MoMA PS1 curator Jenny Schlenzka will take the helm at downtown performance space PS122 as its artistic director, the NYT reports. Ms. Schlenzka was the organizer behind PS1’s popular Sunday Sessions program. “The theater world is very patriarchal,” she says. “To change that is going to be exciting, and it’s going to release a new energy. New ideas will come up.” (more…)
The Polish government has acquired the collection of Polish-Spanish aristocrat Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski, which includes Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine and Rembrandt’s Landscape with the Good Samaritan, for the price of $118 million, a move which led to the resignation of the Princes Czartoryski Foundation in protest over the “illegal” sale, and over fears that the nation may break the collection up for resale. “It was only a deposit and the Czartoryski foundation could sell them or replace them,” says a spokeswoman for the National Museum in Krakow. “Now the collection is owned by the Polish nation.” (more…)
Curator June Yap and project manager Neo Kim Seng have withdrawn from Singapore’s organizational team for the country’s pavilion at the Fifty-Seventh Venice Biennale over “differences in operational approaches.” Singapore’s National Arts Council stated that the departure was a “a mutually agreed upon decision.” (more…)
The Guardian examines the health and strength of the art market moving into 2017, noting a 30% drop in market volume and major questions over auction houses’ processes for due diligence that have added to already unstable market conditions. “The art market went down primarily because a small number of high-value objects did not trade hands as they had in 2015 and that reduced the overall market volume,” says Art Market Monitor’s Marion Maneker. (more…)
British art critic, producer and writer John Berger has passed away in his Paris home this week, at the age of 90. The creator of the popular television series and book, Ways of Seeing, Berger’s work examined both social and political contexts for art works in relation to their purely visual modes, making him one of the most visible intellectuals of British counter-culture during the 1970’s and onwards. Berger continued to write and experiment with varied forms of critique and fiction until his death. (more…)
The Guardian profiles Aaron Angell, a young artist working in ceramics and painting, and the pottery studio he built, which has become a central hub for a group of forward-thinking young artists. “The process is frustrating. Anyone can buy a bag of clay and a readymade glaze,” he says. “But to do it properly, to make your own glazes as we do, you have to fail sometimes. That makes it a romantic, fatalistic thing. You’re almost working blind. Even the weather can affect a firing.” (more…)
The Guardian visits Carmen Herrera for a profile piece this week, as the artist reflects on her early years in Cuba, her continued evolution as an artist, and the culture of sexism that pervaded the early years of the post-War avant-garde. “I knew Ad Reinhardt and he was terribly obsessed with Georgia O’Keeffe and her success,” she says. “He hated her. Hated her! Georgia was strong, and her paintings were exhibited everywhere, and he was jealous.” (more…)
Alexander Calder’s Red Lily Pads will return to the rotunda at the Guggenheim next month, following a restoration. The mobile had been damaged by coins thrown into the museum fountain by visitors over the years. “It had scars all over it,” says Carol Stringari, the museum’s deputy director and chief conservator. “We had to reverse-engineer the paint.” (more…)
In a strange turn of events, artist Yoshitomo Nara is being sued by a Korean cosmetics company for copyright infringement, after notifying the company that the logo used for one of its products seemed to be a copy of his own style. (more…)
Raymond Pettibon is profiled in the New York Times this week, as he prepares an exhibition of work for the New Museum next month. “Nothing comes out of thin air,” he says. “We all live with the same language and influences. I’m just the conduit, the messenger.” (more…)
The Guardian has asked a range of intellectuals and art world professionals to talk about their recent art inspirations and favorite works, allowing them to wax poetic on the capacity and importance of art. “Art can do the opposite of glamorize the unattainable: it can show us anew the genuine merit of life as we’re forced to lead it,” philosopher Alain de Botton says. “It is advertising for the things we really need.” (more…)
The South Korean government is facing pressures after allegedly taking steps to censor and blacklist left-leaning artists in the country. “The government’s effort to restrict artists is something that took place several decades ago, but this has been replayed in the 21st century,” poet Ko Un, 83 says. “The foolish acts of the current administration have resulted in a huge tragedy for the country.” (more…)
