A Frida Kahlo work has sold for $34.9 million this week at Sotheby’s, making it it the most expensive Latin American work sold at auction. “Painted in the same year her beloved Diego embarked on an affair with her friend, the Mexican golden age actress Maria Félix, this powerful portrait is the painted articulation of her anguish and sorrow,” says Anna Di Stasi, the director of Latin American Art at the auction house. (more…)

Mark Tansey, Resight (2019), via Art Observed

Currently on at Gagosian Gallery in New York, the dealer has compiled a body of new and recent work by painter Mark Tansey, spanning the past six years of work and running through a range of both paintings and graphite drawings mixed with oil and water. (more…)

The art collection of the Macklowe family, sold as part of a fierce divorce battle, achieved a $676.1 million result last night at Sotheby’s, with every lot selling through. “It’s a strong market,” says collector Eugenio López Alonso. “Top quality always sells.” (more…)

Dealer Inigo Philbrick will reportedly plead guilty to the alleged frauds he is accused of this week in New York, the Daily Beast reports.“Inigo Philbrick was a serial swindler who misled art collectors, investors, and lenders out of more than $20 million,” reads a statement by U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman. “When his schemes began to unravel, Philbrick allegedly fled the country.” (more…)

Etel Adnan, Untitled (2015), via White Cube

Artist Etel Adnan, the artist and writer whose colorful, minimalist landscapes and incisive writing about political conflict, trauma, and the Middle East made her a diverse and expressive voice in the Contemporary Arts landscape, has passed away at the age of 96. Adnan, raised in Lebanon but based in California for the past several decades, was an international literary figure, and a powerful fixture in the exploration and criticism of violence and war.

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Sylvère Lotringer, the influential scholar and founder of the book series Semiotext(e), has passed away at the age of 83. “He could meet people on their level and communicate this wealth of ideas to them,” says writer Chris Kraus. “So many people talk about how meeting Sylvère and hearing him made them change their lives. For him, all of this learning and all of this philosophy was a tool for living a more purposeful and meaningful life.” (more…)

Artist Agnieszka Kurant gives the NYT an interview this week, holding court on her work and philosophy. “She has ambitions to make major contributions to the way we understand ourselves, and to how we categorize and organize knowledge,” says curator Maya Ceruti. (more…)

The LA Times has a piece this week reflecting on the art and impact of photographer Gordon Parks, with a group of photographers and artists discussing his influence. “He had the ability to slipstream between high and low culture, rich and poor, to weave in and out of spaces and gain subjects’ trust,” says John Maggio. “But he almost never broke the fourth wall, he almost never became part of the story.” (more…)

Curator Christopher Y. Lew is leaving The Whitney Museum, Art News reports. “It has been an absolute honor to work with such a talented museum staff and so many visionary artists during the first years of the Whitney’s new building,” he said in an email announcing his departure. (more…)

Danh Vo (Installation View), via Chantal Crousel

Currently on view at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris, artist Danh Vo continues a body of work mining disparate historical and biographical threads to realize densely layered environments that challenge and complicate shared understandings of history and meaning. (more…)

The M+ Museum has finally opened in Hong Kong’s Kowloon neighborhood. “Nobody outside can come to the opening but it is an opportunity as well,” says director Suhanya Raffel. “This is an institution for this city. We can really engage with the city now, because we are all here and not traveling. After all this time, after all this waiting, it is very nice to make the museum opening about Hong Kong.” (more…)

Diane Simpson, Roof Shape (Ise), (2019), via JTT

Currently on at JTT Gallery in New York, Chicago-based artist Diane Simpson marks her second show at the gallery with Point of View, a show drawing on a range of architectural sources, as well as her own personal archive of drawings from the early 1980s to render a series of unique objects mixing a fanciful exploration of reality alongside conceptual operations.  (more…)

Neo Rauch, Die Pumpe (2021), via Art Observed

Currently on at David Zwirner’s New York exhibition space, artist Neo Rauch has brought forth a body of new works unified under the title The Signpost, a set of new paintings that mark his first show in New York since 2014. Known for his rich color palette and dreamy, surreal motifs, the artist’s work makes a striking return to the city.

