Sotheby’s has posted a $25.9 million loss for the first quarter of 2016, a figure attributed to its expenditure to buy out Amy Cappelazzo’s art advisory business, and the staff buyouts that it launched simultaneously.  “The days of the two major auction houses making big losing bets on guarantees just to gain market share may be behind us, but many other challenges face both houses in a choppy market,” says lawyer Thomas C. Danziger. “The next two weeks may well be a watershed moment for Sotheby’s.” (more…)

Marseilles is set to host the Manifesta art exhibition in 2020, the Art Newspaper reports, following this year’s edition in Zurich later this summer, and the 2018 edition in Palermo.  It will be the first Manifesta held in France.   (more…)

The Guardian speaks with Wolfgang Tillmans this week, as the artist continues his advocacy for the UK to stay in the European Union.  “It feels like maybe we are sleepwalking into a big, wrong decision. I don’t want to wake up on 24 June and feel I have not done enough to prevent that happening. It’s so important. I want to put all my energy behind it.” (more…)

Artist George Condo is featured on CNN this week, as he prepares to open an exhibition of new work at Sprüth Magers in LA, his first show in Los Angeles in 20 years. “I think the legacy of my painting will be the fact that they maintain a life beyond the artist,” he says. “That they are alive, that there’s really somebody real inside of these kind of abstract figures, that you can feel the soul of somebody.” (more…)

Washington, D.C.’s Hirshhorn Museum is preparing the first survey of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms, set to open next year.  The show will also include a series of the artist’s paintings and installations.  “The real value… is connecting the work she did in the 1960s to her work today through the Infinity Rooms,” says Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu. (more…)

Julian Schnabel is moving to Pace Gallery, the New York Times reports, concluding a loose association with Gagosian Gallery (which issued a statement that it never officially represented the artist). “I wanted to have a more human relationship with the person who was representing my work,” Schnabel said. “A dialogue between a dealer and an artist is important.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei will return to the U.S. this summer for the first time since regaining his passport, the Art Newspaper reports. His trip is planned to to coincide with the Andy Warhol-Ai Weiwei exhibition at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. (more…)

The WSJ’s Kelly Crow has written an expansive profile on Sotheby’s recent reshuffling, noting the departure of at least 14 ranking specialists, and the auction house’s attempts to reshape its business under Amy Cappellazzo, the chairwoman of of the auction house’s new fine-art division. “The issue is we need to look like an art business, not an old-fashioned auction house,” Cappellazzo says. (more…)

The New Yorker takes a look at new work by Christian Marclay, in which the artist has filmed and edited together images of cigarettes and other detritus to show jumps in time and space.  “The burning cigarette is the twentieth-century symbol of time,” Marclay says in an earlier interview. “As a memento mori, we used to show a candle, but a cigarette is so much more modern. Yet it’s the same thing—you see time burning.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles Larry Gagosian’s soon to open exhibition space in San Francisco, and timing for the gallery’s move.  “The emerging collector base in Silicon Valley and the reopening of SFMOMA made it a perfect time to open in San Francisco,” Gagosian says. (more…)

Aby Rosen must pay $7 million in settlement to cover taxes he failed to pay on over $80 million worth of art he purchased in recent years.  “Law-abiding New Yorkers should not be stuck footing the bill for those who fail to pay their fair share,” state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said of the case. (more…)

The Whitney’s chief curator, Scott Rothkopf is profiled in the New York Times this week, and noted for his embrace of emerging artists and focus on dynamic programming.  “He has really reinvigorated the contemporary program,” says director Adam D. Weinberg. “What he’s doing is recognizing young talent and people who work hard and moving them up. It’s important for a museum devoted to contemporary art not to just have curators who are over 60.” (more…)

A fire at artist Rosemarie Trockel’s Cologne home has destroyed around $34 million in art from her personal collection, Artforum reports.  Police suspect an electrical fire, but have not yet ruled on the cause of the blaze.

