The Clark Art Institute in Western Massachusetts has received the library of the late Allen Sekula, courtesy of the artist’s wife, Sally Stein.  “It is a rare and distinct privilege to receive the library of an artist and thinker that is so rich and varied,” Olivier Meslay, the Felda and Dena Hardymon director of the Clark, said of the gift. “The totality of his personal library gives us insight into the diverse intellectual interests of Allen Sekula, while the individual titles add an important new resource to strengthen our library’s collection” (more…)

The Guardian profiles the ongoing dispute over a series of Agnes Martin works excluded from the artist’s catalog raisonné, and the economic motives driving the lawsuits around the pieces.  “Art has become such a commodity, and there’s so much money at stake, that [if] a painting that belongs to you or as a dealer you may have sold is declared essentially worthless, you’ll do anything to turn the decision around,” says art authenticator Richard Polsky. (more…)

Bloomberg looks at the trend towards portraits of men frequently selling for less than those of women, noting a historical shortage of high-selling precendents to spark the market.  “There have really only been two major male portraits that have come to auction,” says Jeremiah Evarts, the head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern evening sales. “When there are only two options, it’s hard to create a market out of that—you can’t point to many results to justify a price.” (more…)

An article in The Guardian this week notes the often comically grisly images of Hans Holbein’s woodcut pieces as a sort of early political cartoon, noting its frank political critiques and satirical position towards the powerful figures of the artist’s day.  “The judges, the notaries, all those who should help poor people, it’s clear [from his woodcuts] that Holbein thought they were open to bribes and dismissive of those they should help,” says Ulinka Rublack, professor of early modern history at the University of Cambridge.  “The invisibility comes through of those at the margins of society. I don’t know any other graphic work of the period that does that, that speaks so strongly for the poor, for those who are invisible,” she said. (more…)

Art Basel Miami Beach will feature a documentary on the life and work of Maurizio Cattelan this year as part of its Film section.  The work, Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back, will join a selection of over 50 videos and films in the fair’s ongoing series of time-based pieces, Curated by David Gryn, director of Daata Editions. (more…)

Theaster Gates is launching a new initiative called Dorchester Industries, “a workforce training and apprenticeships initiative for un- or underemployed people across the South Side of Chicago.”  The program will partner with tradespeople and artists in residence to create new objects and artworks for sale, with funds going to those working for the company.  The program will launch publicly November 5th with an auction of works from the first round of participants at Gates’s Stony Island Arts Bank. (more…)

James Rosenquist, Reflector (1982), via Thaddaeus Ropac

Over the last 40 years, painter James Rosenquist has continued to mine and manipulate the languages of consumer capitalism, mass-market branding, and the formal techniques of sign-painting, creating works that push these same linguistic elements to points of near-disintegration.  His pieces, huge swirling arrangements of color and line, smash commodities and natural forms together, combining food, buildings, and other objects into confounding, hybridized arrangements.  This ongoing experimentation with the canvas as a space of critical examination and surrealist detuning takes up the full expanse of Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery’s Pantin exhibition space, joined by a series of collages at its space in The Marais.

James Rosenquist, Coup d’Oeil – Speed of Light (2001), via Thaddaeus Ropac

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The New York Times writes on the cultural divide between art’s economic benefits, and the public perception of the field’s elitism, and the power of curators trained in the field still wield even in the face of this disconnect.  The piece goes on to explore the work of Hans Ulrich Obrist in particular, and his attempt at bridging this gap through his use of technology and social media.   (more…)

Handyman Pierre Le Guennec has offered a new version of the events that led to the discovery of over 300 works by Pablo Picasso in his garage, claiming that the artist’s wife, Jacqueline, gave him the works to hide them from her family.  Le Guennec is facing jail time for possession of stolen goods over the paintings. (more…)

Greece has opened its first contemporary art museum in Athens this week, part of a long-running cultural development project.  “We are very used to feeling proud about our past. Now I think the moment has come to bridge the past with the present,” says director Katerina Koskinas. (more…)

A gift of $2 million to the SAIC has funded a new position for artist Nick Cave as the school’s first Stephanie and Bill Sick endowed professor of fashion, body and garment.  “Nick Cave is an exceptional artist and teacher who has had a momentous impact on his students and his community, and we are so proud that he is the first recipient of this professorship,” Stephanie Sick.   (more…)

The New York Post profiles Max Beckmann’s work in New York City, the subject of a new exhibition at the Met, which compiles his work in the city after fleeing Europe.  “He felt he was above labels,” says Met curator Sabine Rewald. (more…)

