New York Magazine has a piece on dealer David Killen’s discovery of a series of unauthenticated works he attributes to Willem de Kooning works in a New Jersey storage locker, and his decision to auction them off himself after provenance issues scared auction houses off. “My hope,” Killen says, “is that serious people come to the exhibition, bring their expert with them, and let the expert whisper in their ear, ‘Yeah, they’re real.’ ” (more…)

Landscapes of the Mind: Masterpieces from Tate Britain (1700-1980), a show on view at the Shanghai Museum this year, attracted 615,000 visitors over its 14 week run, making it The Tate’s most popular ever.  (more…)

A Banksy painting “self-destructed” following its sale at Sotheby’s in London this week, after being sold for over £1m. Following the final hammer, an alarm sounded, and the painting began shredding itself as it slid through its frame. “We have not experienced this situation in the past . . . where a painting spontaneously shredded, upon achieving a [near-]record for the artist. We are busily figuring out what this means in an auction context,” says Alex Branczik, senior director at Sotheby’s. (more…)

The Guggenheim has returned an Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painting Artillerymen (1915) to the heirs of one of previous owners, art dealer Alfred Flechtheim. The work was shown to have been taken from the family by the Nazis during the Holocaust. (more…)

Frieze London has awarded Blank Projects of Cape Town, South Africa its Focus Stand Prize, while Sprüth Magers took home the fair’s main Stand Prize, while artist Wong Pong was awarded the Camden Arts Centre Emerging Arts Prize.   (more…)

The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder has returned to the walls of Spain’s Museo del Prado, following a lengthy restoration. “The work required a complete cleaning, which was particularly complex because of the thinness of the original layer of paint compared to the thickness of the retouches—a real crust,” says lead conservator Maria Antonia López de Asiain. (more…)

Sotheby’s has unveiled its marquee works for its November Impressionist and Modern Sale in New York, works from a private European collection that totals $90 million, and features a trio of Wassily Kandinsky paintings with a combined low estimate of $55m. ““Infused with an intensity of color and expression, this collection of works provides a rare and exciting opportunity to acquire several exceptional examples of early-20^th Century Art,” says Helena Newman, Head of Sotheby’s Worldwide Impressionist & Modern Art Department. (more…)

Collector Luiz Augusto Teixeira de Freitas is seeking the termination of his loan of 700 drawings to the Serralves Foundation Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal, following the censorship of a show of Robert Mapplethorpe works. (more…)

Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev has filed a $380 million lawsuit against Sotheby’s, claiming the auction house’s involvement in the purchase of a series of works from Yves Bouvier.  Rybolovlev claims the auction house “materially assisted the largest art fraud in history.” (more…)

David Hockney is interviewed in the NYT this week, as the artist prepares to unveil a stained-glass window for Westminster Abbey to commemorate the 65th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and reflects on his decision not to paint the Queen. “I’m not sure how to paint her, you see, because she’s not an ordinary human being,” he says. (more…)

A Paris court has decreed that a Pissarro painting stolen from a French Jewish family during the German occupation must be returned to the family, The Guardian reports. The work, seized from a Jewish collector, Simon Bauer, in 1943 by the Vichy government, was currently in the collection of American collectors Bruce and Robbi Toll.  (more…)

The New Art Dealers Alliance has named the winners of this year’s NADA Miami International Gallery Prize: London’s Arcadia Missa and Tokyo’s Asakusa. “The International Gallery Prize was founded to provide galleries from outside the U.S. an opportunity to participate in a NADA fair—which often happens to be their first American fair—in a way that both minimizes the financial risk and encourages experimentation. It has been a great way for us to direct attention to the quality of programs from galleries around the world,” says Heather Hubbs, NADA’s executive director.  (more…)

