Richard Serra was awarded last night with The Insignia of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, the highest honor in France, recognizing the artist’s long history of work in the nation, and his contributions to the development of contemporary art both in France and abroad.   (more…)

Jasper Johns’s Foundation for Contemporary Arts has opened a new project space, Other Room, next to its Meatpacking District Offices, providing space for curated shows focused on young and emerging artists.  “We’re not really set up to be a gallery—we have regular office hours except for the occasional Saturday—but the idea was to do something artist-centric,” says executive director Stacy Stark. (more…)

The Art Newspaper profiles the recently closed Off Biennale Budapest, a response to the right-leaning Hungarian Government’s interference in the selection and promotion of the city’s arts institutions.  “Cultural institutions are losing their autonomous position,” warns Tijana Stepanović, one of the event’s lead curators. (more…)

The Tate is receiving an additional £6 million in funding from the British Government this year, earmarked to help fund the operations at the Tate Modern.  “Late last year the government in principle committed to an uplift in grant-in-aid to support the running of the new Tate Modern,” a Museum spokesman confirms. (more…)

The case surrounding the theft of works from Picasso descendent Catherine Hutin-Blay has taken a new turn, as Art Newspaper reports that more than 60 works could be missing from Hutin-Blay’s Gennevilliers storage facility.  “One thing is for sure,” her lawyer, Anne-Sophie Nardon says, “this case is extremely serious and much bigger that we first thought.” (more…)

Al Jazeera looks at the massive Savitsky collection in Uzbekistan, where tens of thousands of Russian avant-garde masterpieces were salvaged and put on display by artist and founder Igor Savitsy following their censorship in their home country, including long forgotten works by Kandinsky, Chagall, and more.  “Without him, they would have been gone without a trace,” says Marinika Babanazarova, the current director of the Nukus Art Museum where his collection lies.  “These days, he is an authority figure, genius, but at the time they saw him as a weirdo, an absolute nutcase.” (more…)

The retrospective of Vienna Actionist Hermann Nitsch’s work, previously pulled from Mexico City’ s Museo Jumex this past year, has found a new home at Palermo’s Museo Zac.  “Everybody who knows me, knows that I am an animal protector,” says Nitsch, responding to accusations of animal cruelty that some feel were responsible for closing the show.  “From my point of view, factory farming is the biggest crime in our society.”   (more…)

The WSJ looks at the recent focus on algorithms as hot items on the art market, as collectors purchase classic codes and objects emblazoned with famous code.  “It is a whole new dimension we are trying to grapple with,” says Cooper Hewitt curatorial director Cara McCarty. “The art term I keep hearing is code.” (more…)

Marina Picasso is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as she prepares to sell off an extensive collection of her grandfather’s ceramics and paintings, a gesture she feels will help to heal a painful childhood. “Being Picasso’s granddaughter was very hard. I don’t snub the inheritance, not at all, I just want a lighter way to live and to be able to devote myself to my humanitarian work,” she says. “There is absolutely no hatred, no bitterness, no vengeance on my part.”  (more…)

The New York Times looks at the recent trend towards smaller and boutique art fairs, where collectors can experience specially selected works and a more nuanced buying experience. The article focuses particularly on London’s Art15 fair, where a focus on international buyers and new investors has defined it as a leader in the growing market. “We deliberately made it smaller,” says Art15 Director Kate Bryan. “We wanted to create a concentrated, boutique-style event. The demographic of London is changing all the time, and we wanted to respond to that.”  (more…)

London’s National Gallery has indicated that Ireland has some claim to a series of long disputed Impressionist masterpieces.  The collection of Hugh Lane, who died on the Lusitania explosion in 1915, had been willed to Dublin, but since the will had not been witnessed, they were legally bound to Britain.  “The National Gallery claims legal ownership of the paintings bequeathed by Sir Hugh Lane, but has long conceded that Dublin has some moral claim to them,” said National Gallery Director Nicholas Penny, during a lecture on the collection. (more…)

CNBC is reporting that the mystery buyer of the record-setting Picasso canvas this month is still at large, refuting the New York Post’s reporting that former Qatari prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani had purchased the work for a record-setting $179 million. (more…)

