A piece in Bloomberg this week notes that the sale of the building shared by Andrea Rosen and Luhring Augustine Gallery earned 1,650 percent return on the approximately 10,000-square-foot former garage. The sale was financed by a $25.5 million loan from a fund administered in part by the family company of Jared Kushner. “It feels like it’s time to make the change,” Roland Augustine says. (more…)
Houston’s log-awaited Menil Drawing Institute has an opening date, and will open to the public November 3rd. The new expansion of the museum will feature work by Jasper Johns in its inaugural show. (more…)
The Art Newspaper took to the aisles of Frieze this week to ask small dealers their opinions on a proposed “robin hood” tax for mega-galleries at fairs. “We mustn’t fool ourselves: we live in a neoliberal world and work in a hyper-capitalist industry, and things won’t actually change until the major powers truly understand and see actual value in changing the system from within,” says says Stefan Benchoam of Guatemala City’s Proyectos Ultravioleta. (more…)
Former Walker Museum head Olga Viso has a piece in the New York Times this week, as she reviews the current state of the decolonization movement in the art world, and her own efforts with Sam Durant’s controversial Scaffold work. “I believe that museums must embrace this form of dialogue if they are to remain relevant,” she says, referring to open conversations with diverse groups of community members. “To do so requires radically different models of leadership than we’ve had until now. Yet it is hard to resist entrenchment, and difficult to take a risk. It is even more difficult to fail. But I believe that proceeding with empathy and humility are worth everything.” (more…)
The Art Market Monitor notes increasing focus and interest in the Impressionist and Modern End of the Market, as auctions in New York boast particularly strong prices for works by Picasso and Modigliani. “The balance of excitement this season continues to lean heavily toward the Modern market,” says Marion Maneker. (more…)
A Dutch golden age painting by Jacob Ochtervelt looted by the Nazis will go to auction at Sotheby’s after its repatriated owners decided to sell the work. “This painting is an eloquent manifesto of his genius, and shows us so clearly why he was a genre painter of the first rank alongside Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and Gabriël Metsu,” says George Gordon, the co-chair of the auction house’s Old Masters paintings and drawings department. (more…)
Artist Zadie Smith writes on the work of Deanna Lawson in the New Yorker this week, spotlighting the artist’s powerful portrait photography. “Deana Lawson’s work is prelapsarian—it comes before the Fall,” she writes. “Her people seem to occupy a higher plane, a kingdom of restored glory, in which diaspora gods can be found wherever you look: Brownsville, Kingston, Port-au-Prince, Addis Ababa.” (more…)
Anna Coliva, director of Rome’s prestigious Galleria Borghese is facing charges of absenteeism and defrauding the public purse, Art Newspaper reports. She is accused of frequently clocking in to work before leaving to go to the gym or other outings, according to court filings. (more…)
Katerina Stathopoulou has joined the Public Art Fund as assistant curator, Art News reports. “Her international perspective, wide-ranging experience, and deep connections with artists make her a perfect match for our program,” says director Nicholas Baume. “We look forward to working with Katerina to develop and present exhibitions that transform the urban environment and engage diverse audiences through powerful works of public art.” (more…)
Sean Kelly Gallery will feature a unique booth at this year’s edition of Frieze New York, interviewing collectors for a podcast on collecting and the market. “This is about taking it back to the origins of the art world and why we all originally did this,” says Kelly. “It’s about supporting artists. It’s about asking questions about the ecosystem of the whole endeavor” and “moving into a future that benefits artists, collectors and institutions.” (more…)
Bloomberg asks whether a volatile stock market might actually be a boon for the art market, as collectors look for more stable sites for investment. “In my experience, when the market goes up and down, up and down, that’s good for art,” says dealer Christophe Van de Weghe. “Over the last 30 years, volatility has been very good for us dealers, because that’s when people want to buy a hard asset.” (more…)
David Zwirner proposed a tax structure of sorts for large galleries this week during a talk in Berlin this week, arguing for a tax on larger galleries at fairs and events to help pay for access for smaller galleries. “I do feel that something is wrong with the current system,” he said. “It’s not good that a few galleries are getting more and more market share and the younger galleries are having a harder time to compete.” (more…)
