Jean-Luc Martinez, director of The Louvre, is in The Art Newspaper this week, discussing his ambitious plans to renovate and “revolutionize” the centuries old museum.  Martinez’s plans involve rehanging, relighting and relabeling most of the works in the museum galleries, and is the beginning of what the director sees as a “complete makeover” of the museum. (more…)

A new participatory work by Rikrit Tiravanija has been installed at the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul.  The work, titled Demo Station No. 5, is an open stage installed inside the museum, allowing for performances, relaxation and iteration between guests, artists and members of the institution. “I want people to move around like they are in their daily life. Part of my interest is always to break down the distance between what we think of as art or high art and what we do in our daily life,” Tiravanija says. (more…)

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red (1937-42) © 2014 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/p HCR International

Running in tandem with the Turner Contemporary in Margate’s expansive Piet Mondrian retrospective, the Tate Liverpool is currently exhibiting an immersive exhibition focusing on the Dutch artist’s creative process and physical locales. (more…)

Artist Grayson Perry has designed a special holiday home in Essex, part of a special commission by Living Architecture, and developed in collaboration with the FAT architectural firm.  Appropriately titled A House for Essex, the home boasts a golden copper alloy roof, and a secret narrative incorporated into the space by Perry, focused around an imagined previous inhabitant.   (more…)

Wassily Kandinsky, Group with Crinolines (1909), via Art Observed

On view at the Guggenheim New York is an exhibition of early works by the pioneering Russian modernist Wassily Kandinsky, made between the years of 1901 and 1911, during the time he and his partner Gabriele Münter traveled extensively throughout Europe, Tunisia, and Russia.  The works, featuring a blend of Kandinsky’s developing lyrical style and his more early, studied figurative pieces and landscapes offer a strong look at an oft-overlooked part of the artist’s career.

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Pierre Hyghe is profiled in the New York Times this week, previewing the artist’s long awaited retrospective at LACMA, and noting the demanding focus Huyghe’s work often requires of curators, in particular his pieces incorporating live animals and actors.  “We have meetings just to talk about the living elements, which isn’t something that usually happens to you as a curator,” says organizer Jarrett Gregory. (more…)

The New York Times spotlights Phillips new flagship location in London, and the auction house’s renewed efforts to challenge the duopoly between Sotheby’s and Christie’s at the highest end of the secondary market.  “It’s a statement of intent,” says Phillips’s new chair Edward Dolman.  “This gives us the best space for viewing contemporary art in London. It’s potentially a game changer.” (more…)

German investigators have announced that they have found a landscape by Claude Monet hidden inside the suitcase of Cornelius Gurlitt, adding yet another work to the considerable selection of works he had stored away in his Munich apartment.  Gurlitt had apparently tried to bring the work with him when he left for the hospital, which scholars are estimating was painted around 1864. (more…)

A trailer has been released for the film Mr. Turner, an upcoming biopic that centers around the life and work of Joseph Mallrond Turner.  The film is directed by respected British filmmaker Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Naked) and earned lead actor Timothy Spall a Best Actor award at Cannes for his performance.  Mr. Turner opens in the US this month at the Telluride and New York Film Festivals.   (more…)

Vik Muniz has ventured to Brazil for his newest project, opening an art and technology school in the Vidigal neighborhood of São Paulo for young students.  Developed in conjunction with MIT, The Escola do Vidigal (Vidigal School) follows a similar arts and technology centre Muniz worked on in 2006 in Rio.   “We want to prepare kids to live and exist in a very visually challenging environment and to be able to act as producers as well as consumers,” Muniz said last year in an interview with Art Newspaper. (more…)

The Centre Pomidou has announced that it will be opening a temporary pop-up location next year in the Spanish city of Málaga, the home town of Pablo Picasso, and will bring a series of exhibitions of works from the Pompidou Collection to the city.  In turn, Málaga will pay a fee of €2.1 million, which offsets the deficit currently faced by the Pompidou for its 2014 operating budget.  “The current financial situation is pushing us to be creative in ways we did not have to be before,” said president Alain Seban. (more…)

Gilbert & George, City Lights (2013), all images courtesy White Cube

Now in their early seventies, the artist duo Gilbert & George have built a trademark artistic presence through their eccentric personas, often mocking British conservatism and aristocratic stereotypes. The duo’s artistic and romantic partnership has produced an ambitious body of work over the past 40-plus years, taking their home in London’s East End, with its multi-cultural and occasionally chaotic atmosphere as a home and inspiration for their politically and socially engaged practice.  Extending this practice, White Cube’s Bermondsey gallery is presenting an exhibition of the duo’s recent large-scale photomontages, collaging London streets with images of the dup.  Scapegoating Pictures for London, containing over sixty pieces of predominantly black, red and white works, delivers the duo’s profoundly satirical and often provocative tone, triggering concerns over terrorism, globalism, surveillance and religion in a massive and ever-shifting urban landscape. (more…)

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray and Blue (1921), Collection Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. © 2014 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c:o HCR International

