Sir John Richardson, the British art historian and critic whose expansive work on Pablo Picasso earned him high-praise as a master of documentation and research, has passed away at the age of 95. “It must have been hell to be his child or his mistress but to his friends he was beguiling,” Richardson said of the artist. “There was never a dull moment.” (more…)

Christie’s will offer the collection of patron Drue Heinz in its New York Evening Sales this May, including an Amedeo Mogidliani Lunia Czechowska (à la robe noire), valued at $18 Million. “These pictures tell the story of Drue Heinz and her passion for creativity,” says Jessica Fertig, Christie’s head of Impressionist and modern art evening sales. “She certainly was well advised, but she positioned herself to see that she was buying what would be an exceptional collection. It included great moments, important moments, in each of these artists’ careers.” (more…)

Collector and real-estate developer Jorge M. Pérez has given $1.5 million to the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Art News reports.  “I love that connection between Miami, Latin America, and Spain,” Pérez said. (more…)

Over a decade of research has proved that Michelangelo is the artist behind a terracotta model of his famed Pieta, the Telegraph reports. “It turned out to be the most documented terracotta statue of the Renaissance. We have a mountain of documents now. They were the last piece of the puzzle. The mystery is resolved,” says historian Roy Doliner. (more…)

David B. Smith, via Art Observed

With the annual return of The Armory Show to the Piers on the West Side of Manhattan, so too comes the annual opening of the SPRING/BREAK Art Show, the adventurous, curator-driven program that takes up space at a pop-up location for a week of compelling and unique exhibitions and projects.  The fair’s playful reputation and emphasis on young artists and curators welcomed a striking intersection of styles and practices, yet one that seemed to frequently play on witty inversion or twists on the banal.  Given the size and scale of the proceedings around it, SPRING/BREAK has edged out an impressive niche for itself among the bustle of Armory Week, a space where exploration and adventurousness seem to win out over the sales-focused proceedings of its bigger sister fairs around New York. One can only hope that this sense of the unexpected continues to sit at the core of its mission, offering a refreshing respite from the all too familiar fair fatigue of the week. (more…)

A piece in Bloomberg this week estimates that the show of Jean-Michel Basquiat works on view currently at the Brant Foundation includes arguably up to $1 billion in value. “He’s had such a meteoric rise, very much a Van Gogh figure,” Brant says of the artist. “How often do you have an artist who produces this kind of work in his 20s?” (more…)

Alexis Smith at Garth Greenan, via Art Observed

Marking its 10th anniversary this year, the Independent NY Art Fair has proven itself as something of a special case in the presentation of an art fair.  Smaller in scale and more focused in terms of its gallery selections, the fair’s presentation feels more like a presentation of a series of small gallery shows run side-by-side.  Offering a more nuanced, mellow browsing experience in conjunction with the fair’s invite-only exhibitor structure and immense glass windows, the fair has built a reputation as a boutique event with impressive draw, with this 10th year only driving that appeal home. (more…)

MoMA has tapped Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi as a curator in its department of painting and sculpture.  “I am honored to join MoMA as it continues the necessary task of telling an expansive and more inclusive story of 20th- and 21st-century art,” Nzewi said in a statement. “I look forward to collaborating with colleagues across departments in addressing historical gaps through purposeful acquisitions, advancing new programs and exhibitions that enrich our knowledge of global art, and, ultimately, in writing the next chapter in the history of this institution.” (more…)

The Venice Biennale has announced its artist list, with Korakrit Arunanondchai, Carol Bove and Ian Cheng among the list of artists included in this year’s edition, curated by Ralph Rugoff.  The exhibition runs from May 11 through November 24. (more…)

Artist Betty Tompkins gets a profile in The Guardian this week, as she looks back at her controversial body of work and its impact on the field of feminist art. “My work compared to an actual photorealist is lame. They’re interested in getting everything. I’m interested in getting just enough,” she says.  (more…)

David Hockney, Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott (1969), via Christie’s

Following a marathon week of openings and shows between New York and London, the first major Contemporary Evening Sales of 2019 are in the bag, with a trio of sales closing out the week in London with a market picture that seemed relatively strong.  No doubt clouded in some part by the uncertainty of the impending Brexit, the week’s sales still managed to achieve some impressive figures and strong sell-through rates, keeping the uncertainty of the following months alive in the British capital.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Apex (1986), via Sotheby’s (more…)

Performa is launching a new website platform that will feature live-streamed and archived performances from its festival.  “Special Offer [the design studio working with Performa] have embraced Performa’s role as a generator of ideas and producers of live artworks,” said Esa Nickle, the producing director of Performa. “They have created a space that will allow global audiences access to works from the Performa archives, alongside newly commissioned performances and live broadcasts, from anywhere in the world.” (more…)

The Armory Show has awarded its annual prizes to Charlie James Gallery of Los Angeles for its Presents Booth, and to Ryan Gander and Lisson for their Platform section install, among others.  (more…)

Carolee Schneeman, via Artist

Artist Carolee Schneemann, the artist whose work relentlessly challenged and reframed cultural discourses and taboos around sex, identity and gender, has died at the age of 79.