Thomas Dane Gallery now represents Dana Schutz, Art News reports. Schutz will have her first show with the gallery in October 2019 in London. (more…)
The New York Times explores the recent trend in museum curating towards “transhistorical” exhibitions, pairing contemporary works with pieces from deeper into the art historical canon. “What it is trying to do is to say that history lives,” says Sheena Wagstaff, chairwoman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s modern and contemporary art department. (more…)
Firehouse, Engine Company 31, a historic fire station in Lower Manhattan will host “Bring Down the Walls,” a new project by Creative Time that will mix workshops and exhibitions each day with live performances and DJ nights each night. (more…)
Eva Rothschild will represent Ireland at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Ireland’s Minister of Culture, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht has announced. “My intention is to make a sculptural environment which engages with current social changes through embodiment, presence, and materiality,” Rothschild says. “I want to create a situation that suggests multiple sculptural possibilities for rearrangement and reordering in which it becomes difficult to distinguish renewal from collapse.” (more…)
The Documenta exhibition has appointed executive Sabine Schormann, formerly of of Lower Saxony’s Sparkasse bank and the foundation of VGH insurance, as its new CEO. “I see my role as an enabler. I want to strengthen public perception and ensure the greatest possible development of Documenta without intervening artistically,” Schormann says.
The Tate has announced its shortlist for the 2018 Turner Prize, including Forensic Architecture, Naeem Mohaiemen, Charlotte Prodger and Luke Willis Thompson in its list of nominees. The winner of the £25,000 prize of the will be announced in December. “Following a thoughtful and rigorous debate, this year’s jury has chosen an outstanding group of artists, all of whom are tackling the most pressing political and humanitarian issues of today,” says Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain. “This shortlist highlights how important the moving image has become in exploring these debates.”
The New York Times has a piece on Berlin this week, spotlighting the city’s long history as a home for artists and liberal-minded thinkers. “There are big spaces, like TriBeCa and SoHo in the old days,” says painter Sean Scully, who keeps a studio in the city. “It reminds me of that.” (more…)
Julian Opie is featured in The Guardian this week, with the artist reviewing recent works and their processes. “Making art is a fairly odd decision, but people have been doing it since for ever,” he says. “If doodling while on the phone I’m inclined to draw a 3D cube and then another. It’s the fastest way to create imaginary space, another world. I live in London and move through a labyrinth of extruded rectangles like an ant on a computer board. I understand space and see movement by the changing views on these shapes. By simply adding flat squares to the sides of my extruded rectangles I create modern buildings.” (more…)
Sotheby’s will set a new world auction record with Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) at this month’s Impressionist and Modern Sale in New York, with an estimate of more than $150 million. The figure is the highest estimate ever placed on a work of art, and has already been confirmed as a record breaker. “This painting reimagines the nude for the modern era,” says Simon Shaw, the co-head worldwide of Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art department. (more…)
A piece in the New York Times this week notes the increased focus by museums towards Latinx artists. “We’re at a really important point in history where plural curatorial voices can show not just a survey,” says Marcela Guerrero, who was recently hired as the Whitney’s first curator specializing in Latinx artists. “We can now go deeper and start unpacking what Latino art really is.” (more…)
Anicka Yi is interviewed in Frieze this week, discussing her practice and what she sees as the next steps for women in the arts. “In general, I learned fairly early on that cisgender, straight-identifying females tend to not help other women,” she says of her early experience in the arts. “It’s not even a conscious malicious act, in most instances. It’s a deep conditioning that somehow distancing yourself from the perceived ‘weaker pack’, with all its attendant baggage, might advance your uniqueness as an individual, making you less prone to be judged as a ‘vulnerable woman’.” (more…)