Christie’s has reported a considerable 25% drop in sales for 2020, while setting a new record for private sales of $1.2 billion for the year.  “It was expected since we entered in the Covid-19 situation and is in line with our forecast around mid-year,” says CEO Guillaume Cerutti. Referring to a decline of around 25 percent compared to 2019, he added, “The biggest part of this drop is with live auctions.” (more…)

Artist Amalia Ulman will premiere her first feature-length film at Sundance in 2021, Indie Wire reports.  The initial slate describes her film El Planeta as such: “amidst the devastation of post-crisis Spain, mother and daughter bluff and grift to keep up the lifestyle they think they deserve, bonding over common tragedy and an impending eviction.” (more…)

A piece published by the Isamu Noguchi museum documents the efforts by the artist to preserve his work after his death, and the pieces which have nevertheless been altered or destroyed in the years following.  The publication offers an interesting look at the situations and conditions for their change, and the impacts on the artist’s work. (more…)

David Hockney has rendered a roaring winter fire for this week’s New Yorker cover, part of the artist’s ongoing series of iPad drawings, created with his custom build program. “In 2018, Jonathan Wilkinson, my technical assistant, said he could make a new app with a mathematician in Leeds,” he says. “It was rather good, and then I got six or seven new brushes custom made.” (more…)

A number of posters have popped up in Poland surrounding the nation’s ongoing Pro-Abortion protests, among them a reproduction of Barbara Kruger’s Your Body is a Battleground.  “The need to control minds and bodies and to destroy difference has been horrifically acted out across centuries and continents,” Kruger said of the renewed interest in this work. “Contestations around gender, race, and class loom larger now than ever.” (more…)

Public museums and galleries in London will close this week, part of the UK’s new phase 3 COVID-19 restrictions. (more…)

The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach will sell a number of works from its collection to fund acquisitions of modern and contemporary work by Latin American, Chicanx and Latinx artists. “MoLAA has a responsibility in terms of representation of Latin American and Latinx art,” says Chief curator Gabriela Urtiaga.  (more…)

Arthur Jafa gets a profile in the New Yorker this week, as he discusses his work and his vision for Black visual arts. “Something I’ve pointed out a million times is that, if you look at Black folk and our visual expressivity, it’s very, very undeveloped in comparison to what we’ve been able to achieve in music,” he says. “It’s undeveloped despite the fact that we come from a visual tradition that’s just as rich as the musical one. There is no contemporary art without African descent. Cubism is Picasso trying to understand African artifacts.” (more…)

France will delay lifting Covid-19 restrictions, meaning museums will remain shuttered for several more week, a move which has drawn fierce criticism from artists and institutions. “We are tired of not being given more consideration. Once more culture is being left on the side of the road,” says actor and director Philippe Lellouche. (more…)

Dawoud Bey does an interview with Aperture this week, reflecting on his life and work since the 1970’s, and the impact of photography in the post-social media landscape. “Photography has had a huge impact on the Black Lives Matter movement as a mass mobilization tool, through which huge numbers of people can see these acts of violence against the Black body on their phone or computer screens,” he says. (more…)

The UK has announced another round of emergency loans totaling over £165m, reserved for the country’s largest arts institutions.  “The loan will enable us to invest in the freelance creative workforce to produce some of the world’s most exciting theatre,” says Lisa Burger of the National Theatre.  “It is a vital lifeline that will form part of our recovery” (more…)

Two French politicians are calling for the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to be renamed after Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President who pushed for the museum’s creation. “The official decision to build the Musée d’Orsay was taken in ministerial council on 20 October 1977, as an initiative of President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing,” says the museum website. (more…)

A piece in the Art Newspaper today writes on the Old Masters Market’s move into the digital sphere, spurred by the demands of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Never have we learned so much about what we can do in such a short space of time. We had to be so nimble,” says Andrew Fletcher, Sotheby’s head of department, Old Master Paintings. (more…)

The curators for the 2021 Istanbul Biennial have been named, with curator Ute Meta Bauer, artist Amar Kanwar, and art historian David Teh taking on the project.  The trio hinted at a focus on ecology and environmental concerns in their statement:  “Rather than a great tree, laden with sweet, ripe fruit, this biennale seeks to learn from the birds’ flight, from the once teeming seas, from the earth’s slow chemistry of renewal and nourishment.” (more…)

The Andy Warhol Foundation is auctioning a selection of holiday themed works by the artist online.  “While Warhol’s style may have shifted starting in the 1960s, his generous spirit and penchant for the holidays was always evident by his creation of works of art as gifts for family, friends, and colleagues throughout his career,” says Michael Dayton Hermann, director of licensing, marketing, and sales at the Andy Warhol Foundation. (more…)

The Smithsonian Institution and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation have joined forces in an effort to build an international network of provenance research on Asian art. “Research on objects from the Asian region has so far been overshadowed by other focal points of provenance research, but the first seminar already showed there is great interest in the topic,” says SPK President Hermann Parzinger. (more…)

Collector Ronald Lauder has made a significant gift of arms and armor to The Met, Art News reports. “When I began thinking about where I wanted my collection to ultimately be displayed, it was only fitting that it would all come back to The Met,” he said. “Just as I have learned and continue to learn at The Met, I know that this collection will educate future generations about this important period in our history.” (more…)

A massive party, standing in for the usual Art Basel revelry and held at the Nautilus Hotel in Miami Beach was raided this week for defiance of Covid-19 procedures. “The police showed up at 8:15 p.m. and literally raided the place and forced everyone to leave,” said one guest. (more…)

Creative Capital has announced a round of 35 new grants totaling $1.75 million in funds.  “We are thrilled to honor these brilliant artists and the powerful, boundary-pushing work that they are creating,” says Leslie Singer, Creative Capital’s interim executive director. “We look forward to seeing these projects grow to make their mark on the world, in spite of the tremendous challenges this year has posed for so many artists.” (more…)

A piece in the Washington Post charts the blowback over the Baltimore Museum of Art’s attempted sale of works from its collection. “There’s one thing the Baltimore episode made clear: Even the most noble of causes, including paying the mostly minority guards a living wage and improving access for the community, can’t be funded by monetizing the collection,” says one insider. (more…)

In an effort to mitigate financial damage caused by the pandemic, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London will remain closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, likely through 2022. “It will take two to three years to get a reasonable recovery, but it could even be five years to reach the pre-Covid highs,” says Tim Reeve, the V&A’s deputy director. “Consumer confidence about busy, enclosed spaces will take a long time to recover.” (more…)

Christie’s and Sotheby’s have been ordered to reveal dealings with the late Jeffrey Epstein, including all dealings and correspondences. (more…)

Arguments have begun in a pair of Supreme Court cases that could drastically change the U.S.’s policies on Nazi-looted art from WWII. “Just imagine there’s a campaign of genocide and as part of that there’s an effort to take all the property including jewelry, art and even the extraction of gold teeth,” said Clarence Thomas. “You could go down the list of the awful things that were done.” (more…)

Museums in Seoul are shuttering again as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the city.  The nation’s health minister has called the city a “covid war zone.” (more…)