New York Magazine has a piece this week on the psychology of auction rooms, and the techniques that auctioneers use to increase the final price for works. One approach draws on a collector’s sense of ownership, playing their willingness to bid off other bidders. “Once you bid on artwork it’s yours,” says economist Don Thompson, “and now suddenly, the next bidder wants to take it from you. Throughout the art auctions you’ll see them say things like ‘No regrets,’ ‘Last bid — are you sure?,’ ‘Are you back in?’ and ‘Don’t let him have it.” (more…)
David Hockney is being honored in his home city of Bradford with a gallery dedicated to his work, the Art Newspaper reports. “The David Hockney Gallery will house a permanent display of the unrivalled collection of early work owned by the city and will include sketches, paintings, iPad drawings, prints and photographs from Hockney’s life and career, and from when he was living and studying in Bradford,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)
The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris is looking to show a major exhibition of works from the collection of MoMA in New York, and has its sights set on Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon as part of the show. The museum recently opened a show of works from Russia’s Shchukin Collection, another body of work that rarely leaves its home country. (more…)
Photographer Edward Burtynsky is profiled in the New Yorker this week, as the artist continues his world travels to document the changing face of the planet. “Farming is the single largest thing we’ve done to transform the surface of the planet,” Burtynsky says at one point, indicating an image of a water reserve. “This aquifer, they estimate, contains eight Lake Eries of water, and they have already nearly depleted one. It’s like draining the Great Lakes, but we don’t see it.” (more…)
Berlin has canceled its exhibition of modern and contemporary art from the collection of Farah Pahlavi, the wife of the last shah of Iran. The museum had been struggling with securing export permits from Iran for the works in the collection, and ultimately was forced to cancel. “Further delays to the Berlin State Museums’ exhibition plans couldn’t be justified,” says Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. (more…)
The Art News has a piece on the collection of Eric Clapton, whose collection of works by Gerhard Richter saw him tally upwards of $77 million after several major auction sales this year. “As with his music, Mr. Clapton’s taste is eclectic, highly personal and strongly rooted in tradition,” says Brett Gorvy of Clapton’s holdings. “It has been assembled by someone who has not been affected by the vagaries of fashion.” (more…)
An editorial in The Guardian this week traces the impact and critiques of the right on contemporary art, and explores the accusations of pretension many have leveled against contemporary artists in the country in the wake of the Brexit vote. “The accusation lurking in the wings is that contemporary art is a complicated con visited on the public by a fanatical set of EU-loving, liberal-elite curators headed by Sir Nicholas Serota, who have set about suppressing floral paintings,” the piece jibes. (more…)
The British government may reimburse the owner of a £4m painting by Johann Zoffany destroyed in a fire at Clandon Park, the Surrey mansion owned by the National Trust. The work was lost after an electrical fire started in the basement and swept through the house, leaving 95% of it destroyed. The work was indemnified by the government in a strategy that allowed it to more easily borrow works for exhibition. (more…)
A recent research study into the paintings of artists diagnosed with dementia notes that some symptoms of mental degeneration may be discernible in an artist’s brushstrokes. The study looked at density and pattern repetition over the course of an artist’s career, finding diminished numbers of these patterns as artists like Willem de Kooning (who died after a battle with Alzheimer’s) as their work evolved. “I don’t believe this will be a tool for diagnosis, but I do think it will trigger people to consider new directions for research into dementia,” says Alex Forsythe of the University of Liverpool. (more…)
The Observer looks at the landscape for museums in the coming years, as large-scale expansions and expenses contend with struggles to connect with new audiences. “Museums are striving for larger and more diverse audiences, looking to increase accessibility and remove the economic barriers to visiting, and they are creating new programs to engage people,” says Zannie Voss, director of the National Center for Arts Research at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. (more…)
The Art Newspaper takes a look at Robert Rauschenberg’s Monogram, and the story behind the angora goat that sits at the center of the work, including the process of getting the work to London for the artist’s retrospective at the Tate Modern. “Because of the work’s fragile construction and these stories we felt a need to investigate and make a thorough condition check prior to agreeing to the loan request,” My Bundgaard of Stockholm’s Moderna Museet says. (more…)