The organizers of this year’s Documenta 14 are expanding the exhibition to a satellite exhibition in Luanda, Angola, where they will show a series of works by artists of African descent. “The last decade or so has seen the increased prominence of artists from Africa exhibiting across the contemporary artistic platform in the West,” says Congolese collector Sindika Dokolo, who is helping to fund the project. “I am delighted to help in initiating this opportunity of showing the African artists being exhibited in Documenta 14 for the first time on the continent.” (more…)

Wassily Kandinsky, Bild mit weissen Linien (1913), via Sotheby’s

Holding court with a short but well-appointed pair of sales in London, Sotheby’s kicked off a week of auctions in the British capital, closing its Impressionist and Modern Evening sale with a string of impressive figures and a new auction record for Wassily Kandinsky at £33 million, ultimately bringing a final sales figure of £127,945,750.  The night also saw a short curated sale, “Actual Size” precede the evening’s main event, which saw mixed results and a £20,931,250 final tally for its offering.

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The Guardian charts Nicholas Serota’s impact on the Tate during his tenure as its leader, and the challenges the institution faces in the years ahead as it seeks to continue the momentum he created.  “Beginning to get the momentum going, to turn the battleship – that was the most difficult thing,” he says of his efforts. (more…)

The Albright-Knox in Buffalo has unveiled its major expansion plans, funded by a $42.5 million donation by billionaire Jeffrey Gundlach, which will see the museum expanding underground and out over its current sculpture garden. “At the present time we are able to show about 2.5 percent of our collection. We have hundreds of masterpieces literally in storage at all times, we are not able to share them with the public. A key question we have been challenging ourselves and our architects with is where should we build,” Janne Siren, director of the museum, said. (more…)

The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art is scrambling after nearly its entire staff resigned this week in protest over working conditions, the New York Times reports.  “How many organizations expect employees to work for 10- to 12-hour shifts without even a single 15-minute break,” says Nora Lupi, the former visitor services and membership manager. “How many institutions expect someone who makes less than $14/hr to be on call 24/7 for operational, managerial and executive assistant demands?” (more…)

The UK is preparing an online catalogue of its entire collection of publicly owned sculpture, the Art Newspaper reports.  The project will be headed up by Art UK, which led a similar effort in digitizing the nation’s collection of paintings in recent years.  The project is expected to be completed by 2020.  (more…)

Ellsworth Kelly, Diptych: Green Blue (2015), via Art Observed

Since the passing of Ellsworth Kelly in December of 2015, the exhibition of the artists’s final works has made for a sort of bittersweet anticipation. The show could be seen as a grand farewell to an artist who changed the landscape of American painting several times over during the course of his career, each time delving deeper into his clean, almost rhythmic approach to the shaped canvas that filled its confines with rich bounties of color.  Presented this month at Matthew Marks, the artist’s last body of work does not disappoint, and the series of pieces, culled from past sketches and concepts or completely new ideas, feels like a fitting look at the furthest points of the artist’s exploration before he laid down his brush for the last time.  (more…)

Arthur Brand, the Dutch private investigator working on locating works from the the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist has stated that he believes some works are in the hands of former IRA members, the Daily Mail reports, and is confident he can bring at least some of the works home. “Former IRA sources have told me or people that I know that there has been talk about these paintings for years within the IRA,” he says.   (more…)

A report by non-profit group Americans for the Arts has figures claiming that the revenue generated nationwide by arts funding sits at $166.3 billion.  “Arts and cultural organizations are valued members of the business community. They employ people locally, purchase goods and services from within the community, are members of their Chambers of Commerce, and promote their regions,” the report reads.   (more…)

The New York Times writes on Jeff Koons’s bouquet of flowers sculpture for Paris, intended as a gift to the city in the wake of terrorist attacks, and on the strings attached to the gift that have complicated its installation process. “They presented this bouquet as a symbolic present to Paris, but then we realized it wasn’t exactly a present, since France had to pay to install it,” says art critic Isabel Pasquier. “Whether you appreciate his art or not, Jeff Koons is a businessman, and we quickly understood that he was offering Paris to himself as a present.” (more…)

Reports on a drop in UK lottery sales bodes poorly for arts funding in the country, as the total sales for the past year drop by £55 million.  “Given the current climate of economic uncertainty and increasing competition from the gambling sector, we expect 2017/18 to be equally, if not more, challenging for the National Lottery,” says Camelot (the UK Lottery operator) Chairman Jo Taylor. (more…)

Documenta is planning a permanent “Documenta Institute” in the city of Kassel, which will serve as a research center and events site.  The site is planned as a way to “keep alive the concept and experience of Documenta in the years between exhibitions,” according to a statement by the city.  (more…)

US scholar Kenneth Wayne is preparing an addition to the Amedeo Modigliani catalogue raisonné.  The work will complement Ambrogio Ceroni’s catalogue raisonné, first published in 1958.  “We plan to publish a supplement to Ceroni by 2020 with around 50 works,” Wayne says.

