Bond insurer Syncora, one of the creditors in Detroit’s bankruptcy case, has filed a massive subpoena against the Detroit Intitute of Arts, calling for a selection of documents including ownership records, documents regarding donations, and tax records, among other records.  The move is the latest in an increasingly fraught debate over whether credtiors will push DIA to sell off its works for Detroit’s debts. (more…)

The lawsuit by Daniel Loeb against Sotheby’s, filed over its attempts to prevent him from taking over 10% ownership in the company, has been fast-tracked by a Delaware judge.  “Here we have an uncommon rights plan that on its face discriminates between activist and passive investors,” says Vice Chancellor Donald Parsons, who presided over the telephone hearing. “It is sufficiently possible that the board is attempting to tilt the playing field for proxy contest in its favor and make for an unfair fight.” (more…)

A pair of paintings by Gaugin and Bonnard, stolen from a London collector in 1970, have resurfaced in the home of an Italian autoworker, the Guardian reports.  The pieces were purchased at auction in 1975 for a sum of 45,000 lira (€39 or £32, equal to £300 today), and sat in the kitchen of his home for many years, before the owner’s son noticed a similarity between the works and other Impressionist masterpieces.  “The worker, it seems clear, didn’t know what they were,” says Mariano Mossa, commander of the Italian heritage police. (more…)

Jorge Pardo at Petzel Gallery, via Art Observed

Through April 4^th, the work of artist Jorge Pardo will be on view at the Petzel Gallery, stretching the space into a bizarrely disorienting collection of objects and installations.  This is the Los Angeles-based artist’s eighth exhibition at this gallery, and continues Pardo’s investigation of architectural and non-specific spaces that interrogate the limits of the gallery-space, as well as the way the viewer is conditioned into looking at art.

Jorge Pardo, Spare Bedroom (2014), All images courtesy Friedrich Petzel Gallery (more…)

Artist Xavier Veilhan and dealer Emmanuel Perrotin have lost a court case asserting Veilhan’s work was copied by artist Richard Orlinski, whose installation of several works in the French alps bear a strong similarity to Veilhan’s previous work.   “The court has rightly recognised the originality of Orlinski’s work,” said Orlinski’s lawyer, Julie Jacob. Regardless, Perrotin and Veilhan have stated that they may appeal the decision. (more…)

An ongoing art research project is working to identify air pollution in past centuries, using landscapes and other paintings for clues as to the era’s atmospheric makeup.  In one case, the eruption of the Tambora Volcano in Indonesia caused several years of bright red and oranges sunsets around the world, most notably documented in the paintings of J.M.W. Turner.  “From Turner you see that in this specific year he starts painting sunsets a little more reddish, compared to two or three years before,” says lead researcher Dr. Andreas Kazantzidis. (more…)

Rankin, A. Galerie, Paris, all photos by Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

Launched in 1998, the Art Paris fair has charted a course of its own through the increasingly glutted calendar of sales events internationally, sitting squarely between the behemoth proceedings of New York’s Armory Show and the bustle of Hong Kong’s recent Art Basel edition.  This past weekend saw the 2014 edition of the Art Paris Art Fair come and go, as 140 galleries set up shop in the Grand Palais for several days of strong sales, and an impressive attendance count of 58,387, up 10% from last year.   (more…)

In collaboration with the City of New York, Fabergé is launching a large-scale egg hunt this Easter season, placing 22 artist-designed eggs  around the city, for participants to track down.  The selection of eggs are specially designed by artists Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel, and Bruce Weber, among others. (more…)

The Financial Times writes on trends towards collectives, collaboration and cooperation in the contemporary art world, examining the practice of the Triangle Network, White Columns and How to Work Together, a recent project which challenges various fine artists to work in collaboration to respond in ways as to how artists may operate collectively.  “We have been very open that this has been a challenging process,” says Polly Staple of Chisenhale Gallery, who helped earn funding for the new project. “It took us six months just to come up with a Memorandum of Understanding.” (more…)

James Turrell, Sensing Thought (2005), via Pace

Following his massive, three-museum retrospective last summer, artist James Turrell returns to the gallery circuit this spring, with a selection of recent works on view at Pace Gallery’s London location in Burlington Gardens.  The show offers a continuation of Turrell’s interest in light as a mediator of space, using LED lights to create shifting, intriguing alterations of depth in a closed room.