Painter Agnes Martin is profiled in The Guardian this week, as the artist prepares to open her new exhibition at the Tate Modern next month, tracing her early work and her exacting vision for her production. “When you give up on the idea of right and wrong, you don’t get anything,” Martin says. “What you get is rid of everything, freedom from ideas and responsibilities.” (more…)

Coloring Book, a monumental new sculpture by Jeff Koons, has sold for €12 million euros at a Cannes charity auction that ultimately brought in more than €33 million to fund AIDS research through amFAR.    (more…)

After 30 years working with Mary Boone, Eric Fischl is parting ways with the gallery, the Art Newspaper reports.  “Right now, Eric says he wants to concentrate on his work, not be affiliated with a gallery. We respect that and will continue to have a good relationship with him,” says Ron Warren, director and partner at Mary Boone. “I think he has decided that the art world and the market have changed so much that he wants to concentrate on making his work, and distance himself from being represented by a gallery.” (more…)

The New York Post quotes an unnamed source disclosing that the mystery buyer of the record setting, $179 Million Pablo Picasso several weeks ago in New York is former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani.  “The painting almost certainly will not go on public display in Qatar because of the nudity, even though it is a cubist work,” the source says. (more…)

The Museum of Modern Art has announced plans for a major retrospective focused on the work of Donald Judd, set to open in 2017, organized by Chief Curator Ann Temkin.  “Half a century after Judd established himself as a leading figure of his time, his legacy demands to be considered anew,” said Ms. Temkin. “The show will cover the entire arc of Judd’s career, including not only quintessential objects from the 1960s and 1970s, but also works made before he arrived at his iconic formal vocabulary, and selections from the remarkable developments of the 1980s.” (more…)

The Whitney has named Scott Rothkopf, the man behind last year’s Jeff Koons retrospective, as the institution’s new chief curator, taking over for Donna De Salvo as she assumes the new position of deputy director.  “Now that the institution has grown, we need more firepower at the top,” says President Adam Weinberg said, adding: “I wouldn’t say so much that it’s a generational change but it is about bringing that next generation into the curatorial and programmatic leadership.” (more…)

Georg Baselitz is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing his early life and his recent contributions to the Glyndebourne  Opera Festival.  “They tell me it’s rather conservative and more than just a bit elitist,” he says. “I don’t even like classical music that much – it bores me. Except for Bach. But he didn’t write opera so that’s not much good.” (more…)

The Guardian takes a tour of Gilbert and George’s East London home and studio, where the pair have lived and worked since 1968, and which they have restored to its original 18th century interior.  “It took 300 years to go downhill,” explained George. “We’ve prepared it for the next 300 years, see? We’ve used the same paint as they used originally, the same plaster, everything is as it would’ve been originally.” (more…)

A new British £20 note has been announced this week, and this time, a creative figure from British history will replace economist Adam Smith, the New York Times reports.  “Banknotes are the principal way the Bank of England engages with the British public,”Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England. “These sparse pieces of paper from the 17th century have developed over the years to become the small works of art that are in everyone’s wallets.  There are a wealth of individuals within the field of visual arts whose work shaped British thought, innovation, leadership, values and society and who continue to inspire people today.” (more…)

The Telegraph looks at the record-breaking sales last week at Christie’s in the context of the auction house’s penchant for pre-sale guarantees, noting that over $250 million of the Looking Forward to the Past sale’s monumental $706 million final tally was guaranteed.  They are effectively buying market share,” says one unnamed art advisor. (more…)

Ode to Santos Dumont the last work completed by the late Chris Burden this year, has gone on view at LACMA, a helium-filled dirigible that circles inside the Resnick Pavilion, paying tribute to the balloon pilot who sailed around the Eiffel Tower in 1901.  “The idea that you try and fail and try and fail and have an imagination is very much Chris Burden the artist,” LACMA Director Michael Govan says.  “I think he saw in Santos Dumont a bit of himself having ideas and an imagination and tenacity and also that kind of joy of achievement.” (more…)

Michael Heizer is profiled in The Guardian this week, following the opening of his newest show in New York.  “Years ago, when I had no money and I made a work of art, maybe I couldn’t afford to make it more resistant to the weather. I did, however, exploit that situation,” he says of his early work.  “I wasn’t an environmental, greenie artist making things out of moss and leaves. But I knew that some things dissipate, and I factored that into the work.” (more…)