Russian protest artist Pyotr Pavlensky has fled Russia following accusations of sexual assault that the artist deemed a “denunciation,” pointing to his recent works, including setting the doors of the FSB security service headquarters on fire, as cause for the accusations.  “A system of informing and reporting on others is re-emerging in Russia, showing that totalitarianism is setting in again,” he said. (more…)

Christie’s has announced its selections for its February Contemporary Evening Sale in London, leading its offering with Mark Rothko’s No.1 and Robert Rauschenberg’s Transom.  “We saw quite a strong growth of American and Asian bidding in the London sales in October last year, which was partly to do with the fall of the value of the pound after Brexit,” says Francis Outred, Christie’s chairman of Post-war and contemporary art Europe. (more…)

Indonesia is set to open The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, the first contemporary art institution in the country, in Jakarta this November.  The opening will be anticipated by a series of pop-up events called “First Sight.”  “MACAN First Sight will highlight the creativity of Indonesian artists and their international counterparts, and give our audiences an early taste of all that’s to come once the museum officially opens in November 2017,” says Director Aaron Seeto. (more…)

Edvard Munch’s Girls on the Bridge, which sold for for $54 million this past year at Sotheby’s, will be the central work at a new private museum in Potsdam, Germany.  Software billionaire Hasso Plattner, who is funding the museum, is also the rumored buyer of the work.  “No one has ever painted water, or captured moisture in the air, or the smell of the sea and gleams of light like the Impressionists,” Plattner says.  (more…)

In the wake of Theresa May’s proclamations on a hard Brexit this week, The Guardian examines the prospects for London’s art scene, which many felt would benefit from continued free movement of goods and people.  “The most unexpectedly potent factor in revitalizing Britain’s art market may, however, be the fall in the pound’s value since the Brexit vote, which means London’s galleries can offer bargains to international art collectors,” Jonathan Jones writes.

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A group of dealers are suing the Getty Museum for $77 Million over the transfer of ownership for a series of sculptures from the Torlonia family to the Italian government, which the dealers say were brokered using years of their research and labor.  “Plaintiffs cannot plausibly demand payment for a deal that never occurred,” the Getty said in a statement. “While we believe that the complaint should be dismissed, if necessary we will vigorously defend our position.” (more…)

The Centre Pompidou joins the list of Parisian institutions embarking on major facelifts, as it prepares for a two year renovation totaling over €100m.  “It will be a sort of construction game, but our aim is to stay open,” says Serge Lasvignes, president of the Pompidou Centre. “That is the objective.”
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The French financial prosecutor’s office has initiated an appeal in the tax evasion case against Guy Wildenstein.  “The case had shown a clear intention to evade paying tax” despite its dismissal, the appeal reads.
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John Currin, Newspaper Couple (2016), via Sadie Coles

Artist John Currin returns to the traditional forms of the marriage portrait for a new exhibition this month at Sadie Coles’s Davies Street exhibition space, bringing his uniquely vivd painterly techniques and often wry sense of humor to bear on a series of five new canvases.  Drawing on Currin’s long study of historical forms and context, the show continues the artist’s simultaneous study and subversion of the act of portraiture. (more…)

Wade Guyton, Untitled (2015), via Petzel

Marking an expansion and elaboration of his ongoing engagement with the materiality and phenomenology of digital media formats, Wade Guyton is presenting a series of inkjet printer-based works from late last year at Petzel Gallery this month.  Comprised of scanned and reprinted pages from the New York Times, Guyton’s body of new works reflects on both the commodity value and disposability of both images and their technologies in the modern landscape.   (more…)

David Hockney is profiled in The Guardian this week, as the artist approaches his 80th birthday, and looks back on the range of his work and conceptual project.  “Perspective takes away the body of the viewer. You have a fixed point, you have no movement; in short, you are not there really. That is the problem,” he says. (more…)

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Richard Prince has returned the $36,000 paid for one of his works to Ivanka Trump, after the artist publicly disavowed the work this week.  “It was just an honest way for me to protest,” Prince said. “It was a way of deciding what’s right and wrong. And what’s right is art and what’s wrong is not art. I decided the Trumps are not art.” (more…)

