Art Basel’s Popular large-scale installation section, Unlimited, has released a 74-artist roster for its upcoming edition next month in Switzerland, including work by Martin Creed, Olafur Eliasson, Jeppe Hein, Robert Irwin, and many more.   (more…)

In a perhaps unprecedented move, the entire first year class at USC’s Roski School of Arts MFA Program have dropped out of the program, protesting moves by Dean Erica Muhl to overhaul the department’s structure and funding models.  “Whatever artistic work we created this spring semester was achieved in spite of, not because of, the institution,” the seven students wrote in an open letter announcing their withdrawal.  “Because the university refused to honor its promises to us, we are returning to the workforce degree-less and debt-full.” (more…)

In a single week, Christie’s has sold over $1 billion in art, a daunting feat that signals a new level for the global market perhaps never seen before.  “It’s a spectacle of excess at the highest level,” says Abigail Asher of Guggenheim Asher Associates Inc. “The last few years have been building up to this moment. A new class of buyer has entered the market and they’re prepared to pay staggering sums for trophy pictures.”   (more…)

Two of the most valuable works from the Cornelius Gurlitt collection, Woman with a Fan, (1923) by Henri Matisse, and Two Riders on a Beach (1901) by Max Liebermann, will be returned to the families of their original owners.  “Thankfully Gurlitt liked our Liebermann and kept it prized on his wall,” says Mr. Matteis, the lawyer representing David Toren, heir to the Liebermann work. (more…)

Painter Zeng Fanzhi is the subject of a video profile on Nowness this week, shot in Paris and exploring his work and stance towards creating.  “An artist should follow his heart, create, then keep moving,” he says.  “If you keep repeating yourself than that’s a waste of the artistic life.” (more…)

The Shortlist for the 2015 Turner Prize has been announced, featuring a diverse body of artists and practices that diverges wildly from last year’s heavily video and film-centric affair.  The 2015 Prize exhibition will be staged this year at the Tramway arts venue in Glasgow.  The Turner Prize, a £25,000 award, is Britain’s most prominent recognition in the arts, and this year will go to either London artist Bonnie Camplin, German-born artist Nicole Wermers, London-based arts collective Assemble (which adopted an abandoned housing estate and converted it into a new community space), or artist Janice Kerbel.  Working in a wide variety of media, social practice and community milieu factor heavily into the pieces on view this year.

The Turner Prize exhibition will open this October in Glasgow. (more…)

W Magazine takes a look inside the home of Frieze director Victoria Siddall and her partner, gallerist François Chantala this week, just in time for the opening of the organization’s New York edition.  “Our work and social lives are totally continuous and intertwined,”Siddall says.  “But when we’re in the same city, it means that at least we get to see each other in the evenings. The art lot always knows how to put on a great party.” (more…)

The New York Times visits Michael Heizer at his Nevada ranch and studio, and explores his ongoing project City.  “It epitomizes a fusion of ancient and modern forms,” Heizer says.  “It’s huge in size, but antimonumental in its relentless horizontality and its sinuous, continuous curves. It’s also unphotographable and impossible to capture in its totality. It has to be experienced in time and space — over time, and distance.” (more…)

Artist and dealer Dorothee Fischer, who headed the Konrad Fischer gallery in Düsseldorf, and advocated for artists like Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, and Blinky Palermo, has passed away at the age of 78.  Fischer’s tireless, focused work in conceptual and minimal art built a dedicated group of artists around her, and she in turn built an impressive collection of 250 works, alongside her gallery archives, both of which were purchased by the Kunststiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen for over $1 million.   (more…)

Bloomberg takes a look at the vast number of fairs and auctions taking place this month, and the growing move by these sellers to diversify as the art fair model matures.  “The best collectors don’t just buy contemporary art,” said Michael Plummer, whose New York-based consultancy Artvest Partners owns the Spring Masters fair. “They might have Renaissance painting and antiquities and modern art.” (more…)

The endlessly prolific Hans Ulrich Obrist has a new book out this week, titled Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects, tracing a series of the artist’s ongoing conversations with artists and designers over the course of his career, including pieces with David Hockney and Marina Abramovic. (more…)

An article in The Guardian looks at the current art community in Los Angeles, and asks if perhaps the Californian metropolis now offers better opportunities for artists than New York City’s vaunted art scene.  There’s a lot of people helping each other out here,” says artist David Flores. “And there’s a lot more room to play with, more elbow room.”  (more…)

French art dealer Olivier Thomas is under investigation after Catherine Hutin-Blay, the step-daughter of Pablo Picasso, filed charges accusing him of allegedly stealing artworks he was meant to be transporting and storing for her.   (more…)

