The Guggenheim’s Hilma Af Klint: Paintings for the Future has officially become the most-visited exhibition in the museum’s 60-year history, the museum has reported. The show has topped the impressive figure of 600,000 visitors. (more…)
The blockchain based digital art registry Artory has raised $7.3 million through a Series A funding round, Art News reports. “By exceeding our initial goal with our Series A funding round, we’ve proven that the [Artory] Registry is a viable commercial product that will change the way collectors and buyers—established and new—engage with the marketplace for fine art and collectibles,” says Nanne Dekking, Artory’s founder and chief executive. (more…)
The New York Times profiles the life of Jayne Wrightsman today, a benefactor of the arts and grande dame of New York society whose celebrated collections of decorative and fine arts became a major part of the Met collection, and who passed away this week at 99. “Jayne Wrightsman’s incredible impact on the Metropolitan Museum of Art cannot be overstated,” says Met director Max Hollein. “Through her beneficence, expertise and guidance, she has forever transformed the museum, and the museum will be forever connected with her.” (more…)
Artist Olu Oguibe’s 50-foot-tall obelisk sculpture Das Fremdlinge und Flüchtlinge Monument (Monument for strangers and refugees), which caused protests and challenges by far-right protestors, has gone back on view in Kassel. “It means a lot to me that this important Documenta 14 art work is now permanently back in Kassel’s center,” says Sabine Schormann, the director general of Documenta, where the work was first show. (more…)
Alicja Kwade, MatterMotion (2019), via 303 Gallery
Working with concepts of nature, science, philosophy and perception, artist Alicja Kwade’s work draws on complex fusions of phenomena, space and architecture, using these formats to question and explore the natural world alongside humanity’s participation in it. Drawing on reflective elements, spatial inversions and peculiar material juxtapositions, the artist has become renowned for her ability to challenge our most basic logical assumptions. (more…)
A Swiss farmer, Hanspeter Benz has won a competition by the Fondation Beyeler to hang a Picasso in his barn for 24 hours. The work was shown in Benz’s barn on April 16th. (more…)
The Chicago Artists Coalition has unveiled its list of 15 Chicago-based artists who will receive its first-ever round of micro-grants, which come with unrestricted purses of $2,000 each. “We have truly visionary artists living and working in every neighborhood across the city. We hope that this new line of support will help bring some of their visions to life, for their individual benefit and that of their broader communities,” says Tracie D. Hall, director of the Joyce Foundation’s culture program. (more…)
Brooklyn Museum head Anne Pasternak gives NY Magazine a tour of her office, showcasing her art collection, which includes work by Kiki Smith and Kara Walker, and shares a story about a graffiti artist showing up to paint part of her wall. “So one day he shows up in a clown outfit, complete clown outfit, doesn’t say a word, has a bucket with spray paint in it, puts down a tarp, paints for twenty minutes and leaves, never said a word,” she says. (more…)
Following Phillips’s $12m success with the sale of Mark Bradford’s Helter Skelter I in London last Winter, the auction house will sell the second part of the work this spring, carrying an $8m low estimate and a third party guarantee. “We are thrilled to offer Mark Bradford’s masterpiece, Helter Skelter II, in our May Evening Sale after realizing a world-record price for its companion work last year,” says Jean-Paul Engelen, Worldwide Co-Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art. (more…)
Vincent Fecteau, Chorus #1 (1994), via Matthew Marks
Currently on view at Matthew Marks’s spacious West 22nd Street location, a trio of artists, Lutz Bacher, Nayland Blake and Vincent Fecteau (who also takes on curator duties here) have collaborated on a striking and unique investigation of time and history. Meant to serve in part as a re-creation of Fecteau’s first solo exhibition, the show twists a series of diverse narratives and conceptual ties among the artists into a unique interpretation of the past. (more…)
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation has announced 111 grants to artists and 13 to nonprofit organizations, with $3.17 million distributed in total. “At the core of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s mission is fostering the work and development of artists, and our 2018–19 grant and award recipients highlight the impact we can have due to Lee Krasner’s legacy,” says Ronald D. Spencer, the foundation’s chairman and CEO. (more…)
A piece in the NYT spotlights the works removed from Notre Dame just days before its massive fire. “Reconstruction and renovation of Notre-Dame could take between 10 and 20 years, probably for a cost of several hundred million euros,” says Patrick Palem, a veteran restoration expert with SOCRA. (more…)
