The Met is facing a lawsuit over The Actor, one of its star Picasso works, from the estate of a German Jewish businessman who was forced to sell the work while fleeing Europe.  “The Leffmanns would not have disposed of this seminal work at that time, but for the Nazi and Fascist persecution to which they had been, and without doubt would continue to be, subjected,” the estate’s lawyer, Lawrence M. Kaye, said in court papers. (more…)

Richard Serra is interviewed in The Guardian this week, speaking with longtime friend and colleague Michael Craig-Martin about their early years in school, and their perspectives on their work.  “I think I’m a transitional figure,” Serra says.  “If anything, I would call myself a post-structuralist, not a postmodernist. I’m involved with evolution of form, the connection where space and matter meet. One of the things that form constantly has to do is reach a point where it pushes back against content.” (more…)

Philippe Parreno’s Turbine Hall commission at the Tate Modern has opened, a swirling multi-media install featuring snippets of video and music, floating mylar fish, and a carpet for viewers to lie down and view the full range of pieces floating through the space.  “We have a lot of stuff,” Parreno says. “There may be a pattern after some time, but at the moment it is quite random.” (more…)

Hauser and Wirth will represent the estate of Arshile Gorky, the FT reports, with a show planned for the artist in 2017.  “He was one of the giants, but a quiet giant,” says Iwan Wirth. “We want to make his influence even clearer.” (more…)

The Tate Modern is set for a major retrospective of Bruce Nauman at its museum in 2019, following similar shows at the Schaulager in Basel and MoMA in New York.  “So far I have tried to avoid thinking about the retrospective projects,” Nauman says. (more…)

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The Art Market Monitor notes Sotheby’s choice to sell a recent David Hockney Woldgate landscape in its upcoming November sales in New York, and notes a series of interesting choices made by the auction in its selection.  “It has an eye-opening estimate of $9-12m for a body of work that has not seen action on the public market; and, Sotheby’s seems to be banking on the success of February’s big Tate retrospective which isn’t always a slam-dunk,” Marion Maneker writes. (more…)

A pair of Van Gogh works stolen from the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam in 2002 have been recovered in Italy, the New York Times reports, found during an investigation into Mafia clans in the country.  “In this case, they were most likely used in what we call ‘art-napping’ — the Mafia often steals work of art and uses them as a kind of payment within their own families,” says art crimes expert Arthur Brand. “Or if a boss is caught, he can sometimes make a deal for a lesser sentence in exchange for offering to help find stolen works of art.” (more…)

Curator Nicole Berry has been appointed deputy director of The Armory Show, where she will head up VIP and visitor relations alongside new curatorial projects.  “We are thrilled to welcome Nicole to our expanding team,” executive director Benjamin Genocchio says. “She brings a wealth of talent and experience that will further develop The Armory Show as a powerful platform for leading international galleries and collectors alike, further cementing our place as America’s preeminent art fair.” (more…)

The Guardian dives into Pablo Picasso’s current portrait show in London, and offers a lengthy background on the history and relationships between the artist and his sitters.  “There are so many realities that in trying to encompass them all one ends in darkness,” the artist is quoted as saying. “That is why, when one paints a portrait, one must stop somewhere, in a sort of caricature.”  (more…)

David Shrigley’s installation for the fourth plinth at London’s Trafalgar Square goes on view today, a massive hand giving a comically extended thumbs up.  “It is such an ambiguous thing which you can quite easily project your own meaning on to, it could endorse something I didn’t want to endorse,” Shrigley says.  “My line is that it means whatever you want it to mean, but it doesn’t mean ‘that’.” (more…)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has laid off 34 employees, continuing its attempts to cut overhead amidst a budget shortfall.  “These are difficult decisions — we’re disappointed to be losing good colleagues — but we’re making very good progress on the process we put in motion,” Daniel H. Weiss, the Met’s president told the NYT. “Our goal was to meet the budget objectives that we have without in any way diminishing the core mission of the museum.” (more…)

