Kansas City’s Nelson Atkins Museum has purchased a major early work by Piet Mondrian for its collection, and will be added to the Bloch Collection wing currently under construction.  “The renovation of the Bloch Galleries was made possible by a $12 million gift from Marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation, and will house their collection of 29 masterworks of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Integrated into the museum’s collection,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)

A group of artists including Anish Kapoor and Cornelia Parker are interviewed in The Guardian this week, reacting to the removal of A-level Art history from UK education programs.  “Our cultural industries are our biggest export, our biggest manufacturing base. Every pound spent on art education brings disproportionately large returns. It’s the biggest bang for our buck,” Parker says. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In fact, the more you put in, the greater the successes for the UK economy.” (more…)

Christie’s has announced a new method for reporting on bids from a third-party guarantor, with the auction house publishing the final prices “inclusive of buyer’s premium and net of any financing fee.”  The announcement comes after a recent interpretation of pricing rules by the Department of Consumer Affairs. (more…)

Workers on a demolition site in Germany have found a bundle of letters written by Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazi art dealer whose trove of confiscated art works continues to stoke controversy over repatriation of works from the era.  Experts are evaluating the letters to determine their value.   (more…)

Kader Attia is opening a multidisciplinary project space in Paris, called La Colonie, and located close to the Gare du Nord.  “La Colonie aims to reunite—without exclusion and through these great platforms that are of artistic and intellectual creation—all identities and all stories, in particular those of minorities,” a statement reads. (more…)

The New Yorker has a profile on Philippe Parreno this week, reflecting on the artist’s recent work, and his take on putting together his exhibitions.  “Sometimes it’s nice to have things a bit off-sync, so your brain or your imagination can do the work,” he says. “Lots of the things I do require people to endorse a fiction.” (more…)

Christie’s will auction a selection of works from the collection of millionaire Edward James this winter, among them a wide selection of iconic surrealist objects, including Salvador Dali’s lobster telephone.  “We’ve asked ourselves of every object in the sale, ‘What do we need to keep to tell the story and for teaching purposes, and what is really just sitting in storage and seen by nobody?’ says Alex Barron, chief executive of West Dean college, which was endowed with the works by James. (more…)

Marina Abramovic is interviewed on some of her favorite books and recent reads for the New York Times this month.  “I know that I am reading a powerful book when everything around me disappears and I am unable to put it down until I finish it,” she says.  “A good book can bring you to another state of consciousness and transport you into different times and spaces. I am always searching for that experience of having the reality of the book overpower the reality of my own life.” (more…)

Maya Lin has unveiled her redesign of the Smith College Library in Northampton, MA, returning some of the original concepts and ideas for the campus that were developed by planner Frederick Law Olmsted.  “We basically get to give the heart of the campus back to Smith,” she says. “It was a reductivist scheme. Less is more.” (more…)

Artist Tania Bruguera has announced her candidacy for president of Cuba, launching a call for open representation of the people in the country’s politics after Raul Castro steps down in 2018.  “Let’s use the 2018 election to change the culture of fear,” Bruguera said in an online video.  “Today I put myself forward as a candidate for the 2018 election, put yourself forward.” (more…)

UK Arts Education took a serious hit this week, as the Exam board AQA announced it would phase out its art history testing, eliminating programs nationwide for advanced study for young students.  “Our decision has nothing to do with the importance of the history of art,” an AQA spokeswoman said. (more…)

Dealer Mike Weiss is the latest in a line of galleries leaving their Chelsea exhibition spaces after repeated confrontations with construction workers, and reported damage to the gallery by nearby construction.  “We survived three hurricanes, a drop in the economy, but we can’t seem to survive this,” Weiss said.  (more…)

A recent lawsuit between art collector Asher Edelman and dealer Geoffrey Diner illustrates the challenges for both collectors and dealers regarding authentication and repair in the current market, after a work by Pier Paolo Calzolari was damaged in transit.  The work, consigned to Diner by Edelman, consisted of a series of leather belts and neons, and could only be repaired through the artist’s foundation, sparking a lawsuit from Edelman demanding compensation if it was not able to be repaired. (more…)