(more…)

Amsterdam’s Vincent Van Gogh Museum is spearheading a new program in which it will rent out professional and consulting services to collectors, corporations, and other groups.  “Museums are used to a different type of outreach that is more about sharing their knowledge and collection, but not in the commercial, contractual manner,” said France Desmarais of the International Council of Museums in Paris. “What’s unique is that they are using their expertise to commercialize, in a sense, but museums have been doing revenue-generating activities for a long time.” (more…)

Olafur Eliasson is planning a giant water fountain for his Versailles commission this summer, playing on one originally designed for the palace grounds during its construction, which was abandoned due to the logistics concerned with pumping water for its operation.   “Of course I could tell you how many meters it is, but I am not going to because we need to leave it to the audience to make up their minds how high is high,” he said. (more…)

The Museum of Modern Art is offering a contract buyout for employees aged 55 or older with at least nine years of service as of July 31, as the museum prepares for curtailed activity during its ambitious renovation.  “The museum is in a transitional stage in terms of the scope of its operations, which are at a reduced level during the renovation period,” the museum said in a statement. “The program is entirely voluntary and is intended to benefit staff who are considering retirement this year.” (more…)

The WSJ profiles Dan Colen’s upstate farm project, where the artist’s full crop output is donated to the New York City Food Bank.  “Art turned out to be way more of a business than I ever intended,” Colen says of his venture.  “The last thing I need is more business.” (more…)

Maurizio Cattelan is interviewed in the Financial Times this weekend, as he prepares to re-stage his 1994 work Enter at Your Own Risk — Do Not Touch, Do Not Feed, No Smoking, No Photographs, No Dogs, Thank you at Frieze New York, an installation the features a live donkey in a small room at the fair.  “Based on my experience it’s considerably difficult to force a donkey into doing something it perceives to be dangerous for whatever reason,” Cattelan says of concerns for the animal’s safety. (more…)

Marisol, the Venezuelan-American artist who carved sculptural portraits of politicians, historical figures, and other iconic figures of contemporary life, has passed away at the age of 85.  The artist, who first saw success during the early 1960’s, often blurred the iconography of pop art through mediations on the body and her craft that complicated classifications of her work.  Yet her appeal was undeniable, and her unique approach to sculptural figuration earned her recognition.  “She was an incredibly significant sculptor who has been inappropriately written out of history,” Marina Pacini, chief curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, who organized a traveling survey of the artist’s work, says. “In the 1960s, she had more press and more visibility than Andy Warhol.” (more…)

The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts has announced its first round of commissions in Los Angeles, among them a miniature golf course running through the city’s Skid Row neighborhood, which examines and underlines how zoning policy directly affects and reshapes cities.  “Zoning is something that is both totally fundamental to the way a city works and the way it feels and who gets supported and who gets booted from the city,” says artist Rosten Woo, one of the organizers of the piece. (more…)

The Art Newspaper notes the increased popularity of heritage French artists in recent years, in part based on attractive market prices, and a previous lack of institutional attention.  “In France, we don’t always do enough to celebrate our own,” Pompidou Director Bernard Blistène says. (more…)

Simon de Pury is the subject of a profile piece on NPR this week, offering some backstory on the auctioneer, and his strategy on building his former company, Phillips de Pury, into a force in the contemporary market.  “I didn’t have the means, the financial means to take on the two houses frontally. So we thought, let’s develop areas in which we become the best,” he says.  “So we thought we go to do contemporary art, emerging contemporary particularly, design and photography. And in these fields, we just become the best.” (more…)

Artists Space is leaving its Greene Street home, following its landlord’s decision to build a penthouse atop the building, a project that would cause considerable delays and interruptions to its exhibition schedule.  The space is looking to move “into a neighborhood where artists currently live and work, which has not been the case for a long time in SoHo,” says Director Stefan Kalmar. (more…)

Wim Delvoye has purchased a series of desert mansions in the Iranian city of Kashan, which he will use as exhibition and studio space.  “I’m not going to live for ever. Giving back means giving something to the art world, supporting the local art scene,” Delvoye says.  (more…)