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Georg Baselitz, Descente (Exhibition view). All images courtesy the artist and Galerie Thaddeus Ropac

On now through the first of July, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is presenting a body of new works by German artist Georg Baselitz in its spacious Paris Pantin exhibition galleries.  The show, titled Descente, brings together a set of new paintings and works on paper that concern the concept of aging and that of the “late work” in the career and life of an artist. (more…)

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has offered to turn over Jean-Michel Basquiat and Pablo Picasso works given to him by Malaysian financier and art collector Jho Low, works which were believed to be purchased with funds from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).  The account, full of government money, was spent on personal excesses and extravagant gifts. (more…)

Three New York men have been charged with selling counterfeited Damien Hirst dot paintings online for more than $400,000, The Guardian reports. “The art market’s demand for limited editions can lead to fake pieces with little value,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.  “In this case, the alleged fraud went beyond plain imitation, and the defendants are charged with deceiving a multitude of buyers into purchasing counterfeit art that was falsely passed off as genuine.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper has a piece this week on the network of art storage warehouses and complexes in the U.S. and abroad, charting the map of companies working in the $1 billion industry.  “Until about ten years ago,” says Stephane Custot of London’s Waddington Custot gallery, “Modern and contemporary art collectors were mainly made up of art enthusiasts and amateurs, they had a real passion, spending their money on what they liked; they collected in order to simply enjoy the work in their home environment. Today you have to work with an increasing number of art funds or speculators buying art for investment. Art buying has become accessible to a much larger audience than before and is considered an asset. The result of this is that more work sleeps in warehouses rather than hanging in collectors’ homes.” (more…)

Artist Ei Arakawa has had a work stolen from the Skulptur Project Münster, an LED panel painting that was pried free from its display.  “This is a really interesting ‘performance’ in a way, revealing how vulnerable art in public space can be, and how public space can be violent,” the artist said. “This often happens in the history of Skulptur Projekte.” (more…)

Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Installation View), via Art Observed

Reflecting on the landmark career and tragically short life of artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Zwirner has opened its first exhibition dedicated to his work.  Zwirner has partnered with Andrea Rosen to jointly represent the artist’s estate worldwide, a move that promises increasingly broad exposure and support for his vision and canon. (more…)

Sotheby’s has tapped Jan Prasens as its new Managing Director of Europe, putting him in charge of the auction house’s operations in the continent, as well as in the Middle East, India and Africa.  “While Jan’s commercial credentials are impeccable, he also commands a deep understanding of our business and clients,” CEO Tad Smith says.  “I am delighted he is taking on this position where I know he will thrive alongside the exceptional team already on the ground there.” (more…)

Roughly $12 million in art was stolen from a Sunnyside storage facility in Queens, the New York Daily News reports, including pieces by Frank Stella and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.  Owner William Pordy discovered that thieves had broken the locks on the door and stolen all 22 works in storage.  “They broke the locks and they stole everything, all my paintings,” Pordy said. “It’s awful.” (more…)

Artist and poet John Giorno is profiled in the New York Post this week, as a massive exhibition devoted to his work is set to open across multiple venues in the city, curated by his husband, Ugo Rondinone.  “John has a childlike curiosity,” former REM frontman Michael Stipe says of Giorno. “I love how open he is.” (more…)

Sam Durant is interviewed in the LA Times this week, after signing over the intellectual property rights of his controversial work Scaffold to the Dakota people in Minnesota. “I have no intention of making a representation of that again,” Durant says. “They asked me, ‘How do we know you won’t do this again?’ I said, ‘That makes perfect sense. It’s yours. You decide what happens to it.’” (more…)

Subodh Gupta, Cooking the World (2017), via Art Observed

As Sunday drew to a close in Basel, the flagship Art Basel fair brought its program to its finale at the Messe Basel, capping an unexpectedly vigorous few days of sales and other programs that once again underscored the fair’s exceptional attraction for collectors across Europe, North America, and the rest of the globe.  Capping its five day run on Sunday evening, the week concluded on a high note, with ample sales that focused primarily around the blue-chip highlights of the fair’s lower floor, while sending a strong message on the market’s health more broadly.

Albert Oehlen, Geigenbau (2003), via Art Observed

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