Leo Fitzpatrick, the former star of Larry Clark’s film Kids, and longtime director of the Nate Lowman project space Home Alone 2, will join Marlborough Chelsea as a gallery director.  “I’m very proud of what I was able to accomplish with Home Alone over those three years, but generally it was me taking art on the subway, trying to put on these shows,” Fitzpatrick says. “I’m really excited about having help, and people to bounce ideas off of. We can really do big things. If I was able to do so much with so little, imagine what I can do here.” (more…)

London’s Royal Academy of Art has unveiled a £50 million expansion plan that will link the institution’s two buildings in the British capital’s Mayfair district.  “You will be able to go from an exhibition in Burlington House to a lecture in Burlington Gardens through the vaults of the building,” says Sir David Chipperfield, who designed the project.  “You will see the cast corridors, you will see where the schools have been all this time. It’s a small amount of architecture for a profound result.” (more…)

Cecily Brown is profiled in New York Magazine this week, as the artist opens an exhibition of new work at Maccarone Gallery in the West Village, smaller works that mark a shift in her career after ending her relationship with Gagosian Gallery.  “People would see them and say, ‘Are they studies for the big ones?’” Brown says.  “I joked that the big ones had become studies for the small ones. The big ones seemed very fast and loose, and the small ones were very neurotic. There was a while I called them ‘The Neurotic Paintings.’ They were so intense, very painterly, the paint got thicker. You have to believe the viewer has a more intimate relationship because you have to get up close.” (more…)

David Hockney is the subject of an interview in The Guardian this week, revisiting his life among movie stars and artists during the 1960’s, contrasted with his intense work ethic.  “I thought I was a hedonist at the time, but when I look back I was always working,” he says.  “I am always working. I work every day. I never give parties; I never gave them.” (more…)

Adding an additional facet to his collaboration with Barney’s, Alex Katz has created a 60-foot mural of Yvonne Force Villareal, Doreen Remen and Casey Fremont of the Art Production Fund, his wife, Ada, and longtime muse Elizabeth McAvoy for exhibition in the store’s front windows.  “I’ve been involved in fashion for quite some time and it seems natural to me,” Katz says.  “Art is supposed to be eternal and fashion is always moving, but I’ve learned that art moves just like fashion.” (more…)

The Renzo Piano Workshop has unveiled a handbag design collaboration with fashion designer Max Mara, taking the facade of the Whitney Museum as its inspiration.  Proceeds from the bag’s sale will go to benefit the Renzo Piano Foundation.  “We tried to maintain a simple, pure design,” says the architect, “working only on the details by applying a creative use of technology and placing the accent on respect for the materials.” (more…)

A number of artists are voicing their concern over the Frick’s proposed expansion plan, which would eliminate a garden by the British designer Russell Page.  “As professionals working in the art world,” says an open letter signed by Chuck Close, Rachel Feinstein, Lisa Yuskavage, and Frank Stella, among others, “we strongly believe that the Frick’s effectiveness as a display space lies in its intimacy.  Replacing the hall and garden with an institutional 106-foot tower will indeed destroy the famed Frick experience for artists and art lovers around the world.” (more…)

The New York Times takes a look at the work of Chuck Close this week, as the artist prepares to open a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum, examining his use of exacting photographic techniques and his approach to painting.  “I approach all subjects the same,” Close says. “Of course I can’t collaborate with a flower the same way I can with a human, but there is an inherent sensuality in a flower that relates to the nudes, and the close-up details of the flowers are equally revelatory.” (more…)

The Iranian government has adopted a new policy using billboards in Tehran to exhibit classic works of art rather than the usual consumer products and political slogans.  “It’s pretty exciting. It’s wonderful to see billboard ads of laundry machines or big corporate banks being replaced by a Rembrandt or a Cézanne or a Picasso, what better than that?” says journalist Sadra Mohaqeq. “For 10 days, people have time off from the usual billboard ads just promoting consumerism. It is going to affect people’s visual taste in a positive manner.” (more…)

Bloomberg is reporting that Wang Zhongjun, the Chinese movie executive of Huayi Brothers Media Corp. is the buyer of Picasso’s Femme au Chignon dans un Fauteuili, which sold for $29.9 million at Sotheby’s this week.  The purchase is somewhat ironic, given that the sellers were members of Hollywood’s film production dynasty, the Goldwyn family.  “I first fell in love with the painting and then I fell in love with its story,” Wang said after the sale. “I can see not only Pablo Picasso’s genius, but also Samuel Goldwyn Sr.’s creative vision.” (more…)

Adrian Piper, Everything #21 (2010-2013)

The awards for the 56th Venice Biennale have been announced, with the Armenian National Pavilion taking home the Golden Lion for best exhibition, Adrian Piper winning the Golden Lion for best artist in the main exhibition, and El Anatsui winning the Lifetime Achievement award.  A full list of awards is included below: (more…)