Sotheby’s has reported a net loss of $27.8 million for the third quarter, a 19 percent drop over the same period last year.  “With respect to the market conditions,” says Sotheby’s president and CEO Tad Smith, “there are uncertainties, including political noise here and abroad, as well as rising interest rates and slowing global growth.” (more…)

Houston’s Menil Drawing Institute is set to open this weekend following a lengthy construction proces. “We’ve been sticklers and are proud of it,” says director Rebecca Rabinow. “I’m very proud of this board of trustees, that they agreed to slightly delay the opening in order to take the time to get everything right. Because when you walk into this building, it shows.” (more…)

The New York Times does another spotlight on Andy Warhol’s business practices this week, exploring how his work set the stage for so many artists exploring the nuances of business and commerce as aspects of their work. “I think it’s impossible to make art today without somehow taking that on board,” Damien Hirst says. “I think business in art is more important than politics.” (more…)

As MoMA prepares to open its landmark Andy Warhol retrospective, Bloomberg takes an inside look at the market, noting the artist’s recent lull in auction prices but his uptick in private sales. “It’s not a market that’s on fire, making big moves,” says Evan Beard, an art-service executive for Bank of America’s U.S. Trust unit. “It’s a little soft.” (more…)

Art Basel Hong Kong has revealed the exhibitor list for its forthcoming edition, running March 29 to 31 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The show will include 240 galleries with 21 of them showing at the fair for the first time. (more…)

Lévy Gorvy gallery has added Bona Yoo as sales director, based in NYC. “She has deep knowledge and passion for 20th century art, and has an incredible global network, with expertise and experience working in Asia, and Korea in particular,” Lévy said in a statement. (more…)

A group of artists including Mickalene Thomas and Julia Wachtel are interviewed in the NYT this week, discussing the impact Andy Warhol had on their lives and art. “I remember going to MoMA and seeing his Campbell Soup Cans (1962), and it was at that moment I decided to become an artist,” Wachtel says. “What makes Warhol the gold standard is the utter elegance, simplicity and directness of his paintings — his ability to distill a world of information out of a picture through minimal but brilliant intervention.” (more…)

The third edition of Untitled, Art in San Francisco will take place at Pier 35 on the city’s waterfront Embarcadero, from January 18 to 20, 2019. Last year’s fair was held at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. “It became apparent that, as challenging as it is to move close to the date of the fair, we were going to be able to provide a much stronger experience for not only our exhibitors but our visitors,” says director Manuela Mozo. (more…)

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will invest $20 million into arts organizations in Detroit over the next five years, the Detroit Free Press reports. “Great art, tough art, challenging art helps to tell a great city’s own story. Nowhere is this more true that today’s Detroit,” says Alberto Ibarguen, president of the Knight Foundation. “This is the place where art, culture and design have changed the narrative of a community. And in the art world, Detroit has become the new Berlin.” (more…)

Venice Musuems have reopened after severe flooding caused closures across the city.  The city’s floods, caused by a weekend storm, saw an exceptional high tide that left 75% of the city underneath several feet of water. (more…)

Painter Alex Katz is profiled in The Guardian this week, holding court on a range of subjects from his favorite painters to his current workload. “My production has gone insane,” he says. “I work seven days a week.” (more…)

In a bizarre twist, Former Met Director Thomas Campbell will head up the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, taking over for Max Hollein, the director who left to take Campbell’s old job in New York. “I am deeply gratified to take up the responsibility of leading the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,” Campbell says. “It is a great privilege to become part of an institution with such outstanding curatorial expertise and famously loyal audiences and supporters, and I am especially pleased to have the opportunity to continue the great work done by my friend and predecessor Max Hollein.” (more…)

Juergen Teller gets an interview in The Guardian this week, and notes his recent experience teaching, as well as the proliferation of photography thanks to smartphones. “I do like holding something in my hand – a piece of paper, books and magazines. I think it’s highly questionable what the role of a normal fashion photographer is now – I’m not sure that still exists,” he says. “On the iPhone, on Instagram, even a shit picture looks kind of good. It’s only in a magazine, in a long fashion story which has to unfold, that you can see an image doesn’t work.” (more…)