Takashi Murakami is interviewed in Complex this week, as the artist opens his most recent exhibition at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, and reflects on his multifaceted career, including his work as a designer and curator.  “I don’t always enjoy curating, but I do believe it’s part of my job,” Murakami says. “It’s a good exercise for my brain, like warming up. Just focusing on my work would be so depressing! For me, curating is necessary—it’s like physical training.” (more…)

Arts patron Diane Wilsey has maintained a position at the head of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco board, despite mounting pressure to push her out of the position.  Wilsey has come under increased scrutiny last year after making a $457,000 payment to a close acquaintance from museum funds. (more…)

The Neue Galerie has reached an agreement with heirs of a Jewish shoe manufacturer and art collector over a Karl Schmidt-Rottluff piece seized by the Nazi’s before WWII.  The museum has returned the work to the family of Alfred and Tekla Hess, and then promptly bought it back at its current fair market value.  “This case is an example of how provenance research has evolved and how much more we know today than we knew 20 years ago,” says Agnes Peresztegi, a lawyer and expert on Holocaust-era property claims. (more…)

The Kunstmuseum Stuttgart Foundation has awarded Tino Sehgal the 2016 Hans Molfenter Prize, an $18,000 award that recognizes artists with connections to southwest Germany, and which will include a commission for a project in Stuttgart. (more…)

After only a few months, former Rijksmuseum head Wim Pijbes is stepping down as the Director of the Museum Voorlinden, following differences of opinion with founder Joop van Caldenborgh.  “We had different ideas on the museum after it opened,” Pijbes. “It’s about expectations and reality. We had a good conversation, and we both agreed that we were both not happy with how it was going. I offered to step aside.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports on Anish Kapoor’s repeated assertion that the vandalism of his work at Versailles last summer was perpetrated by someone close to the local government, after seeing what he called a “pathetic” attempt to address the issue.  “I’d made three reports to the police [about vandalism] and to this day have had no response from them,” Kapoor says. “The councillor [Fabien Bouglé] managed to get a court hearing within hours. I’ll say it again—it was an inside job.” (more…)

NASA has relaunched its artist residency program, naming photographer Justin Guariglia as a collaborator in the presentation of climate change to the public.  “We’re not used to computing the scale of a 100,000-year-old piece of ice the size of California that’s going to break off from an ice sheet,” Guariglia says of the project, and NASA’s work more broadly. (more…)

A Paris judge has requested a second attempt by the Wildenstein family to stay the criminal trial for tax evasion until the civil trial had been resolved.  The request was denied on the grounds that it may take several years to reach a decision on the civil case. (more…)

Paul Chan’s Badlands Unlimited Publishing House has released a series of artist-made digital files, including works from Cory Arcangel, Martine Syms and others, and featuring a variety of incomplete, unrealized or proposed projects.  “A file is the work before the work. It is the “score” that directs the printer, video projector, or speaker to create the expression that is experienced,” a press release reads.  “And as such, artist files hold considerable value and potential in contemporary culture.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports that Nicholas Serota will seek to continue curating shows with the Tate Modern as he starts his role as the head of Arts Council UK.  The longtime head of the Tate is focused on putting together a show for a living artist that has yet to be named. (more…)

The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has awarded Pierre Huyghe with the second annual edition of its $100,000 prize.  “At this moment, when the environment and culture are so under threat, Huyghe’s imaginative, uncanny approach to the serious ecological and social issues facing our planet tie his oeuvre to the ancient purposes of sculpture: they possess a shamanistic quality which tips the mimetic into life,” says Jeremy Strick, the Nasher’s director. (more…)

The New York Times previews the upcoming TEFAF Fair edition in New York, the first for the fair brand in the U.S., and questions how successful the fair may be outside of the Dutch city of Maastricht.  “Maastricht is a great fair because people go for a few days and there is nothing else to do, except restaurants,” says George Wachter, chairman of Sotheby’s North America and South America. “They go with buying in mind.” (more…)