Gagosian Gallery will stage an exhibition this June in Paris, from which all proceeds from sales will go to initiatives to rebuild the cathedral after its massive fire this week. Full details for the show have yet to be announced. “Notre-Dame is one of the most widely recognized symbols of the city of Paris and the French nation,” Larry Gagosian, the gallery’s founder, said in a statement. “I wish to contribute to the reconstruction of this iconic cathedral after watching, with devastation, as it was engulfed in flames.” (more…)
Arts and culture now have a higher contribution to the UK economy than agriculture, The Guardian notes “It tells you about their commitment and determination in spite of the cuts. It also tells you if they had a bit more money they would do something rather wonderful with it,” says Sir Nicholas Serota. (more…)
The Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco has announced the shortlist of works for the 47th edition of its Prix International d’Art Contemporain (PIAC), featuring work by Yto Barrada, Arthur Jafa, and Rayyane Tabet. “As an organization, we are determined to continuously broaden our perspective and are deeply committed to offer a platform to a plurality of diverse voices in the field of contemporary art and visual culture,” says PIAC’s artistic director, Lorenzo Fusi. (more…)
The Noguchi Museum will allow the public to visit the artist’s studio for the first time after restoration is complete. “What I really admire about Noguchi was that he was one of the great 20th-century polymaths,” says director Brett Littman. “He worked across so many disciplines.” (more…)
Sheer Presence: Monumental Paintings By Robert Motherwell (Installation View), via Kasmin Gallery
There are many moments during Sheer Presence: Monumental Paintings by Robert Motherwell, a show of large-scale works by the American master, where one feels inundated with color and line. The artist’s works, either towering over the viewer or stretch across the walls of Kasmin Gallery’s flagship space, are unified under a fitting show title: their magnificent presence often captivates the viewer and pulls them deeper into the space of the canvas, even in the show’s most minimalist approaches to surface. (more…)
LAABF, via Printed Matter
This past weekend, Los Angeles residents and visitors from far afield flocked to the City of Angels for the annual opening of Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair (LAABF) the West Coast companion fair to the NY Art Book Fair. Marking a unique and wide-ranging look at the current status of art publishing and printed material. Free and open to the public, the fair has built a reputation as a leading international gathering for the distribution of artists’ books, celebrating the full breadth of the art publishing community.
Jeffrey Cheung, via Art Observed
The NY Review of Books has a piece on Vincent Van Gogh this week, charting the artist’s time in London and his fascination with the city, documented in many of his letters. “He was a writer before he was a painter,” says author Carol Jacobi. (more…)
A new French task force for recovering Nazi look has received a broad mandate to search for and return artwork that had been looted or sold under duress, the NYT reports. “We are not starting from nothing, but we are amplifying the work,” says David Zivie, a Culture Ministry official. (more…)
A selection of paintings from inside Notre Dame have been transferred to the Louvre for restoration after suffering smoke damage yesterday during the Cathedral’s fire. The paintings are largely still intact. (more…)
The French nation launched a major campaign to restore Notre Dame after its tragic blaze yesterday, with collectors Bernard Arnault and François Pinault both pledging $226 million and $113 respectively. “The Arnault family and the LVMH Group, in solidarity with this national tragedy, are committed to assist with the reconstruction of this extraordinary cathedral, symbol of France, its heritage, and its unity,” a press release from LVMH, Arnault’s company read. (more…)
30 pieces from the collection of Texas oil heiress Cecil Amelia Blaffer will go to auction at Christie’s New York next month, with works by Picasso, Rothko and more expected to earn more than $40 million. “What we are seeing more and more is the interesting collections that were put together 40, 50 years ago,” says Adrien Meyer, Christie’s co-chairman of Impressionist and modern art. “They precisely represent moments of collecting history” and people who were “buying at the moment of pivotal art innovations,” he said.
New York’s Independent Curators International will give its Leo Award (named after Leo Castelli) to collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. “Since the beginning, the passion and daily work of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo has been to contribute to an opening up of contemporary art to a wider audience,” she says of her work . “Investing in young curators and artists has been an exciting, rewarding and vital part of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo’s program, which we are seeking always to develop.” (more…)