The Shed is set to open in New York, a $500-million arts center designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro with the Rockwell Group and focused around championing young and experimental artists. “There are many cultural institutions that are truly world-class in our town, but some of them tend to be about the past,” says Jonathan Tisch, the Shed’s vice chair. “The Shed is about, once again, the future.” (more…)
Artist Lari Pittman is now represented by Lehmann Maupin, Art News reports. “Lari has developed a wholly unique mode of painting and mark-making that is in perfect company with artists in our program,” says David Maupin, one of the gallery’s founders. “Pittman’s embrace of pattern and design through a socio-political lens makes him stand out as a significant painter.” (more…)
Anish Kapoor has created a special artwork for The Guardian commenting on Brexit, rendering a massive gash cutting through the British Isles. “We’ve allowed ourselves as a nation to enter a space of unknowing,” he says. “I can’t help but see it in terms of a depressive self.” (more…)
The Drawing Center has added dealers Valentina Castellani and Almine Ruiz-Picasso, filmmaker and collector Harry Tappan Heher, and financier and collector Jean-Edouard van Praet d’Amerloo as board members. “All four of our new board members are revered and active participants in the international art community, and bring their precious expertise to an already exceptional and dedicated board,” says executive director Laura Hoptman. (more…)
Damien Hirst’s Demon with Bowl from his show in Venice at the Palazzo Grassi has gone on view at the Palms Hotel in Vegas, alongside a $1M party package in the suite the artist designed for the hotel. (more…)
Art in America has a piece this week on the recent trend towards unionization in the art world, and the challenges workers face when trying to unionize. “Nonprofits tend to argue that they have less money and that unionization will wreck them,” says Maida Rosenstein, the president of Local 2110. “You see this especially with social services, but elsewhere, too. A place like the New Museum might also argue that unions are crude outsiders who can’t understand their values.”
Phillips has announced that it will sell 95 works from the Fiterman collection at its various locations and sales over the next year. The most valuable work in the group is a Roy Lichtenstein, Horse and Rider from 1976 that is estimated at $7-10m. (more…)
NADA will stage its own show on Governor’s Island during Frieze Week, opening NADA House as a 34-room exhibition in three houses on the island’s historic Colonels Row, including House 403, where it staged its first show on Governors Island, “Close Quarters,” last year. “We had such a good experience with the project we did there last summer, and we’re excited to be back for a longer run,” says executive director Heather Hubbs. “In the process of staging the project last year, we just learned so much about the island and its history. I thought that it could be something that artists would want to respond to.” (more…)
A piece in the Art Newspaper this week asks why the British Museum is still accepting money from Big Tobacco. “The cigarette companies have never begged art museums to take their money—just the opposite is true,” says Alan Blum, the director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco & Society at the Univeristy of Alabama. “Arts organizations beat a path to Philip Morris and thus in my opinion should be considered full collaborators in the burnishing of the company’s image.” (more…)
The NYT has a piece this week on Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which was intended to anchor the collection of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, but which has not been seen since its purchase. “It is tragic,” says Dianne Modestini, a professor at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and a conservator who has worked on Salvator Mundi. “To deprive the art lovers and many others who were moved by this picture — a masterpiece of such rarity — is deeply unfair.” (more…)
The NYT has a profile on Mary Boone this week, her rise to power, and her current jail sentence for tax evasion. “We used to say that Mary brought the uptown gallery downtown,” says Eric Fischl. “She knew she was showing artists whose work was going to become expensive, she knew the idea of bohemian SoHo was over, and she knew that the relationship the arts had to the media was changing, and that this element of glamour was going to be a part of the telling of the story of art and artist. For good or for worse.” (more…)
Mere hours after artist JR’s installation at The Louvre went on view, his paper covering over the museum’s glass pyramid has been torn to shreds. “The images, like life, are ephemeral,” he posted online about the damage to the work. “Once pasted, the art piece lives on its own. The sun dries the light glue and with every step, people tear pieces of the fragile paper. The process is all about participation of volunteers, visitors, and souvenir hunters.” (more…)
Manhattan dealers Nicelle Beauchene and Franklin Parrasch will collaborate on a new project space called Parts & Labor in Beacon, New York, Art News reports. “It’s definitely a collaboration,” Beauchene says. “It’s super flexible, and we want everyone to feel good.” (more…)
One of Francis Bacon’s iconic “screaming popes” will go on sale at Sotheby’s New York on May 16th, The Guardian reports, carrying an estimate of upwards of $20 million. It is being sold from the collection of Seattle couple Richard Lang and Jane Lang Davis. (more…)
A piece in Vanity Fair this week charts the battle between Larry Gagosian and David Zwirner over the Franz West estate, and the messy “We bumped into each other a couple of times, but there was no love lost on either side after he left,” Zwirner says of his prior working relationship with the artist. (more…)
The exhibition of Kaws’s Companion floating in the harbor of Hong Kong has been cancelled after inclement weather. “After a week of relaxing time at the Victoria Harbour Hong Kong, Companion thanks all fans for visiting, with special gratitude to the marine staff who have worked and safeguarded Companion 24-7 non-stop at the harbor,” says curator Lam Shu-kam. (more…)
The Frick Museum has added four new members to its board. “The Frick will greatly benefit from the strong professional and philanthropic experiences of our new Trustees, all of whom are generous supporters and active members of the institution,” says Ian Wardropper, the director of the Frick. “I look forward to working with them more closely through what promises to be a critical and rewarding time for us.” (more…)
Filmmaker Agnès Varda, whose work has long explored the nuances of humanity, has passed away at the age of 90. “I have been a photographer, then I turned into a filmmaker, then I turned into a visual artist,” Varda said of her career, and her ever-shifting oeuvre. (more…)
Artist Natalie Frank has joined Salon 94, Art News reports. “[Salon 94′ has such an incredible legacy of working with women artists and artists of color and artists with working narrative, both personal and political,” Frank says. (more…)
A blockbuster Van Gogh show at The Tate Britain is under pressure from foundering Brexit negotiations, as British and Dutch governments work to assure the show’s lenders that their works would not be subject to hefty import taxes when they are shipped back from the UK following a possible no-deal Brexit. “Going to the UK was never a problem, but some museums were a bit concerned – would their works be able to come back?” a Dutch government source says. “They wanted guarantees that they would have their works back in time, and without having to pay high import taxes.” (more…)
A painting believed to be a copy of a Botticelli piece has been authenticated as an original produced by the artist’s workshop, The Guardian reports. “Botticelli is very recognizable, and if you know even a little bit about art history, you would look at this painting and say, that’s a Botticelli,” says Rachel Turnbull, English Heritage’s senior collections conservator. “But, for sure, there are things out there that purport to be a Botticelli and probably aren’t. So we just wanted to be very careful about what we were saying.” (more…)
A piece in the NYT spotlights The Shed’s potential contributions to New York, and how it can help improve conditions for the city’s artists. “What the city also needs is less the creation of new spaces and more a reorientation toward funding what might fill the ample range of stages we already have,” says writer Zachary Woolfe. “We need a revision of what cultural giving means: Artists creating new work should be the primary beneficiaries of extended support, not buildings.” (more…)