Julian Schnabel is interviewed in the New York Times this week, as he prepares a show at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor, and reflects on his shared view of painting and surfing. “It’s like paddling out in big surf. There’s a wall there, and you are a certain size and the sea is a certain size and these paintings are a certain size,” he says. “It happens so quickly you just want to relive that and be in that sensation again. Painting for me is like that. The joy of just doing it and being lost in the experience of that is compelling to me.” (more…)

A group of Münster residents are working to raise €1.2 million to buy artist Nicole Eisenman’s Sketch for a Fountain, which was installed this summer for the city’s Sculpture Projects Münster. “The work is a very political statement and we want to make a stand for tolerance and respect,” artist Sylvia Silbernagel says of the work. “We are trying to win over local businesses as ambassadors.” (more…)

Guards at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. are complaining of a hostile work environment, including confrontational management and chronic understaffing. “They treat us like we’re bad people,” says one guard, Albertus-Hugo Van den Bogaard, a 65-year-old Army veteran. “People are intimidated. They will not make much noise.”  (more…)

MOCA’s Philippe Vergne has fired his chief curator Helen Molesworth, an almost unprecedented move among large museums the signals a major shake-up at the institution that has many wondering about internal turbulence at the organization. “I think you have made a terrible mistake” artist Catherine Opie reportedly told Vergne upon hearing of the decision. (more…)

Damien Hirst is profiled in the New York Times this week, as the artist looks back on his show in Venice. “I won’t be rushing to do something like that again,” he says. (more…)

Tracey Emin gets an interview in The Times of London this week, following her move back to the city of Margate, and her recent purchase of a studio space in the south of France.  “There are no neighbors. I don’t speak any French,” she says. “I don’t have any social life at all. None. I just paint all day in my pyjamas.” (more…)

The Guardian looks back on the past week of fairs in New York, and the wealth of politically-charged work on view across the city, particularly at the Armory Show.  “We’re committed to showing critical artwork in a changing cultural climate,” says Armory Show director Nicole Berry. (more…)

Dr. Clare McAndrew’s annual report for Art Basel is now out, bringing enlightening figures and statistics about the current health of the art market.  Key figures from the report note global sales of $63.7 billion in 2017, up 12% on 2016, with the US as the largest market worldwide, accounting for 42% of sales by value, China in second place (21%) and the UK the third largest market with 20%.  (more…)

Nan Goldin was at the forefront of a protest at The Met this week, calling attention to the money donated to The Met by the Sackler family, who profited heavily from the sale of the highly addictive OxyContin painkiller.  Goldin kicked a deep addiction to the drug over the last three years. “We are artists, activists, addicts,” she shouted during the protest. “We are fed up.” (more…)

Galerie Perrotin is preparing to open a space in Shanghai later this year, Art News reports. The 12,900 square feet will serve as another outpost for furthering the gallery’s already strong footprint in Asia.  (more…)

Jeff Koons is featured in a lengthy Guardian profile this week, as the artist prepares to open a show of his Easyfun-Ethereal works in New York.   “I know that I make the work that I make, that my own intellectual needs are met and that I can expand my parameters and hopefully I’m able to touch the interior life of the viewers who see my work,” he says. “There are certain individuals that respond to it, and I’m sure there’s some people that don’t. For whatever reason, they close themselves down, or they just won’t open themselves up.” (more…)

Hauser & Wirth has added Zeng Fanzhi to its roster, with the artist continuing his ongoing relationships with Gagosian Gallery and ShanghART Gallery. “I have admired Zeng Fanzhi’s painting for very many years, and I really could not be more thrilled to announce our collaboration. I am excited to have the opportunity to exhibit and promote Zeng to our global network, and to craft a strong legacy for his astounding work. On the eve of Hauser & Wirth’s opening in China, I am pleased that Zeng will be taking this next important step along with us.” (more…)

The Guggenheim is planning to acquire a controversial Xu Bing artwork that was previously pulled from recent survey of Chinese contemporary art over its depiction of tattooed pigs mating. The piece is coming to the museum courtesy of a donor.  (more…)

