White Cube will now represent the Al Held Foundation, Art News reports. “Looking at his abstract paintings today, you can see that he was way ahead of his time, and as such, his work speaks to a number of contemporary practitioners of abstraction,” John Good, the gallery’s director of artist estates, said in a statement. (more…)
Louis Marchesano will become the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new senior curator of prints, drawings, and photographs. “I’m especially excited about working with colleagues across the museum and thinking creatively about new exhibitions and research projects,” he says. “This is a great moment to be joining the PMA given its ambitious campaign to transform and renew the institution.” (more…)
Jenny Holzer is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as the artist prepares to show a new body of work discussing gun violence and shooting deaths in the United States. “I wanted to collect what we did very, very, quickly after the Parkland shooting,” she says. “Wanting to show the work at Tate made me assemble the stills and video, and go back into the animation. I wanted to be able to show the content to another group of people.” (more…)
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky, known for his acts of transgressive protest, has been released from detention for charges of setting the doors of the central Banque de France building on fire. Pavlensky has performed similar acts of protest in Russia, which had a hand in his exile from his home country. (more…)
Josh Roth, head of UTA Fine Arts, has died at the age of 40, after suffering what was reported as heart failure. “Josh was a dear man and a great colleague, and we are devastated by his loss,” UTA chairman Jim Berkus and CEO Jeremy Zimmer said Monday in a statement. “His friendships and contributions were deeply felt. He constantly inspired his colleagues and those he represented with his impeccable taste, thoughtfulness, creativity and absolute dedication. Most importantly, Josh was a wonderful man — devoted to his family, kind in spirit and generous in every way. UTA is heartbroken.” (more…)
Steve McQueen is embarking on an ambitious project that will see him attempt to shoot all year 3 seven- and eight-year-olds in the UK for a show at Tate Britain. “We live in London and we all think we know London, but we don’t and to have a reflection of our immediate future is I think quite urgent,” he says. (more…)
Frieze Los Angeles, which will run February 14 through 17 at Paramount Pictures Studio in Hollywood, has announced its initial gallery list, with a heavy focus on blue-chip galleries that speaks to the impact it is looking to make on the West Coast. (more…)
The Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale has been reopened, with a restored interior that The National Gallery of Canada is hoping will improve the working conditions for its chosen artists. “I give always very much importance to the conservation, as much as possible, of the original design,” says designer Alberico Belgiojoso “Nature changes, while architecture stays at it is.” (more…)
A federal appeals court in New York has rejected a claim to a 1908 Matisse painting owned by the National Gallery in London by the grandchildren of the woman in the work. “The alleged taking of the painting was committed by a private actor” not “a sovereign”, the panel of judges said. “The National Gallery’s refusal to compensate appellants for that taking after the fact does not provide a basis for jurisdiction over a foreign sovereign and its instrumentality.” (more…)
Artist Dorothea Rockburne’s immense Soho loft is profiled in New York Magazine this week, where the artist has lived and worked since 1974. “It’s like my work,” she says. “It isn’t tarted up. My work is straightforward, and the answers are there because that’s the answer; there is no other answer. And that’s how this place is.” (more…)
The Menil Collection’s new Drawing Institute will be headed by chief curator Edouard Kopp, Art News reports. “I’m very passionate about the drawing medium and have been for the past 20 years,” Kopp says, “so to join an organization with such a stellar reputation as the Menil’s when they are devoting a new program to the study and celebration of modern and contemporary drawing in an amazing new building purposefully designed for that mission is very exciting.” (more…)
The Art News’s annual power list of the top 200 collectors is out for 2018, with Roman Abramovich once again topping the list. New additions include Laurene Powell Jobs, the founder of the Emerson Collective and widow of Steve Jobs, and Elizabeth and Phillip Chun, founders of the art-filled resort Paradise City in Incheon, South Korea. (more…)
Christian Marclay sits down with The Guardian this week, as he prepares for the opening of The Clock at the Tate. “I’m always seeing clocks in films and thinking, ‘Damn, now that would have been great for The Clock!’” he jokes. (more…)
The Al-Thani family of Qatar is reportedly eyeing an exhibition space for its art in Paris, Art Market Monitor reports. Reports note that the family is in negotiations with a private developer representing the French state which has plans to re-develop L’hôtel de la Marine on the Place de la Concorde. (more…)
The Tate has reportedly turned to Wikipedia to fill in gaps in artist biographies for works held in its collection, Art Newspaper reports. A Tate spokesperson said it is “working on a partnership with Wikipedia to ensure the biographies for artists in our collection are as accurate as possible.” (more…)
Greenspon Gallery has cancelled a show featuring the work of the alleged Ne0-Nazi Boyd Rice, following stark criticism from across the art world. “Given the issues this show and these artists raise, we will try to use this episode to consider the various meanings and histories of provocation and dissent in art. As contexts, boundaries and political realities continue to transform, so do the the codes of what can and cannot be accepted,” said gallerist Amy Greenspon. “I deeply regret my lack of oversight when I planned this exhibition, and I apologize to anyone the gallery may have offended when we sent out our email announcement.” (more…)
Moritz Wesseler previously director of the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Germany will lead the Fridericianum museum in Kassel, Germany, Art News reports. “My goal is to offer a platform for key players in the realm of contemporary art still largely unknown in Germany,” he said in a statement to press. “In addition, I intend to strengthen the institution’s connection within the city and the local region.” (more…)
The Städel Museum in Frankfurt will publish a series of discussions with leading figures of the West German postwar art scene, looking to create a broader perspective on the era’s art scene. “By publishing both online and in print, we want to enable access for as many people as possible to this unique primary source, and we hope that both interested amateurs and expert readers will make rich discoveries,” says Franziska Leuthäußer, the leader of the project. (more…)
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac will host an installation by artist Tom Sachs during Frieze Week, Sachs’s studio issuing its own version of Swiss passports to anyone who is willing to pay €20. “With this project we break down the borders and eliminate the concept of nationality,” Sachs says. “This comes at a time where our liberal democracies are being threatened, and oppressed people all over the world live in danger and without refuge. Borders are artificial. They are artificially created by governments and the corporations who control them.” (more…)
The estate of Barney Ebsworth, the founder of Royal Cruise Lines, will go to Christie’s in the coming months, estimated at over $300 million, including Edward Hopper’s famed Chop Suey, which is estimated at $70 million. “This is the greatest collection of American modernism ever to come to market,” Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas.
Johannes Vogt Gallery will relocate to the Upper East Side, Art News reports. “If you told me five years ago that I’d be setting up shop on the Upper East Side, I’d have called you crazy,” Vogt said. “What I show is not as well-represented [on the Upper East Side], and that’s very exciting, to me. I can create a new framework for the work I’m showing.” (more…)
Dealer Mary Boone has plead guilty to filing false federal income tax returns, the New York Times reports. “This is the worst day of my life,” she says. “I have learned from my mistake and I am working very hard to put it behind me.” (more…)
The Guardian interviews Ilya and Emilia Kabakov this week as the pair prepare for a retrospective at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and looks back at the artists’ move out of the Sovient Union. “He took all his baggage with him, the cultural stuff that rooted him in the country,” Emilia says. “What saves Ilya is his magnificent imagination. All of his work is based on fantasy, whether he’s in America, France or Russia.” (more…)