of both Bunny Mellon and François Pinault, is estimated to achieve between $40 and $60 million. (more…)

Glenn Ligon, Come Out #5 (2014)

Regen Projects is presenting its fourth exhibition with Glenn Ligon, the prominent New York-based artist who has established himself as one of the strongest voices in American contemporary art.  Well, it’s bye-bye/If you call that gone, featuring three bodies of work, adopts its title from the lyrics of the blues song “What’s the Matter Now”, projecting Ligon’s interest in text as a mode of expression and an agent of collective identity. (more…)

Taryn Simon, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007), all images courtesy Jeu de Paume

On view at Jeu de Paume in Paris is a body of conceptual artwork by artist Taryn Simon, combining photography, text, and graphic design to address issues related to the production and circulation of knowledge, as well as the politics of representation.  The works on view, all produced after 2000, include The Innocents, a piece documenting cases of wrongful convictions in the United States, and underlining photography’s role and function as a both a credible witness and an oppositional agent that blurs truth and fiction.

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John Baldessari, Pictures & Scripts: A glass of water sweetheart (2015), all images courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery

On view at both Marian Goodman Gallery, London and Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris are two simultaneous exhibitions by John Baldessari: Pictures & Scripts and Early Work. The London gallery’s Pictures & Scripts show focuses on a series of new works, while the Paris gallery will show a selection of the artist’s important early catalog.

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Alex Da Corte, Die Hexe (Installation View), via Art Observed

For the past month and a half, the 77th Street location of Luxembourg and Dayan’s townhouse location has served as a bizarre cross between retro kitsch and haunted house, part of artist Alex Da Corte’s solo exhibition at the space. (more…)

Next month, Christie’s will lead its May 13th contemporary auction with one of Lucian Freud’s iconic portraits of former postal worker Sue Tilley, which will carry an estimate of $30 million to $50 million.  “This will be a good test of where his market is going,” says dealer James Holland-Hibbert. “It will be interesting to see if this style of painting appeals to the buyers who support these sales. Is Freud still a big enough brand?” (more…)

Nathaniel Axel, Snakes and Ladders (2015), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Anton Kern Gallery in Chelsea is a scattershot, yet ultimately compelling series of paintings, sculptures and hybridized formats curated by New York-based critic Bob Nickas, united under the formidable Baudelaire epithet, The Painter of Modern Life.   (more…)

Hito Steyerl at Artist’s Space (Installation View), via Art Observed

Currently on view at both the Artist’s Space galleries and its bookstore at 55 Walker Street, Hito Steyerl is presenting a retrospective of recent work documenting the artist’s plotted political and economic topographies, video and sculptural works that make much of their gradual unveiling of socio-economic situations and environments. (more…)

Ed Ruscha, Cold Beer Beautiful Girls (2009), © Ed Ruscha. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever

On view at Gagosian Gallery’s Paris exhibition space are two exhibitions entitled “Prints and Photographs” and “Books & Co.,” organized by Gagosian director Bob Monk to explore the innovation and legacy of Ed Ruscha across a range of printed media.

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Kehinde Wiley, Arms of Hugo von Hohenlanderberg as Bishop of Constance with Angel Supporters (2014)

The Brooklyn Museum is hosting a mid-career retrospective of Kehinde Wiley, the L.A.-born and New York-based artist known for his juxtapositions of contemporary youth through the lens of a classical notion of aesthetic. Wiley’s mostly street-cast models, sporting untouched urban attires, replace the highly familiar figures of classic European paintings that generally exclude people of color.  Wiley consequently redeems what is missing from the canon of Western art in his intricately detailed oils on canvas, yet pays homage to Old Masters such as Velásquez or Ingres. Maintaining some distinct elements such as outfits and posture, his models, mostly young males of African descent, do not simply recreate what was already done centuries ago, but also reclaim a collectively missing part of their history. (more…)

An article in the New York Times notes an increasing trend towards museums deaccessioning parts of their collection in order to cover budget gaps, even in the face of staunch opposition from critics and board members.  “If you want to safeguard cultural identity, you cannot sell the best pieces of your collection,” says  Marilena Vecco, an assistant professor of cultural economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. “This is the challenge for all museums.” (more…)

A crane crashed onto the roof of the Dallas Museum of Art this week, just missing a Mark Di Suvero sculpture atop the institution. The south end of the space are currently closed for repairs, while the rest of the building remains open. (more…)

NADA Miami Beach is moving locations this December, leaving its long-time home at the Deauville Beach Resort in North Miami Beach for The Fontainebleau Hotel further south.   Founder Heather Hubbs notes that the new location will see a fair of “the same exact size or a little smaller, but it won’t be bigger and we’re not looking to expand.” (more…)

Ryder Ripps, Alone Together (Installation View), via Art Observed

The New York-based artist and designer Ryder Ripps capped his first solo gallery show with Postmasters earlier this year, and has spent the past two months in residency at the Red Bull Studios, where his current show, Alone Together, has turned the space into a self-reflexive digital laboratory, complete with test subjects, flickering hardware, and its own, occasionally fractured ideologies. (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…)

Curator Piper Marshall is profiled in W Magazine this week, as she begins her run of exhibitions in conjunction with Mary Boone Gallery, and documents her ongoing focus on female artists.  “I love female artists so much that someone recently called me an ‘international womanizer,’” Marshall jokes. (more…)

Karl Holmqvist, Here’s Good Looking @U Kid (Installation View), via Art Observed

The current exhibition at Gavin Brown’s West Village exhibition space is abrasive, to say the least.  Focused around the life and work of Karl Holmqvist, the three room exhibition is adorned with the artist’s goading vitriol towards New York real estate, gay culture, social media, the art world “star machine,” and what seems to be anything else that crosses his mind, combined with immense, industrial sculptures composed from the letters in words like “Fuck,” “Punk” and “Like.” (more…)

The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has announced a major new art prize, to be awarded to “a living artist in recognition of a significant body of work that has had an extraordinary impact on the understanding of the art form.”  The winner receives a $100,000 prize, and will be selected by an impressive jury that includes Phyllida Barlow, Okwui Enwezor, and Nicholas Serota, among others. (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…)

An article in The Economist this week revisits the frequently noted boom in the art market, taking an extended perspective on the practices of private sales, institutional investment and consulting over the past thirty years.  “People buy art when they’re confident about their future wealth,” says economist Clare McAndrew. (more…)