Pierre Audi, The Park Ave Armory’s new artistic director, is profiled in the NYT this week, as he looks to leave his mark on the institution.  “There is this fluidity about him,” says Armory president Rebecca Robertson. “Everything interests him.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper looks at the movements of a Caravaggio masterwork from the collection of Guy Wildenstein, and notes the work’s complex ownership structure that makes its provenance somewhat difficult to trace.  The work’s current location and ownership are somewhat cloudy, as it is technically held by a trust, making legal ownership by Wildenstein’s father somewhat less concrete. (more…)

A Los Angeles lawyer is suing his partner to push for the authentication of a work he believes is a Jackson Pollock piece valued at over $100 million.  Pierce O’Donnell, who helped to fund the purchase of the work for a former client, Maitreya Kadre, claims that there is strong evidence the work is a Pollock, but that Kadre’s lack of cooperation has prevented its sale.  “I felt sincere about selling this masterpiece,” O’Donnell says. “Unfortunately, she has frustrated every effort to sell it.” (more…)

Curator Jeffrey Uslip has left his position at St. Louis’ Contemporary Art Museum, following controversy over a Kelley Walker exhibition many found demeaning and insensitive to the concerns of the city’s African-American community.  “I just think he was operating inside of a bubble without the context of the greater majority of people that are living lives in St. Louis,” local artist Damon Davis said, after he challenged both Uslip and Walker during a public talk on his work. “I don’t think he took them into consideration.”  (more…)

Former Matthew Marks director Adrian Rosenfeld is planning to open his own exhibition space in San Francisco’s growing gallery site, the Minnesota Street Project.  “I want to take the time for things to develop, to work with the new generation that has just begun to emerge in San Francisco. There’s a shift and things are expanding, if not in this super-accelerated way.” he says, “I have many existing clients here with whom I have been doing business a long time and there is definitely plenty of demand for great art.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper looks at the upcoming challenges for Tate director Nicholas Serota’s successor, and the ongoing projects that the museum’s new head will have to guide to completion.  The Museum trustees are “are absolutely committed to the idea of eventually appointing someone with a curatorial background who will drive the public service ethos of the institution rather than just run it,” Serota says. (more…)

Christie’s will open its new flagship in Beijing this weekend, an 8,600 square foot space on Jinbao Street, in the Dongchen District.  “We are proud to have found Christie’s a new home in Beijing, a city that is characterized by its tremendous cultural heritage and a profound collecting tradition,” Christie’s CEO Patricia Barbizet said in a statement. “Christie’s continues to grow and invest in China and our new Beijing space marks an important milestone during our 250 year mission to connect art and collectors. We look forward to further exchanges with the art community and contributing to the diversified Chinese cultural landscape.” (more…)

JTT Gallery is expanding on the Lower East Side, moving to a 1,500-square-foot second-floor space located at 191 Chrystie.  “Moving was inevitable as we only have 300 square feet of exhibition space at our current location,” founder Jasmin Tsou said. “I’m extremely proud of the ambitious projects we exhibited over the past years in such a small space.” (more…)

A piece in Salon this week charts the recently concluded lawsuit between Marina Abramovic and her former partner Ulay, exploring the politics and economics behind the marketing and sale of performance pieces in the contemporary market.   (more…)

Alice Neel is profiled in the New York Review of Books this week, as a new volume of her work seeks to explore her engaging approach to portraiture, “a tension between the realistic and the expressive, or to put it another way, between the naturalistic and the distorted,” according to Jeremy Lewison, an independent curator and advisor to the Neel estate. (more…)

The Portland Art Museum has announced a major expansion in conjunction and new partnership with the Rothko family, which will see a large number of works from the family’s private holdings loaned to the museum on rotation for the next two decades.  “The partnership with the Rothko family is a homecoming of sorts, enabling us to share with the public major works from the family’s private collection, offer new insight into Rothko’s practice, and honor his legacy in the Pacific Northwest and the international arts community,” says Brian Ferriso, The Marilyn H. and Dr. Robert B. Pamplin Jr. Director and Chief Curator. “Our plans for the Rothko Pavilion bring together the elements of the Portland Art Museum’s mission: to present exceptional works of art, develop exhibitions that take new perspectives on human creativity, and increase public accessibility and inclusion.” (more…)