Anish Kapoor’s Dirty Corner, the central installation at the artist’s recently opening Versailles Palace commission, has been vandalized with spray paint. The work has already commanded harsh criticism for its subject matter and relationship to French history. “It was lightly sprayed with paint,” says the estate management. “The work is being cleaned.” (more…)
The Art Newspaper profiles the work of Zlot Buell, the art consulting firm that has earned a reputation for discretely advising tech entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley wealth in the contemporary art market, and notes the commonly assumed myth that tech collectors are interested in digital art. “They look at a screen all day long; they don’t need to look at another,” Ms Zlot says. (more…)
The Art Newspaper notes the impact that the soaring price of the Swiss Franc has had on the market at Art Basel this year, pushing Switzerland’s high prices even higher, with prices about 15% higher than last year as a result. “Even the bratwurst is unaffordable,” jokes Andreas Gegner of Sprüth Magers. (more…)
A rare Bernini sculpture that many historians had thought lost or destroyed has been acquired by the Getty Museum. The marble bust of Pope Paul V will “become one of a handful of the most important sculptures in the Getty’s collection, no question,” says Director Timothy Potts. (more…)
The Art Newspaper sits down with Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong to discuss a range of issues with the Guggenheim’s ongoing expansion plans in Finland and Abu Dhabi, including pressures to improve labor conditions through the sub-contractors working on the project. “These are all questions that come under sovereignty; I feel unequipped to answer them,” Armstrong says. “I can state our position: we are in constant dialogue with TDIC and other intergovernmental agencies. It really is top of my mind.” (more…)
Former banker Jonathan Weal is facing prison time after allegedly withholding information on his art collection during bankruptcy proceedings, a collection that included a work recently authenticated as a J.M.W. Turner seascape. “Mr Weal was required by law to declare all property that he owns but failed to do so,” says prosecutor Klentiana Mahmutaj. (more…)
As the Broad Foundation prepares to open its Los Angeles Museum, its founders are on a major buying spree, buying about one work per week to bulk up its collection. The museum already holds the world’s largest collection of works by Cindy Sherman, and is noted as having more Roy Lichtenstein works than anyone else outside the artist’s own foundation. (more…)
Artist Marlene Dumas has been commissioned to paint an altarpiece for St Anne’s Church in Freiberger Platz, Dresden, replacing the current work, which was damaged in WWII. “They are giving me a lot of freedom. I can choose the form. The theme is also open,” Dumas says. “The only ‘restriction’ is that [my painting] should not be too depressing. It should offer some hope.” (more…)
The Smithsonian has acquired the complete records of New York Gallery OK Harris, the renowned downtown dealers who helped launch the careers of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Chamberlain, among others. The collection of paperwork includes exhibition files, correspondence, and other documents from the career of Ivan and Marilynn Gelfmann Karp, the gallery owners. (more…)
Jake and Dinos Chapman are profiled in The Guardian this week, discussing their sprawling Hell installation, and the countless horrors occurring across its expanse of miniature figures, and the first draft of the work’s destruction in a massive warehouse fire. “We heard the Momart warehouse was on fire and drove up to have a giggle because we thought it was full of other YBA art. Then we got a call saying Hell was in there,” Jake Chapman says. “We just laughed: two years to make, two minutes to burn. A smart-assed journo phoned up and said: ‘Is it true that Hell is on fire?’ It was fantastic – like a work of art still in the process of being made, even as it burnt.” (more…)
This week, The Guardian looks at the fates of past years’ Serpentine Pavilion commissions, and their destinations after the work is taken down. With most pavilions sold before they are installed, the article offers a look at the shifts in use and context as works appear in the gardens of Indian steel magnates, or used as a beachside restaurant in the Côte d’Azur in France. (more…)
Artist Bernar Venet’s Venet Foundation and Museum in Le Muy, France, is the subject of a New York Times profile this week, documenting the artist’s impressive collection of major American artists, including Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt, which the artist often secured through barters or purchases on “friend rates.” “Our works had no commercial value,” Mr. Venet says of the works he often traded his own pieces for. “We produced more than we sold.” (more…)
Bloomberg looks at the popularity of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms among collectors, and its prominence in a number of major museum collections, including the recently opened Garage Center in Moscow. “Russians loved Kusama,” says collector Inga Rubenstein. “The work is easy to understand because it’s so beautiful.” (more…)
Dasha Zhukova’s long-awaited Garage Center for Contemporary Art has opened in Moscow’s Gorky Park, designed by architect Rem Koolhaas from a repurposed Soviet-era dining canteen. “We are very happy to work on turning the almost-ruin of vremena goda into the new house for garage,’ says Koolhaas. “We were able, with our client and her team, to explore the qualities of generosity, dimension, openness, and transparency of the soviet wreckage and find new uses and interpretations for them.” (more…)
Climate change activists have concluded a 25-hour long protest against the Tate Modern’s sponsorship by British Petroleum, writing messages and critics on the Turbine Hall floor after facing down a potential use of police force that was not acted upon. “It’s a back-down,” says Liberate Tate member and writer Mel Evans. “Maybe it’s a sign of how much the groundswell of public opinion has shifted that the Tate doesn’t feel like they can shut down this discussion.”