“I wish to approach truth as closely as is possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects,” Piet Mondrian’s quote reads in the introduction to his expansive retrospective at the Turner Contemporary in Margate.  The Dutch artist, who moved slowly but steadily through the early history of abstraction, explored a diverse body of work in his career, from early impressionist experiments through to his iconic grids, colorful, reductive patterns of black lines and squares of color. (more…)

A researcher at Texas State University, San Marcos claims to have pinpointed the exact time frame and date at which Claude Monet painted his foundational work Impression, Soleil Levant.  Physicist Donald Olson compared numerous astrological charts, historical records, and photographs of the Normandy town of Le Havre (where the painting was made), before calculating a model that points to an extremely precise date of Nov. 13, 1872, around 7:35 a.m.   (more…)

James Turrell’s Meeting, permanently installed at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, is currently closed, as the museum seeks out a strategy for its restoration.  Commissioned in the late 1970’s, the work has remained opened to the public for over 40 years, but needs touch-ups to the walls, flooring and benches surrounding the open air in the middle of the space.  “We are going to get it back as close as we can to the original state, but we want it to be easier to maintain and use less power,” Turrell has said. (more…)

Takashi Murakami, Oval Buddha Silver (2008), all images via Palazzo Reale

After more than a decade, Takashi Murakami has returned to Italy for an exhibition of his Arhat Cycle. The father of the Superflat movement, Murakami’s most recent work blends his signature style, in which he usually combines traditional elements of Japanese culture with consumeristic pop-culture imagery, into a series of paintings and sculptures depicting the artist alongside a dizzying cast of surreal characters.

Takashi Murakami, Arhat Cycle (Installation View) (more…)

After much discussion, Pablo Picasso’s famed Le Tricorne will leave its place in the lobby of the Four Seasons New York this Sunday, traveling to a new home at the New York Historical Society.  In the meantime, the Hotel is encouraging visitors to come and see the work one final time.  “We’ll enjoy it and give it the standing ovation it deserves after nearly six decades as the backdrop of wild parties and quiet moments when families celebrate life’s milestones,” says Four Seasons co-owner Julian Niccolini.  “Everyone is welcome to stop in and see it before it leaves.” (more…)

This month’s cover of Garage Magazine has been unveiled, with a pair of Jeff Koons artworks gracing the cover, and a virtual artwork that allows viewers to view it from all angles using a mobile device.  The piece, Lady Bug, is Koons first venture into virtual art, and must be unlocked by scanning various parts of the magazine with a smartphone application.  “Garage has always aspired to push the physical limits of a magazine,” says owner Dhasha Zhukova. “We are inspired by the infinite possibilities of the digital realm and look forward to exploring new media in this issue and beyond. We are excited to have collaborated with Jeff Koons on his first virtual sculpture.” (more…)

Brooklyn artists and Creative Time favorites  Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw have released a snarky parody of Jordan Wolfson’s notorious dancing robot sculpture, which commanded massive media attention earlier this year at David Zwirner.  Called a “Mini Sexy Robot Doll for Your Desk,” the work features a wind-up, gyrating toy with the same gruesome face, the work is part of a traveling souvenir stand the artists will be running in the coming weeks to celebrate the opening of the fall art season. (more…)

Gerhard Richter, Wald (Forest), (2005), all images courtesy Fondation Beyeler

On view at Fondation Beyeler is the largest exhibition ever devoted to German painter Gerhard Richter, with an express focus on the artist’s reoccurring interests in series, cycles, and interior spaces, while also offering some of his most singularly iconic works. (more…)

Former auction house leader Simon de Pury is returning to the art world this month, with his first gallery show since leaving Phillips de Pury & Company (now Phillips) in 2012.  The exhibition, at Venus Over Manhattan, is titled Fire!, and features primarily ceramic and glass sculpture.  “It’s interesting to note that in the middle of a technological revolution, there is this strong resurgence of ceramics and glass, but also textiles,” de Pury says. (more…)

A new article by curator Sam Smiles in The Guardian this week studies the perceptions of late-life creativity in famous painters and artists, particularly in contrasts of value between the 19th and 20th century, and cites a number of critics who have noted most master artist’s work comes after their 50th year.  The article comes with concurrent run of three exhibitions exploring late work by Matisse, Turner and Rembrandt in London. (more…)

The city of São Paulo is preparing for its 31st Bienal (Biennial) this month in Ibirapuera Park, and hopes for the event are high.  The event boasts an international curator team, fronted by Charles Esche, director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, and former curator for biennials in Gwangju (2002), Istanbul (2005), Riwaq, Palestine (2007 and 2009) and Ljubljana (2010), as well as an $11 million budget, marking a considerable step forward for the event.  “I don’t think we need to once again announce that we’re going to reinvent the idea of the Bienal,” says Esche.  “We need to make a really good Bienal. We need to make an event, an exhibition, an experience that touches people.” (more…)

Artist Grayson Perry’s newest book, Playing to the Gallery, is out this month, tracing the artist’s early development and insights into the practice, inspiration and politics behind his unique work.  “I firmly believe,” Perry says early in the book, “that anyone is eligible to enjoy art or become an artist – any oik, any prole, any citizen who has a vision they want to share.” (more…)