A pair of artists are set to move into the unfinished Main Museum in downtown Los Angeles, part of a work that will see them exchanging knowledge and ideas in the space before it opens.  “There is this tradition among male artists of attacking the generation before,” Andrea Bowers, one of the artists, says. “I’ve been interested in an alternative tradition that is matriarchal and nurturing.” (more…)

New research into the life of Vincent Van Gogh has found that the painter likely cut off his ear after learning that his brother was planning to marry.  The artist then made his famous trip to a brothel, where he gave the ear to a woman there, before he was hospitalized.  “Soon the fine days will come and I’ll start on the orchards in blossom again,” he wrote upon his discharge.   (more…)

Businessman Eric Smidt is profiled in the LA Times this week, following a $25 million gift to LACMA.  “It takes gifts like this to get to that point of confidence so that others will invest,” says museum head Michael Govan. “It’s a new generation of people, and that’s what has to happen in the civic environment. The torch has to be passed.” (more…)

The UK’s Creative Industries Federation has issued a new study stating that the Brexit proceedings have “exposed severe social divides” in the nation’s creative fields, and notes the impact the vote could have on creative workforces where EU nationals account for upwards of 10%-40% of the workforce.   (more…)

The Art Newspaper profiles one writer’s efforts in tracing the history of Van Gogh’s bed while living in Provence, famously depicted in his work The Bedroom.  The bed was traced to the Dutch town of Boxmeer, where the artist’s nephew had sent the bed in order to help war victims in 1945.  (more…)

The Nixon-era drawings of Philip Guston are profiled in the NYT this week, a series of satirical portraits of the president that the artist made during the early 1970’s.  “My father often had intense periods of work,” says Guston’s daughter, Musa Mayer. “It was not unusual for him to work almost around the clock. But the Nixon drawings are unique in being focused on this kind of external story and life. I think that reading what Philip Roth had done inspired him to think that maybe he could do that, too.” (more…)

The New York Times has a piece on collectors Spencer and Marlene Hays, who recently donated a trove of artworks centered around the French Nabis painters, including works by Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard.  “We decided to give it where we thought it would be appreciated the most,” Spencer Hays says. (more…)

Dr Oetker, a German company that makes baking products, muesli and pizza, is investigating a series of works in its collection as potential Nazi-loot.  “The goal is to check whether works in the collection were originally owned by people who were persecuted by the Nazis,” the company said in a statement. (more…)

Artist Etel Adnan is profiled in the Financial Times this week, as the 91-year-old artist sees a resurgence in the market for her colorful, minimalist compositions.  “I like to say something in one go,” Adnan says. “Brushes you have to wash and it takes a lot of time. With the palette knife there is less interruption as you just wipe off the paint with a piece of tissue and carry on.” (more…)

Chiharu Shiota’s Uncertain Journey (Installation View)

Chiharu Shiota’s Uncertain Journey, on view at Blain|Southern Berlin through the 12th of November, is an awe-inspiring meditation on memory, fate, and belonging.  Evocative and beautiful, this installation fills the gallery’s main atrium with a swarming mass of red yarn that creeps up the walls and envelops the viewer in a network of red.  Entering into the space, one is swept up in a ghostly web that spreads between the forms of skeletal boats.  Shiota is known for her immersive installations, such as The Key in the Hand (2015), in which she creates new visual planes as if she were painting in mid-air.  The artist has created this site-specific installation in Berlin eight years after she last exhibited in her home city, reprising a body of work that earned her impressive attention at last year’s Venice Biennale. (more…)

Anthea Hamilton, Project for a Door (After Gaetano Pesce) (2016), vi Art Observed

With the early weeks of the fall art season comes the opening of the annual Turner Prize exhibition, bringing together works from each of the artists’ nominated for Britain’s highest honor for contemporary art.  This year’s exhibition, one of the more cohesively selected, and consistently inventive in recent years, has already earned impressive accolades, with a striking quartet of artist’s each exploring constructions of space and identity through diverse historical, technical, and material connections. (more…)

Sterling Ruby, The Jungle (Installation View) All images via Anna Corrigan for Art Observed.

Now on view through October 29th, Sprüth Magers Berlin is currently hosting an exhibition of American artist Sterling Ruby’s recent sculptures and works on canvas.  THE JUNGLE consists of works from Ruby’s series of mobile sculptures, SCALES, conceived for the first time as a single installation.  As the title of the exhibition implies, the suspended and balanced objects that fill one entire room of the gallery evoke a sort of jungle, composed of free-hanging mobiles and other sculptural material Ruby has frequently utilized during his career. (more…)