An article in Bloomberg this week traces the path of stolen art from theft through to sale, accounting for the variations in strategy by thieves for maximizing returns on what are often considered unsellable works. “Sometimes people don’t even recognize that the art’s gone missing” says Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, head of the FBI’s art-theft program. “It could be in a storage facility, or in the basement of someone’s house, and it can often be years before anyone notices it’s gone.” (more…)
Artist Mark Bradford is profiled in the New Yorker this week, discussing his work, his early life growing up in Los Angeles, and his recent adventures into performance and stand-up comedy. “I’d seen so many black male comics, with their untouchable heterosexual superiority,” he says. “I thought, well, why not do a piece where we shake that up a little bit?” (more…)
The Guardian notes the recent completion of two new European contemporary art spaces (The Garage Center in Moscow and the Fondazione Prada in Milan) designed by Rem Koolhaas, heralding what some consider a new era in the shape and strategy for cultural centers. “If you want to change the world you also have to decide what you want to keep,” Koolhaas states.
Maccarone Gallery is the latest New York gallery opening an exhibition space in Los Angeles, the New York Times reports. The gallery will take up residence at 300 South Mission Road, a location that inspired gallerist Michele Maccarone. “I saw the space and was very inspired by it,” she says. “The departure point was really the building.” (more…)
Following the example of collectors seeking tax breaks for their donation of art works to museums, artists themselves are seeking more equitable tax treatment for donating works. While collectors currently can claim fair market value for the works they donate, artists themselves can only write off the cost of materials. “It seems to me there is a discrepancy in treatment there”, says Philippe Vergne, director of MOCA. “What’s extraordinary is that artists keep giving.” (more…)
A Los Angeles Judge has rejected a lawsuit against the nation of Spain and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid to return a Camille Pissarro taken from the Cassirer family through forced sale by Nazis in 1939. The painting, Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-midi, Effet de Pluie, was subject to Spanish law, Judge John F. Walter ruled, and therefore could not be removed by his decision. The family plans to appeal. “Museums and governments around the world recognize the need to return Nazi-looted art to its rightful owners,” said Laura Brill, a lawyer for the Cassirer family. “Here, it is undisputed that the Pissarro was owned by the Cassirer family until it was stolen by the Nazis in 1939.” (more…)
Amid a New York State Attorney’s investigation and the resignation of five board of trustee members at Cooper Union, the University’s embattled President Jamshed Bharucha has resigned. Bharucha headed Cooper during its controversial decision to begin charging tuition, and has been the subject of numerous protest actions since. He will take a position as visiting scholar at Harvard. (more…)
A long-running investigation into the contested work Saul and David has resulting in the painting’s reattribution as the work of Rembrandt, an attribution that was previously denied in 1969. “For eight years, a large team of international experts has contributed to the research. A wide range of trusted and innovative research techniques have been employed,” says Mauritshuis Museum Director Emilie Gordenker The result is significant: the Mauritshuis has one of its most famous Rembrandts back.” (more…)
Sotheby’s has announced that its London Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale, scheduled for June 24th, will lead with Edgar Degas’ iconic sculpture Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, estimated at £10-£15 million. “The artist’s ambitious and highly innovative work marks the pinnacle of his achievements as a sculptor, and its forthcoming sale represents a rare opportunity to acquire an icon of Impressionist art,” says Helena Newman, Sotheby’s Co-Head of Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide. (more…)