Twelve works from the collection Miles and Shirley Fiterman will hit the auction block at Christie’s this November in New York, including works by Roy Lichtenstein and Pablo Picasso.  “They have artists in great depth,” says Laura Paulson, Christie’s chairwoman of postwar and contemporary art. “Miles and Shirley were incredibly passionate — it really can’t be overstated — they were actively involved as a couple in collecting. They had deep relationships with their dealers and with the artists they collected.” (more…)

Both the Whitney Museum and Centre Pompidou will open exhibitions devoted to transformative gifts from collectors and art advisors Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner.   “Thea and Ethan are among the most astute collectors of late twentieth century and early twenty-first-century art and their gift adds enormous strength to the Whitney’s collection. We are deeply grateful to them and are pleased to be collaborating with our friends at the Pompidou,” says Whitney President Adam Weinberg. (more…)

Damien Hirst is planning on opening a new edition of his famed restaurant “Pharmacy” at his Newport Street Gallery next year, the Evening Standard reports.  The new space inherits Hirst’s penchant for controversy from the original, which was ultimately barred by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain over its confusing name. (more…)

David Zwirner has announced that it is now representing the estate of painter Sigmar Polke.  “Growing up in Cologne, I had the great fortune of meeting Sigmar and witnessing firsthand the enormous influence he exerted on his generation and the ones that followed,” Zwirner himself says.  “His creativity and curiosity knew no bounds, and his ability to innovate across different media is unparalleled.” (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced another flagship work in its New York Impressionist and Modern auctions this coming November, Picasso’s La Gommeuse, which features a hidden portrait on the back side of the canvas.  “With her dreamy gaze and frank sensuality, the cabaret dancer in La Gommeuse ushers in a new visual idiom for the 20th century,” says Simon Shaw, co-head of Sotheby’s worldwide impressionist and modern art department. (more…)

Santiago Rumney Guggenheim, great-grandson of the collector Peggy Guggenheim and son of gallerist Sandro Rumney, is opening a new project space in the former Williamsburg Savings Bank at 834 Driggs.  “Here, in this project, I try to carry on the legacy of my family by bringing new faces to the art world,” Rumney Guggenheim says. “But I am making a strong point to my family that I am trying to build this on my own.” (more…)

Damien Hirst’s £25m, 37,000 sq ft Newport Street Gallery has opened, drawing rave reviews from The Guardian.  “I’ve felt guilt owning work that’s stored away in boxes where no one can see it. Having a space where I can put on shows from the collection is a dream come true,” Hirst says. (more…)

Carlyle and Banque Pictet have announced plans for an art market venture that will provide funding for collectors in exchange for up to 50 per cent of the value of the art.  “We will drive the institutionalization of this huge market. By introducing more liquidity to the market, we think the cost of capital for these assets will go down and the value will go up,” said Oliver Sarkozy, of Carlyle’s Global Financial Services Fund, and who is investing in the project. “Leverage generally means asset prices inflate.” (more…)

MoMA PS1 has announced that it will offer free admission to New Yorker’s for the next year, thanks to a gift by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.  “It is important to give back to New York City, a city with so many artists,” says Marina Kellen French, the vice president of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.  “MoMA PS1 in Queens has many exhibitions that should be seen by everybody from all five boroughs. I hope the gift will help MoMA PS1 efforts to lower the barriers to enter the museum and reach out to an even wider audience.” (more…)

LACMA has a post on its Unframed blog this week, following the life Human the dog from Pierre Huyghe’s work recently installed in the museum, and her owner, artist Marlon Middeke, as he opens a show in Kassel.  “Marlon takes back mastery of himself after years of being, quite literally, just a piece of Huyghe’s art,” writes author Brian Sonia-Wallace. (more…)

Phillips has announced a non-selling exhibition of works by Barbara Hepworth next summer in London, organized by Andrew Bonacina, the chief curator at the Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire.  The show “will serve to show the strength and importance of our collection to a wider audience”, says Simon Wallis, the gallery director. (more…)

Douglas Druick, the current president and director at the The Art Institute of Chicago, has announced that he will be stepping down from his post when a replacement is found. “I have been deeply proud to lead one of the finest museums in the world and to work for three decades with an exceptional cadre of remarkably talented museum colleagues,” Druick says. (more…)

A $25 million gift from trustee David Rubenstein has ensured a new expansion of the Duke arts program, aiding in the construction of a $50 million arts building, billed as “a major step in Duke’s commitment to supporting the artistic work of our students and faculty,” according to Duke President Richard Brodhead. (more…)