Portrait Partials, via Artist

Born in Philadelphia, Schneemann studied at Bard in New York, and would continually challenge assumptions regarding her gender as an artist, including a suspension from the school over painting nude self-portraits.  Schneeman would still graduate, and would move to New York, where she became involved in the city’s experimental arts scene.  Exploring performance works, she would challenge the viewer’s engagement with the female body, famously pulling a reel of text from her vagina to read aloud in public for her work Interior Scroll, while another performance, Up to and Including Her Limits suspended her naked from the ceiling of a gallery, swinging about to mark the walls with crayon.

Meat Joy, via Artist

Schneemann would continue to make challenging and confrontational work throughout her career, ultimately receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2017.  “I think I’m stubborn. In the beginning, I had no precedent for being valued,” she told the Guardian in 2015. “Everything that came from a woman’s experience was considered trivial. I wasn’t sure if my work would shift that paradigm or not, but I had to try.”

Pascale Marthine Tayou, via Art Observed

Considered among New York’s premier art fairs, and a leading cultural destination for discovering and collecting the world’s most important 20th- and 21st-century art, The Armory Show has long figured at the forefront of the city’s annual spring offerings for art exhibitions and shows.  This year, the fair has once again touched down in New York, bringing with it its annual  presentations by leading international galleries, innovative artist commissions and dynamic public programs. (more…)

LACMA has acquired an untitled Zeng Fanzhi painting from 2018 for its permanent collection, following on its commitment to expanding its collection of works from China. “Chinese contemporary art has emerged as one of the most compelling areas of the global art landscape,” says Dominic Ng, CEO of East West Bank. “The addition of a piece by Zeng Fanzhi—who is considered by many to be China’s greatest living artist—exemplifies Michael Govan’s vision to showcase a broad range of artistic voices and contributes to the ongoing cultural exchange between the East and the West.” (more…)

The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) is under fire by a group of artists whose work has gone “missing” from the museum collections, and is accused of selling works without permission from the artists. “TMoCA confirmed that my work is indeed in the collection, yet when I ask them to say this in writing, they turn tail,” says artists Barbad Golshiri. “I no longer have any motivation to find my work. That piece was about my own death. I consider it dead. It is as if it never existed.” (more…)

Adam Szymczyk, artistic director of Documenta 14 in 2017, will take a position as a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and will supervise a project called Principle of Equality—Open Studio.  “Attention is given to listening and being listened to, those two states that form reciprocity, as seen in the dual figures of speaker/receiver (as per artist Moyra Davey), writer/reader, artist/viewer,” a description for the project states. “At some point in the process, these distinctions and their attendant hierarchies must give way to new relationships between equals.” (more…)

Inside Philanthropy has a piece this week on the growing impact of artist-endowed foundations in the art world. “The field’s transformational growth in just five years is eye-catching, but what’s really exciting is the robust, long-term increases in both its grantmaking and its operation of cultural and educational programs—archives and study centers, exhibition programs, artists’ residencies, etc,” says Christine J. Vincent, project director of the Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundation Initiative (AEFI). (more…)

Artist Lauren Halsey is the winner of this year’s Frieze Art Award, a $25,000 prize that will also see her create new work for the upcoming edition of Frieze in New York. “I’m honored to receive this year’s Frieze Artist Award, and to debut a new installation in New York this coming May,” she said in a statement. “The fair produces environments that can seem like worlds unto themselves, and I hope that this work will shift the visitor experiences in unexpected and meaningful ways.” (more…)

David Hockney gets an interview in the NYT this week, as he opens a show of his works alongside Vincent Van Gogh’s for the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam’s blockbuster spring exhibition.  “It’s clarity of space, I think,” Hockney says of his love of Van Gogh. “Van Gogh could see space very, very clearly.” (more…)

Blain|Southern is opening a New York space, taking over the former Cheim & Read space in Chelsea. “We’ve been planning to open in NYC for some time but it takes time to find a space and location in-line with what our purpose-built spaces in London and Berlin offer our artists,” the gallery said in a statement.  (more…)

Architect Arata Isozaki, the designer behind the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles’s Downtown Campus, has won the The Pritzker Architecture Prize, the architecture world’s most prestigious award. “Possessing a profound knowledge of architectural history and theory, and embracing the avant-garde, he never merely replicated the status quo, but his search for meaningful architecture was reflected in his buildings that to this day, defy stylistic categorizations, are constantly evolving, and always fresh in their approach,” the jury said in a statement. (more…)

A piece in DW this week catalogs the recent disputes between France and Italy over the loan of Da Vinci works to the Louvre, which has led to an arranged meeting between the presidents of the two countries. “There are so many French people who love Italy and Italians who love France and the French. But suddenly, we almost forgot that we have to keep on learning to understand each other,” Emmanuel Macron said in a statement. (more…)