Labour MP Tristram Hunt will leave his post to take the directorship at the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Guardian reports.  Hunt had reportedly been at odds with his party, and his departure will initiate a byelection in his Stoke-on-Trent constituency.  “I would like to thank Tristram Hunt for his service to the people of Stoke on Trent Central and to the Labour Party. I wish him well in his future role at the V&A,” Labour head Jeremy Corbyn said in response. (more…)

Brice Marden is leaving Matthew Marks Gallery to join Gagosian, The New York Times reports.  “I’ve been working with Matthew for a long time and it’s been very, very good — he’s an incredible dealer — I just felt I needed a change,” Marden says. “I’m running out of time and I think I’ll be able to use my time better this way.” (more…)

The Glass House has appointed Philip Johnson scholar Hilary Lewis as the site’s Chief Curator & Creative Director, beginning January 17th, 2017. Lewis has worked for more than two decades researching the work of Philip Johnson, and will bring her knowledge and experience to bear on the artist’s iconic building.  “Having sat side-by-side with Johnson for years, I feel confident that what would honor his and David Whitney’s memory most would be for the property to evolve further as a center for the appreciation of architecture, design and art not just as a museum of Johnson and Whitney’s lives in New Canaan,” she says. “It’s an honor to have the opportunity to work directly with the Glass House as it looks forward to its second decade of public engagement.” (more…)

In an unexpected verdict, Guy Wildenstein has been cleared of tax evasion.  Wildenstein was acquitted this week after the presiding judge found shortcomings in both the investigation and in French tax fraud legislation more broadly.   (more…)

The Met has put a hold on its announced expansion of its Contemporary wing, as it continues to deal with budget shortfalls.  The museum will instead focus on infrastructural improvements like replacing skylights and roofing.  “It’s logical that that’s the urgent project we pursue first,” says director Thomas P. Campbell. (more…)

The NPR profiles the work of Italy’s Carabinieri for Protection of Italy’s Cultural Heritage, and its pioneering role in the investigation of art crimes, including its work on Leonardo, ” a crucial instrument not only for our national police forces but also for those abroad — it’s the biggest artworks database in the world,” according to Lt. Francesco Ficarella. (more…)

Theaster Gates is profiled in The Guardian this week, reflecting on his ongoing work on Chicago’s South Side, and his view on how art can help to heal struggling cities.  “If you draw a circle around a thing, stand in the middle of the thing, invite others to stand in it with you and pray and work and move your body, that place won’t be the same any more,” he says. (more…)

Galerie Perrotin has closed the doors on its uptown exhibition space, and has set its first show at its new 130 Orchard exhibition space for May, bringing a body of works Colombia-born, Paris-based artist Iván Argote.   (more…)

Manchester is one step closer to building a £110 million arts center in its city center, The Guardian reports, after planning permission was granted on the building.  “From classical opera and ballet to large-scale performances and experimental productions, Factory in Manchester provides the perfect opportunity to create the ultimate versatile space in which art, theatre and music come together: a platform for a new cultural scene.” (more…)

Andy Warhol, Knives (1981-82), All images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Nahmad Contemporary is currently presenting an impressive three-person exhibition at its Madison Ave exhibition space, contextualizing the work of both Christopher Wool and Wade Guyton through the artistic lens of Andy Warhol, making the latter artist’s impact all the more apparent in the work of the former two.  Combining the appropriation of existing imagery and the borrowed aesthetics of mainstream commercial imagery with a certain sense of spare visual arrangement, the show is a striking visual tour de force, connecting diverse focal points and concepts over a shared sense of composition and technique, especially in the sense of the gallery space as a transformational context. (more…)

Maria Balshaw, a figurehead in the Manchester art scene, has been named as the new head of the Tate by the museum board, The Guardian reports, and her appointment is awaiting confirmation by the Prime Minister.  Balshaw built a reputation as a dynamic leader in Manchester after leading a £15m redevelopment at the Whitworth Museum, and becoming a strategic lead for culture with the Manchester City Council. (more…)