The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., has extended its Charline von Heyl show to make up for the government shutdown.  (more…)

A Lucian Freud painting of the heir to the Guinness fortune is set to go to auction this March at Sotheby’s London, estimated at  £4.5m-£6.5m. “It is funny with Freud, you don’t really get a grip of how good he was until you see these things in person, especially these works from the 1950s which you don’t see very often,” says  Tom Eddison, a contemporary art specialist at Sotheby’s. “It is so precise and so beautifully executed. It is a really extraordinary painting, a very tender and beautiful portrait.” (more…)

Cecily Brown has donated an immense painting to the Louisiana Museum in Denmark after holding a show at the museum.  According to Brown, the painting was donated  “to express my gratitude for the great cooperation I’ve had with the museum around the exhibition.” (more…)

The British Museum is taking on the role of “global watchdog” in the examination and regulation of antiquities dealers, a new piece reports. “We have become alarmed at widespread practices in the art market. The more you pay attention, the more you notice patterns of laxity, misconduct or obfuscation,” says curator Marcel Marée.  (more…)

Jill Muilleady, Touch Me Not (2018), via Art Observed

A group of young artists takes center stage at Lisson Gallery this month, with an exhibition titled The Rest exploring their respective interests in figurative painting as well as concomitantly capricious and complex approaches to image making.  Featuring the work of Van Hanos, Allison Katz, Jill Mulleady, Jeanette Mundt, Nolan Simon and Issy Wood, the show is a striking inquiry into a range of ideas and concepts in modern image production, and the state of the painted image in the 21st Century.
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The Guggenheim Museum is deaccessioning a Zao Wou-Ki painting from its collection to sell at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, valued at around $7.7 million–$10 million.  “With its distinguished provenance and impeccable quality from the artist’s critical ‘Oracle Bone’ period, this masterwork will no doubt generate interest and excitement from collectors worldwide,” says Vinci Chang, Sotheby’s head of modern Asian art. (more…)

David Zwirner Books has partnered with Simon & Schuster, one of the largest and most high-profile publishers in the world, making it the first gallery to have mainstream distribution for its books in North America. “We have been impressed by David Zwirner Books’s editorial focus, the quality and range of its titles, and its traction both within the art world and beyond. We are eager to bring their impressive titles to readers across the U.S.,” says Michael Perlman, the vice president and general manager of Simon & Schuster Publisher Services. (more…)

MoMA has added 800 instruction drawings by more than 300 artists to its collections after a gift from Gilbert and Lila Silverman.  “I had a wonderful life with Gilbert,” Lila said, “and I am just delighted that the works are now at MoMA.” (more…)

James Turrell has closed his Skyspace work, Meeting, at MoMA PS1 indefinitely after the scaffolding of new condominium development interfered with its view.  “After further conversation with James Turrell, we have closed Meeting at the artist’s request and it will remain closed until the temporary construction scaffolding is no longer visible from the work,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)

British Museum head Hartwig Fischer is facing criticism after saying that the removal of the Parthenon marbles from Greece in the 19th century could be interpreted as “a creative act.” The full quote reads: “We should appreciate this opportunity. You could, of course, be saddened by the fact that the original environment has disappeared. When you move a cultural heritage to a museum, you move it outside. However, this shifting is also a creative act.” (more…)

Wang Guangle, Duo Color (Installation View), via Pace

Currently on view at Pace Gallery’s New York location, Chinese artist Wang Guangle has installed a body of new paintings marking a continuation of the artist’s nuanced approach towards painterly minimalism and gestural abstraction.  Titled Duo Color, the show invites a reconsideration of Wang’s work in the investigation of time and space, bound by the movement of the brush and the application of paint to canvas.   (more…)

Former Sotheby’s auctioneer Jeremy Cooper has donated 1,000 artist postcards he has collected over the years to the British Museum.  “The more I looked, the more I discovered that it’s a field of unrecognized historical significance – it just seemed completely neglected,” Cooper says. “These postcards were made by artists as individual expressions, not just the reproduction of a work of art, which is what most postcards are.” (more…)

The Smithsonian Institution is planning on reopening this Tuesday, following the conclusion of the government shutdown.  The closure has affected a number of runtimes for shows either soon to open or close.   (more…)

The newest iteration of the Desert X art festival has announced its artist list, with curator Neville Wakefield reprising the show with works by Pia Camil, Jenny Holzer and more. (more…)

A daring heist at Moscow’s New Tretyakov Gallery saw a thief walk out of the gallery with a painting after removing it in broad daylight, The Guardian reports. The man, apprehended hours later, removed a painting Arkhip Kuindzhi from the wall and walked out, mistaken by many for a museum employee. (more…)

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McArthur Binion, Hand:Work (2018), via Lehmann Maupin

Currently on view at Lehmann Maupin, painter McArthur Binion is currently presenting a new series of works, Hand:Work, a selection of pieces that mark an important point in the artist’s career, as both an evolution of and departure from his most well-known body of work, the DNA Series.  On view through March, the show sees Binion’s work elaborating on repeated graphical motifs and minimalist arrangements. (more…)

Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato, Sem título (1993). All images via David Zwirner.

Now through February 9, David Zwirner is presenting work by the Brazilian-born painter Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato, making the the first time Lorenzato’s work is being shown in the United Kingdom, and the first solo show by the artist outside of Brazil. One of the foremost painters of his generation, Lorenzato developed a body of work that centers on subjects he encountered in his hometown of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where the Brazilian Concrete Art movement emerged in the 1950s. These include land- and townscapes, favelas, and individuals he met in his daily travels. (more…)

Artist Melissa McGill will set a a navy of about 50 traditional Italian vela al terzo sailboats on the Venice this summer, all colored blood red.   “It’s not a competitive regatta,” she says. “It’s more of a presentation. Basically, we are presenting these regattas as a way to bring together all these local boat owners with these beautiful traditional boats.” (more…)

HBO Films has acquired artist Rashid Johnson’s first directorial effort, an adaptation of  Native Son in advance of the film’s premiere at Sundance, Variety reports. The cast includes Ashton Sanders, Margaret Qualley, Nick Robinson, KiKi Layne, Elizabeth Marvel, David Alan Grier, and Bill Camp.  (more…)

The National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts will reopen Monday, as a crucial season for grantmaking begins in D.C.  “I want to underscore that since they are being taken off furlough, [employees] will receive all of their salary and benefits,” says NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede. (more…)

An open letter in USA Today from David J. Skorton, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, has called for an end to the government shutdown, noting that the closures cost the institution $1 million a week.  “Most important from a humanitarian perspective is the effect of loss of salary on our more than 4,000 furloughed employees,” he says.  “It is reassuring and appreciated that the president and Congress have agreed to supply back pay once the government fully reopens. But to many of our employees, particularly those with more modest salaries, the loss of each paycheck causes direct and significant harm.”

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In a landslide vote, the employees of the New Museum have voted to unionize. “We have a union—that’s the big news,” says Dana Kopel, a senior editor and publications coordinator. “From here, we go into negotiations.” (more…)

MOMA has received nine projects from Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, including 23 pieces related to projects overseen by the firm between 1994 and 2018.  “For more than three decades, Herzog & de Meuron’s practice has been a singular and defining voice in the discourse of contemporary architecture,” says Martino Stierli, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design. “Thanks to the generosity of the office and the Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, we will be able to include these key works of contemporary architectural production in our changing collection displays.” (more…)