The Financial Times looks at recent curatorial and exhibition ventures by galleries, and asks if commercial spaces are leading the intellectual charge in the current art landscape. “The nature of collecting and connoisseurship in the 21st century, and in doing so,” Sean Kelly says, “to inspire a new generation of collectors and individuals committed to making a meaningful investment in our shared cultural future.” (more…)

New York’s Spring/Break Art Show will return for its eighth edition next year, running from March 6th – 11th, and centered around the theme “Fact and Fiction.”  “We thought, ‘Well, since high stations of office are calling into question what most people would consider factual, maybe it’s a good time to explore how artists inhabit paradoxical spaces,’ ” says co-founder Andrew Gori. (more…)

Art dealer Phyllis Kind, who supported a range of artists formative in the landscape of post-war contemporary art in Chicago, has passed away at the age of 85. “In the mid-’70s she was pretty much ‘the only game in town’ for the Chicago artists she represented,” says artist couple Lorri Gunn and Karl Wirsum. (more…)

Rachel Whiteread has an interview in The Guardian this week, as the artist opens her first permanent sculpture in the UK, and reflects on leaving her longtime home and studio in Shoreditch. “We couldn’t stand Shoreditch any longer,” she says. “It’s just a hellhole. I know we artists contributed to making it that way [gentrified, expensive, noisy], but it had become monstrous. Everybody I know has left: every good artist.” (more…)

A new Broadway musical will focus on the life and work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, composed by Jon Batiste, the bandleader and musical director of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. “Over the years, many people have approached us about telling our brother’s story on stage, but having discussed this project with the (producers Alan D. Marks and Barbara) Marks over many months, our interest was piqued once we understood that their approach to telling our brother’s story treats his life, his art and his legacy with respect and passion,” says Basquiat’s sisters Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Basquiat in a statement. “With Jon Batiste and John Doyle leading the creative team, we are thrilled with the possibilities. We cannot wait to begin the developmental process. Broadway is a new world for us, and we looking forward to sharing our brother’s life and art.” (more…)

Manhattan dealer Ezra Chowaiki of Chowaiki & Co. Fine Art Ltd. on Park Avenue has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for fraud. “One factor that does loom in this case is the seemingly and largely unregulated nature of the art market,” says U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. “Here, we have something that by its very nature calls for expertise and can easily be the subject of fraud, yet seems to operate without any meaningful constraints. I think that weighs modestly in favor of a higher sentence.” (more…)

The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair will move to a new home in New York’s West Village for its 2019 edition, Art News reports. “We flirted with the idea for a couple years,” says director Touria El Glaoui. “Pioneer Works have been amazing partners, and we’re really sad to leave there. But the galleries told us of their desire to move closer to their audience and their collectors. They felt that we were considered a fringe fair, being in Brooklyn.” (more…)

Nan Goldin has joined Marian Goodman, the gallery announced this week. “Goldin has revolutionized the art of photography through her frank and deeply personal portraiture,” the gallery said in a statement. (more…)

Catherine Marcus and Will Rose have donated $3 million to the Dallas Museum of Art, Art News reports. “Strong leadership is critical to the vigor and growth of our city’s Museum,” the pair said in a statement. “We are thrilled to support the Museum’s endowment and this crucial leadership position.”  (more…)

Dealer Max Hetzler will open a space in London, Art Newspaper reports. “By focusing more on historical exhibitions in London as well as two-person shows–without restricting ourselves to this–we are complementing the program of our spaces in Berlin and Paris,” he says. (more…)

Art News profiles the recent string of gallery space-sharing projects, exploring the benefits these programs have brought to the galleries engaging in them. “We knew we had to do something, be active and proactive, and not only participate in the system, but also create and engage in something new,” says dealer Simone Subal of the traveling Condo exhibition program. (more…)

The Art Newspaper has a piece on the average cost of a gallery booth, offering some perspective on the recent debates over booth pricing at a number of major art fairs. Pricing in the survey ranges from $10,000 for a booth at Independent New York, on to $100,000 for premier placement at the Armory Show. (more…)