Interview takes a look inside Theaster Gates’s recently completed Stony Island Arts Bank on the south side of Chicago, and the artistic impetus behind the project.  “I often meet people who live in my neighborhood, when I’m downtown or in other neighborhoods, and we’re all looking for the same amenities,” he says.  “We all want to go to the reggae spot up north, we all want to go to the jazz club downtown. So I think that being here, I’m thinking about, “What are the amenities that I want to benefit from?” In their absence, I feel like, “All right, maybe I should make them.” (more…)

MoMA PS1 has announced the artist list for its recurring Greater New York exhibition, documenting a range of artists working in and around the New York City area.  Highlights of the list include rising star Jamian Juliano-Villani, conceptual retail project Kiosk and designer Mary Ping.  The show opens Sunday (more…)

Christie’s has announced plans for a new division of sales this coming April in New York, centering its calendar around the Revolution sale, focusing on 18th to 20th century art.  “Most of our collectors are buying in five or six different fields,” says President Jussi Pylkkanen. “Ten years ago, they may have been buying in one or two fields.” (more…)

The lawyers representing Ann Freedman in her court case over the selling of forged works at Knoedler Gallery have sent an open letter to Art Market Monitor, taking the offensive on maintaining her innocence.  “The criminals who committed these crimes have been charged.  Ann Freedman is not one of them,” the letter reads.  “The discovery in these cases has yielded tens of thousands of pages of documents.  Not one proves that Ann Freedman knew these works were forgeries.  It is the plaintiffs’ self-serving fairy tale that has allowed the case to continue for this long, but a trial will finally show the truth:  plaintiffs just want to print money (their lawsuits request three times more than what they paid for the art), and Ann Freedman just wants justice.” (more…)

CNN profiles Sifang Art Collective, a massive architectural and art project funded by businessman, Lu Jun, and his art collector son Lu Xun, which features an impressive private museum and buildings by a number of prominent architects and artists, including Ai Weiwei, Chinese Pritzker prize winner Wang Shu and David Adjaye.

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The Financial Times has a profile on the generations of Brazilian collectors that rose to global influence during the 1990’s, and those in market today as Brazil deals with its economic struggles.  “We live in a country of highs and lows, a country that went through a period of euphoria in which many people made money, giving a boost to the art market. But I don’t think that’s what Brazil truly is. Today we’re going through one more crisis, that for those of us who are a bit older has already become a habit from time to time,” says collector Bernardo Paz. (more…)

Jim Shaw is profiled in the New York Times this week, in advance of his retrospective opening at the New Museum this month.  “Jim has always been very important and influential to me because of the way he blurs the distinction between insider art and outsider art, which is something I’ve been involved with for a long time,” says Massimiliano Gioni. (more…)

Chantal Akerman, the Belgian filmmaker whose relentless experimentation and prolific output as both a director and writer defined her as a major influence on late 20th century film, has passed away at the age of 65.  Akerman’s work had achieved wide acclaim for her embrace of experimental and groundbreaking techniques, particularly in her landmark work Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which was shot in real-time.  French newspaper of record Le Monde is reporting the death as suicide. (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced a major commission for its fall sale in New York, one of Andy Warhol’s iconic Mao works, estimated to sell for $40 million or more.  The work is the artist’s first in the series of Mao paintings, and came from an idea by dealer Bruno Bischofberger, who suggested Warhol paint the most famous person in the world.  “‘I was just reading in Life magazine that the most famous person in the world today is Chairman Mao. Shouldn’t it be the most famous person, Bruno?'” Interview editor Bob Colacello recalls the artist saying. (more…)

Antony Gormley has contributed a special piece to the Financial Times this week, describing his vision for the future of sculpture.  “Our need is to leave a trace: a trace of our living and dying on the face of an indifferent universe,” he writes.  “Sculpture’s central purpose in confronting the body with another materiality is to engage the imagination, to make links with all that lies beyond the palpable and the observable, deep in space or deep in the unconscious mind.” (more…)

Painter Luc Tuymans has reached an out-of-court settlement with the photographer Katrijn Van Giel, following the artist’s conviction of plagiarism and subsequent lawsuit over a work that had allegedly borrowed from one of Van Giel’s works.  The work, A Belgian Politician, was originally claimed as “a parody” by Tuymans. (more…)