Young collector and patron Tiffany Zabludowicz of the family of British collectors gets a profile in the NYT this week, as she gives a tour of her collection. “I do it very instinctively,” she says of her collecting style. “It’s not always pretty; it can be aesthetically a bit strange. I also like things that are playful, but in a really smart way.” (more…)

The Dia Art Foundation has acquired Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, an earthwork in Utah’s Great Basin Desert, the New York Times reports.  The work is the first land art piece by a woman in the organization’s collection.  “‘Sun Tunnels’ is a work that reaches back to a Renaissance fascination with astronomy but has a very contemporary physicality,” says director Jessica Morgan. (more…)

Yinka Shonibare is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as the artist unveils a new sculpture near Central Park that speaks to the global plight of immigrants. “It’s a simple equation,” Shonibare says. “You want to be safe, warm and clothed and looked after. Therefore it’s natural you should want that for other people.” (more…)

The case brought by the heirs of Peggy Guggenheim over management of her Venetian estate has been dismissed by France’s highest court, the Art Newspaper reports, with the court finding that there had been no prior stipulations over the exhibition of works or the timing of exhibitions left by the well-known arts patron. “We are pleased that these meritless lawsuits and appeals have now come to an end,” the Guggenheim Foundation said in a statement. “The Foundation is proud to have faithfully carried out the wishes of Peggy Guggenheim for close to 40 years by preserving her collection and exhibiting it in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, restoring and maintaining the Palazzo as a public museum and contributing to the knowledge of modern and contemporary art in Italy.”  (more…)

The Swiss Institute has set its opening date as June 21st, 2018, the organization announced today.  “I am immensely grateful for the continuing support we have been receiving as we create the very first long-term home for SI after more than three decades of existence. We are opening much more than a building it is a new public space in the heart of Downtown, for an ever-growing community to enjoy art, always free of charge. We are committed to continuing a legacy of generative experimentation and to fostering an environment in the East Village in which art can thrive, and be open to all,” says Board Chair Maja Hoffmann.

Read more at Swiss Institute

The Louvre has opened a show in Tehran, showcasing the continued power of cultural diplomacy as the EU and Iran debate new nuclear deals. “In the turbulent ocean of international diplomacy, cultural diplomacy is a beacon we must keep alight,” says French foreign minister Yves Le Drian. (more…)

Painter Celia Paul gets a profile in the New York Times this week, as she prepares to open a show of work at the Tate Britain, and reflects on her long relationship with Lucian Freud, who frequently painted her. “He sensed that I was romantic, and somehow it was the beauty that got me, I think: the beauty of his art and his courtship,” she says of her relationship to the painter. “He was tender, and very, very gentle.” (more…)

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday has brought criminal charges against 10 defendants, for a laundering scheme involving a late Pablo Picasso, Reuters reports.  “The defendants engaged in an elaborate multi-year scheme to defraud the investing public of millions of dollars through deceit and manipulative stock trading, and then worked to launder the fraudulent proceeds through off-shore bank accounts and the art world,” U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue in Brooklyn said in a statement. (more…)

A strong market season for Pablo Picasso continues this spring in New York, as the painter’s Le Repos, a portrait of Marie-Theres Walter, heads to Sotheby’s this May with a $25 million estimate. “It’s as pure as you’ll get,” says Simon Shaw of the auction house’s Impressionist and Modern department. “Picasso is just utterly infatuated with her.” (more…)

Whitney Curator Barbara Haskell gets a profile in the New York Times this week, as she prepares to open a show on the works of painter Grant Wood. “It’s hard to imagine American art without her,” says museum director, Adam D. Weinberg. “Her métier is these great monograph shows.” (more…)

The NYT profiles TEFAF’s efforts to continue expanding beyond its fairs in New York and Maastricht, and its next steps as it pushes beyond easy distinctions over its character and interests. “What we really try to achieve is to become a global brand,” says chairman Nanne Dekking. “But it’s a more complex brand because of the huge diversity of participants. We cannot say that we’re going to be a global brand in Impressionism or a global brand in contemporary art. What we have to establish is that we can become a global brand that people can trust.” (more…)