The New Yorker profiles the Korean art group Tansaekhwa this week, as the group of post-war conceptualists prepare a selling exhibition of work split between Christie’s locations in New York and Hong Kong.  “I am unbelievably happy,” says included artist Ha Chong-Hyun. “I’m eighty-one years old. Back in the day, Koreans didn’t live this long. I shouldn’t be here. But to have this happen in my lifetime, I can’t be more thankful.” (more…)

Rhizome has appointed Zachary Kaplan as the organization’s new executive director.  “Zach is a proven leader and a passionate advocate for Rhizome’s mission. He brings a wealth of experience and a strong vision to this evolving organization, and we’re excited for him to shape the future of Rhizome,” says Greg Pass, the chairman of Rhizome’s board. (more…)

Banksy has announced that the materials from his Dismaland installation in Weston-super-Mare will be sent to migrants and refugee camps in Calais, France.  “All the timber and fixtures from Dismaland are being sent to the ‘jungle’ refugee camp near Calais to build shelters,” a statement on the artist’s site read. “No online tickets will be available.” (more…)

China’s economic slump and campaign against graft has many forecasting slow sales in the country’s once thriving art market, the SCMP reports, although those outside the secondary market remain optimistic.  “Now in fact is a better time because the speculators go away and we can focus on working with seasoned collectors and find new clients,”says Andy Hei, co-chairman and director of Fine Art Asia. “Prices will be more rational.” (more…)

An historic drought in Utah has brought water levels around Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty to their lowest point since 1963, a point which many familiar with the work state is part of the work’s execution.  “The current thinking by most is that Robert Smithson would have loved to see the environmental changes that occur around his artwork, so there is no real talk of intervention,” Bonnie Baxter, the director of the Great Salt Lake Institute. (more…)

Bloomberg looks ahead to the coming November auctions in New York, and previews the ongoing position battles the auction houses are taking as the secondary market continues to skyrocket.  “It is ruthless out there,” said Wendy Cromwell, an art adviser. “You need to do what you need to do in order to get the consignments you want.” (more…)

Soho nonprofit gallery Artists Space will temporarily suspend exhibitions while it sorts out a dispute with its landlords over construction work.  “The underlying agenda is to bully us until we move out,” says gallery executive Stefan Kalmár. “But that is not going to happen.” (more…)

Cheim & Read Partner Adam Sheffer has been appointed as the new president of the ADAA.  “As Chairman of The Art Show, Adam has been an especially important force in shaping the high standard of artistic quality and connoisseurship that distinguishes our fair each year,” said Linda Blumberg, ADAA’s executive director said in a statement. “And through his renowned leadership of Cheim & Read’s rigorous and dynamic program, Adam commands a great deal of respect from his colleagues, making him an ideal successor to Dorsey Waxter’s terrific work.” (more…)

The Whitney’s move to the foot of the Highline has resulted in double the number of visitors during the four month span than the museum saw in the previous year.  “People feel so strongly about the Whitney because it’s a museum that is very much in and of New York,” Museum President Adam Weinberg said. “The Whitney is a spirit, not a place.” (more…)

The French government has thrown its hand in the ring for the purchase of one of the two Rothschild Rembrandts currently offered for sale, part of an effort to split the works between the Netherlands and France, despite the Netherlands seeming desire to take both pieces.  “I’m still confident that we’re heading in the right direction,” says Dutch parliament leader Alexander Pechtold, who is working to secure the pieces. “The seller wants to keep them together and made an arrangement with the Rijksmuseum, so that’s the phase we’re in now.”
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The estate of Philip Guston is now represented by Hauser and Wirth, the New York Times reports.  The gallery will open its first show of the artist’s work in the spring, and was selected “especially because Iwan Wirth has been such a Guston enthusiast for years,” says Musa Mayer, Guston’s daughter. (more…)

An article in Fortune notes the increasing difficulty to authenticate works in the current market, as more and more collectors are willing to resort to litigation to intimidate and block the process.  “One year our legal bill ran up $7 million,” says Joel Wachs, the Warhol Foundation’s director. “The cost to defend them became so great, we got tired of giving money to lawyers. We’d rather be giving it to artists.”  (more…)

