MoMA has announced the recipient of its 2016 Young Architects Program award, a massive awning constructed from strands of string, and hung over the MoMA PS1 Courtyard. The work, designed by Escobedo SolÃz Studio, is described as “neither an object nor a sculpture standing in the courtyard, but a series of simple, powerful actions that generate new and different atmospheres.” (more…)
Dealer Larry Gagosian and the Qatar royal family have reached a temporary agreement on the ownership of the Picasso bust currently in dispute. The work will be held at Gagosian Gallery until its the conflict is adjudicated. The disagreement around the work revolves around multiple sales of the piece, with both the royal family and Gagosian claiming purchase of the piece from the artist’s daughter, Maya Widmaier-Picasso. (more…)
The WSJ looks at the efforts of The Met to cater to more contemporary and modern art in its collections and exhibitions, noting the challenges the storied institution faces from the city’s great number of curators, museums and galleries, and its vision for the future. “The Met used to talk about itself as 17 museums under one roof, and I have very actively been seeking to break down that notion,” says Director Thomas Campbell. “We are a single museum with a single collection.” (more…)
The LA Times profiles Thomas P. Campbell, and his tenure as Director of the Met, including his work on the Breuer Building project, and the difficult financial straits he was thrust into when he took the position in 2008. “It was by no means a slam dunk,” he says. “I spent the first six months of being director going through a contraction of the institution. We had to contract by 10%. And while we were doing that, we were trying to plan for the future.” (more…)
Yves Bouvier is the subject of a lengthy profile by the New Yorker this week, focusing not only on his history as head of the National Le Coultre freeport and his current conflicts with Dmitriy Rybolovlev, but also on the logistical systems that he oversees as the company’s owner. “To be invisible is the best way to make business,” he says. (more…)
The Temptation of St. Anthony, a work held in the collection of a Kansas City museum, and long attributed to the followers of Hieronymus Bosch, has been authenticated as a work of Dutch master himself after analysis in the Netherlands. “It’s the same painting, and all of a sudden you see it with more affection,” says Julián Zugazagoitia, director and CEO of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, which owns the work. “It’s like your child who just won the Nobel Prize. You love your child just as much, but you’re bragging more about it to your cousins and friends.” (more…)
The Louvre and the nation of Iran have negotiated a historic deal agreeing to shared exhibitions, and collaborations on publications, scientific visits and training sessions, as well as cooperation on archaeological digs. The agreement was signed during an Iranian diplomatic visit in Paris, at the Elysée Palace. (more…)
Continuing his show of solidarity with Syrivan refugees on the Greek isle of Lesbos, Ai Weiwei has posed in a photograph recreating the scene of a drowned Syrian child. “The image is haunting and represents the whole immigration crisis and the hopelessness of the people who have tried to escape their pasts for a better future,” says India Art Fair co-owner Sandy Angus. (more…)
A rightwing group in Israel has drawn criticism for attacks on Israeli artists and writers, who they have accused of being “infiltrators inside [Israeli] culture.” “Every time publicly elected officials in the state of Israel try to undertake the task they were given in the most democratic and legitimate way by the people,” says Matan Peleg, the head of the group, “we encounter an automatic smear campaign by ‘people of culture’ who try to paint themselves as enlightened, as progressive and as ‘knowing better’ than the public.” (more…)
Pyotr Pavlensky, the Russian dissident and artist who last year set fire to the doors of the Federal Security Service in Moscow, has reportedly been sent to Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry for evaluation. The center has a reputation for diagnosing political activists as insane during the Soviet era. “The Investigative Committee wants to demonstrate that I am crazy,” Pavlensky said in an interview several months ago. “And to show their own craziness, I do what they want, but my way.” (more…)
Jean Dubuffet will be the subject of a two floor exhibition at the Acquavella Gallery later this Spring, the New York Times reports. “A lot of people don’t realize how good he is,” says curator Mark Rosenthal. “We’re hoping this will change that.” (more…)
The Indonesian capital of Jakarta is set to open its first international contemporary art museum, Museum MACAN, in 2017. It is being funded by businessman and collector Haryanto Adikoesoemo. “I want the Museum MACAN to develop and advance the understanding of Indonesians about art and the appreciation of art,” he says. “I also want this museum to help cross-pollinate exchanges with Indonesia and the world, to provide a platform for Indonesian art internationally and to bring international art to Indonesia.” (more…)
The Wall Street Journal’s Kelly Crow diagnoses the symptoms of the market’s “cooling off” this week, pointing to falling oil prices and unsteady stock prices as deleterious to buying confidence. “We’ve been hoping for a slight correction to bring some sanity to this market,” says Suzanne Gyorgy, head of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory and Finance. “The way prices were climbing, the whole thing was starting to feel artificial.” (more…)
A survey released this week by the city’s Cultural Affairs Department shows that New York City’s cultural sector fails to match the diversity of the city populace. “When it comes to making sure that every resident has an equal opportunity to contribute to this extraordinary cultural community, we need to lead by example,” Mayor de Blasio says. “This survey will help us find ways to foster a creative sector that opens doors for every New Yorker, regardless of their background.” (more…)
Erwin Wurm is interviewed in The New York Times this week, as he prepares to open a show of his One Minute Sculptures at the MAK Centre’s Schindler House this week. “What I like here is the minimal, nearly Japanese structure,” Wurm says. “He was escaping a powerful social structure in Austria, and my work also deals with questions of freedom: freedom of choice, free will, economic dependence.” (more…)
Hauser and Wirth, Massimo de Carlo and Andrea Rosen are partnering together to present a trio of shows focused on the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, organized by artists Roni Horn and Julie Ault. “Our engagement with Gonzalez-Torres’s work focuses on the essence and function of particular forms integral to his practice, distinct from curatorial modes often applied to his work that use a ‘one of these and one of that’ method to present a multiplicity of forms,” the artists said. (more…)
The Tate Modern has set the opening date for its new expansion at June 17th, announcing that its new space will launch with an exhibition of work by Louise Bourgeois. (more…)
Thornton Dial, the African American artist whose vivid brand of sculptural abstraction and assemblage earned the artist a place in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art at the Met, passed away this week at the age of 87 in his McCalla, Alabama home. “I’d never seen any artist’s works,” Mr. Dial said in 1997. “I can’t copy off anybody because it’s something I do my own self.” (more…)
Ai Weiwei has pulled his work form exhibitions in Denmark in protest over the country’s controversial new law allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees. “I am very shocked about yesterday’s news that the Danish government has decided to seize refugees’ private property,” he wrote in an open letter to ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, where he is currently showing work. “As a result of this regrettable decision, I must withdraw from your exhibition ‘A New Dynasty.Created In China’ to express my protest of the Danish governments’ decision. Please accept my regrets and thank you for your long-term support. I apologize for the inconvenience caused,” the artist wrote. (more…)
Agnes Gund is expanding her Studio in a School arts education program nationally, founding a Studio Institute to lead arts education initiatives around the country for low income students. (more…)
Christie’s announced its total sales for 2015 this week, tallying a total of $7.4 billion that sees sales down 5 percent from the previous year, although the company also notes that figure as second-highest total in company history. “You never know going into 2016, because you always start from scratch,” said Stephen Brooks, Christie’s deputy chief executive. “But at the moment we’ve entered the year with the wind in our sails.” (more…)