Neo Rauch, Wegweiser (2021), via Art Observed

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The Salvator Mundi that sold at Christie’s has been downgraded by curators at The Prado to “attributed works, workshop or authorized and supervised by Leonardo.” “It is to be hoped that a future permanent display of the work will allow it to be reanalyzed with greater objectivity,” says curator Vincent Delieuvin. (more…)

Two men, including the executive director of Mana Contemporary, have been indicted in connection with a tax evasion scheme at Moishe’s Moving. The indictment states that director Eugene Lemay, as well as bookkeeper Joel Lingat, and “other co-conspirators perpetrated a scheme to defraud the U.S. government of payroll and income taxes due and owing to the IRS.” (more…)

Sean Kelly Gallery is opening a permanent Los Angeles space, helmed by the dealer’s son, Thomas. “It’s not just a lateral shift, it’s also a generational shift,” Kelly says. (more…)

Ron Gorchov, MOCKINGBIRD (2020), via Cheim and Read

Currently on view at Cheim & Read in New York, the gallery turns its attention to the late works of artist Ron Gorchov, exploring the last works the artist made between 2017 and his passing in 2020. Marking a concise summary of the artist’s work and a final look at his single-minded, painterly practice involving a curved, saddle-like stretcher that creates a painting surface that is simultaneously convex and concave, the show underscores his work in a unique and long-lasting mode of practice. (more…)

Ella Kruglyanskaya, Entrenched (2020), via Bortolami

Bortolami Gallery opens its latest exhibition this month with a body of works by artist Ella Kruglyanskaya, marking the artist’s first show with the gallery, and a continuation of her continued explorations of the human body and varied notions of femininity.  (more…)

Dealer Kavi Gupta gives Architectural Digest a tour of his Chicago home, and his impressive art collection this month. “The design is very much in service to the art,” says his wife, Jessica Moss. (more…)

According to initial estimates, six million people visited Christo and Jean-Claude’s Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped during its run this fall. “It was a crazy dream and you have accomplished it, Vladimir [Javacheff, the late artists’ nephew]. We give you infinite thanks,” said President Emmanuel Macron. (more…)

With the announcement that the United States will reopen to international visitors, the NYT looks at the needs of cultural institutions, and the hope that the return of international visitors will help bolster budget shortfalls at a number of venues, galleries and museums. “We’re waiting with arms open,” says Victoria Bailey, the executive director of the Theater Development Fund. (more…)

Arts non-profit Anonymous Was a Woman has announced its largest series of awards recipients this year, providing funding to 14 women in a variety of creative fields. “It is an unexpected honor to finally receive recognition for my work as a painter and sculptor,” says recipient Suzanne Jackson. “I have known about the Anonymous Was A Woman award for years, though I never thought that I would be a recipient. I plan to use the award funds to continue my work exploring new aspects of integrating drawing, painting, and sculptured forms as related to various American relationships to our natural and urban environments.” (more…)

Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.237, Hanging Six-Lobed, Interlocking Continuous Form), c. 1958, Private Collection © 2021 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy David Zwirner

Marking an ambitious exploration of the life and work of artist Ruth Asawa, David Zwirner in New York is currently presenting All Is Possible, an expansive exhibition curated by Helen Molesworth that situates the artist’s iconic looped- and tied-wire sculptures in the context of her extraordinary drawings and her lesser-known sculptural forms. Presenting viewers with one of the most comprehensive looks at this artist’s work to date, the show larger context illuminates an artist in pursuit of form as a means to reshape the act of seeing, and the role of art in daily life.

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The Vatican will open a new contemporary art space in the papal library. “Our challenge is to strengthen the cultural role of the Vatican in the contemporary world,” says Vatican’s librarian Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça. (more…)