Hartwig Fischer has been appointed the new Director of the British Museum, making him the first foreign director in over 200 years.  He will replace the outgoing Neil MacGregor. (more…)

Harvard University has relaunched its Student Print Rental Program, allowing students to rent original prints by artists as impressive as Matisse and Picasso from the school collection, intended for hanging in dorms and student residences.”We want (students) to be inspired by it, to absorb something special in addition to what might already be going up on their walls,” says Jessica Diedalis, the curricular registrar at the Harvard Art Museums. (more…)

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is offering grants to artists for projects addressing the issues of mass incarceration in the United States.  Almost half the 2.2 million people in American prisons are African American, the foundation cited in a statement, making as incarceration rate increase of over 500% in 30 years.  “One in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime,” the foundation continues. “This constitutes an epidemic.” (more…)

The Guardian details the story and industrial efforts behind the move of Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn installation from the English Lake District to Newcastle, featuring the original news article detailing both the creation and movement of the work.  “Today and tomorrow all 23 tons of it will be eased on skids down a 150-yard slope to the road and loaded on to a transporter which will take at least two days to cover the 120 miles to Newcastle,” the article reports. (more…)

Kara Walker has been named the Tepper Chair of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts.  “If anything, I can foster an environment of openness and maybe willingness to live with contentious images and objectionable ideas, particularly in the space of art,” Walker said in a statement. “For me, it gets us to a place where we can talk to those concerns and how as artists we can creatively solve problems when problems arise.” (more…)

The heirs of Peggy Guggenheim have lost their case against the Guggenheim Foundation, seeking to prevent the organization from changing how works are hung at its Venice exhibition space.  The Foundation issued a statement claiming it was “proud to have faithfully carried out the wishes of Peggy Guggenheim for more than 30 years by preserving her collection intact in the Palazzo, restoring and maintaining the Palazzo as a public museum.” (more…)

The ongoing conflict between Dmitriy Rybolovlev and Yves Bouvier takes a new twist this week, as Rybolovlev prepares to return a pair of Picassos he purchased from the dealer in 2013, but which have since been disputed at the property of Catherine Hutin-Blay, the artist’s step-daughter.  Hutin-Bly had been storing the works in one of Bouvier’s warehouses, a move critiqued by Larry Gagosian.  “I’d consider it a terrible conflict of interest and would never keep art long term in the warehouse of a dealer,” he says. (more…)

Anish Kapoor has covered the graffiti on his work Dirty Corner with strips of gold leaf, refusing to remove the graffiti as a French court had ordered, while still concealing it.  The artist noted that the new action turned the piece into “something else, a room still with a painful past, but a piece that first claims the beauty of art”. (more…)

Frieze London has announced its series of artist commissions for the 2015 edition of the fair next month in Regent’s Park, including Brazilian artist Tunga’s recreation of a 1987 work, Siamese Hair Twins, featuring a pair of young girls joined together by their hair.  “It is quite extraordinary, a sight to behold,” says Victoria Siddall, the director of the fair. “There is something ethereal and wonderful about it. People who have seen it when it was originally created say it was something special.” (more…)

The Detroit News has a story on Geoff George this week, the owner of the building Shepard Fairey’s offending artwork appeared on earlier this year, noting the problems of fines and unwanted public attention that the art has brought to his real estate.  “The artist in me was just thrilled. But, almost immediately the building owner side of me kicked in,” George says. “I started to worry … is the city going to hit me with a blight violation? How badly is my building going to be targeted?” (more…)

The Musée D’Orsay closed today following a worker strike, protesting a proposal to keep the museum open to the public seven days a week, beginning this coming November.  A decision will be reached in the coming day whether or not the strike will continue. (more…)

An oil painting on a wooden board is suspected to be an early work by Rembrandt, after it sold for $870,000 in a New Jersey auction, estimated originally at $500-$800.  The painting is suspected to be part of the artist’s early Five Senses series, his first painted works, possibly executed while studying under Pieter Lastman. (more…)