Two Massachusetts Arts Organizations, The Barr Foundation and Klarman Family Foundation will partner on a new $25 million initiative in support of Massachusetts arts institutions, Artforum reports. “Arts and cultural organizations have enormous potential to add value to the vibrancy, social wellbeing, and creative economies of their communities,” the project website reads. “Yet, amidst rapid change in our communities and broader society, these organizations must also grow and change.”  (more…)

Jeff Koons will get a “mini-retrospective” at the Ashmolean in Oxford, Art Newspaper reports, the first retrospective of his work in the UK. “It’s a poetic, miniature retrospective with a concentration on recent work,” says co-curator Norman Rosenthal. (more…)

Yayoi Kusama is threatening legal action against several exhibitions allegedly using counterfeit versions of her works, The Guardian reports. “These dishonest acts are a violation of public morals and decency of a notably malicious nature, and are a contemptible transgression of the originality and copyrights of all artists,”The Yayoi Kusama Foundation said in a statement. “We therefore strongly condemn these actions.” (more…)

The New York Times looks at the changing face and roles of the art gallery in a market where art fairs remain a major part of doing business, with mega-galleries evolving into varied economic ventures. “We are a business and are unashamed to be a very, very successful one,” says Hauser & Wirth’s Marc Payot. “We want to create a multidimensional global enterprise that connects the realms of art, architecture, education, food, and environmental responsibility.” (more…)

A minor fire erupted by a Mary Corse work at Dia:Beacon this week, causing an evacuation. According to a spokesperson, the piece is “currently undergoing a full assessment with our conservation team and we are further investigating what caused the element to overheat.” (more…)

Maya Lin gets a profile in the New York Times this week, as she opens a new show and commission at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, N.Y. “Maya is a continuation of great American artists who appreciate the beauty and power of nature,” museum director Miwako Tezuka says. “What better place to do that show than the Hudson River Museum?” (more…)

The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has donated $5 million to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. “This extraordinary gift reinforces our work to add to our existing collections on underrepresented artists and enables us to share an ever more inclusive story of American art globally,” says Kate Haw, the director of the Archives of American Art. “The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation’s wonderful generosity will lead to further research in under-recognized areas of our field, future exhibitions, and publications, connecting people everywhere with the stories of a wider range of artists.” (more…)

Art Basel Miami Beach will phase out its Art Public sector this year, instead presenting a free Abraham Cruzvillegas performance inside the Miami Beach Convention Center’s new hall. “We’re obviously thrilled the renovation is behind us after several years working through that,” says Noah Horowitz, Americas director for Art Basel. “That’s what’s driving a lot of this. We looked at this as an extraordinary opportunity. We’ve never had anything to play with that’s connected to the (main exhibition) floor and that offers such a vast expanse of space.” (more…)

Phillips head Edward Dolman gets a spotlight in NYT this week, as his auction house continues an impressive growth he made a priority when he took his position four years ago. “I feel blessed to have been released from the pressure of these high-profile sales at auction that are so full of risk and so damaging to the shareholder value if they go wrong,” Dolman says. “I’m very pleased with the progress.” (more…)

Artist Mark Grotjahn gets a profile in the WSJ this week, as the opens a new show in Los Angeles. The piece also reflects on Grotjahn’s impressive degree of market freedom, showing with a range of galleries. “It doesn’t bother me,” says dealer Larry Gagosian. “We’ve developed a bit of a shorthand over the years for how he wants things handled.” (more…)

Artist Natascha Sadr Haghighian will represent Germany at the Biennale next year, working under the name Natascha Süder Happelmann.  The artist’s research-intensive work follows up the Golden Lion-winning pavilion by Anne Imhof in 2017. “Over a period of around thirty years, a collection of name variations has been accumulating in the artist’s memory and in other places. The different versions have arisen mainly as a result of misspelling and autocorrect when the artist was addressed by public authorities. . . . Following careful analysis of the variations available, a particular version of the name was selected,” a spokesperson says of the artist’s choice of names. (more…)