James Turrell, Recent Works (Installation View), via Pace (more…)

The Wall Street Journal has published a memorial to sculptor Anthony Caro written by Karen Wilkin, a curator and former assistant who spoke at a memorial service for the artist last year, remembering the artist’s demanding nature and quick intuition.  “While Tony was invariably pleased when you were excited and enthusiastic about particular works, she writes, “he was far more interested in the problematic, recalcitrant ones. And he was always eager to respond to suggestions from fresh eyes—respond immediately, that is, by working on the sculpture.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on Christie’s auctioneer Loic Gouzer’s new evening auction event, focusing on contemporary and emerging artists.  Gouzer’s first auction of the project, to be held on May 12th in New York, will compete with Phillips Auction House’s contemporary sale on the same night, and features work from Richard Prince, Wade Guyton and Cady Noland.  “When I look at the quality and the buzz,” Gouzer says, “I think people will want to be there.” (more…)

Three Pieces from Mira Schendel’s Spray Series, via Art Observed

Late last year, when Hauser and Wirth opened its show of Brazilian Neo-Constructivist, Concrete and Neo-Concrete works, the few works on view by Mira Schendel immediately stood out.  Light, effortless prices of rice paper printed with China ink and left hanging encased in glass, the works sat somewhere between linguistic deconstruction, minimalism and light art, tracing slight reflections of light over the multi-surface piece.  Among a show of boldly colored works and large, impressive sculptures, Schendel’s work stood out for its soft focus and minimal exertions of color.

Mira Schendel, Untitled (from series Discos) (1971-73), via Hauser and Wirth (more…)

Christie’s New York Impressionist and Modern Auction on May 6th will sell off over $34 million in art from the collection of late collector Edgar Bronfman, Bloomberg reports.  The sale will feature strong works from Picasso, Matisse and Monet, among many others. (more…)

When Storm King Arts Center opens for the 2014 season, it will prominently feature a new work by Virginia Overton, a 488-foot long, undulating line of brass tubing, meant to roll and shift with the land as if a line on a topographic map, but which also conducts the sounds of the space around it.  “I wanted to make something that had an impact but spoke to the environment,” Ms. Overton says, “something that fit into the landscape.” (more…)

Over the past year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has sold off nearly $5.4 million in art, with another $3 million in paintings expected to sell this year, the New York Post reports, including a series of pieces donated by former Met president George Blumenthal.  “The museum is perpetually engaged in assessing its own collections, refining them, and making room for new acquisitions that merit display,” says spokesman Harold Holzer. “The Met owns more than 1.5 million works of art in all, and even in this vast building, storage space is finite.” (more…)

Bernd Leifeld, who has served as the director of the Documenta art festival since 1996, has announced that he will step down from his post, having organized four successful editions of the event during his tenure.   “I am leaving with two weeping eyes,” Leifeld said in an interview with the German Press Agency. “But I wanted to decide for myself when I leave.”  (more…)

Cornelius Gurlitt, the Munich man at the center of the discovery of hundreds of artworks potentially looted from Jewish collectors during World War II, has announced that he will begin returning the works to their rightful owners.  The return will begein this week, as Seated Woman/Woman Sitting in Armchair, an iconic Matisse, is delivered to the descendants of French collector Paul Rosenberg.  “Mr. Gurlitt has given us free rein to return those pictures that belonged to Jews to their previous owners or their descendants,” says court-appointed lawyer Christoph Edel. (more…)

Maria Lassnig, Lady with Brain (1990), via Art Observed

The work of Maria Lassnig is deceptive in its simplicity.  Bright, seasick colors and sloping, often pathos-inspiring, self-portraits seem to fade in and out of focus, occasionally giving away to the staunch white of the surrounding canvas.  In others, the artist blends cool tones and and an even smoother application to create pieces almost completely vacant in their emotional intensity.  But in each work, a powerful subtext can be detected, a self-awareness both vocally present and consistently self-aware in its definition and re-defining of itself.  (more…)

Trevor Shimizu, Girlfriend Wants a Baby, (2010), all images Courtesy 47 Canal

Again, a solo show of the work of Trevor Shimizu, is currently on view at 47 Canal now through April 6.  From the work itself to the press release of this show, the dry wit and intense self-awareness of Shimizu’s voice reverberates throughout each work.

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George Condo, Standing Bather (2013), via Skarstedt

On view at Skarstedt Gallery in London are a series of ink on paper drawings by George Condo, combining styles and techniques from different modes of painting, often subverting, but always focused around the commonly accepted conventions of the portrait.

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Chuck Close, Untitled Torso Diptych (2001), all images courtesy Pace Gallery

Taking an inside look at the meticulous creative process of artist Chuck Close, Pace Gallery in New York presents an exhibition featuring Polaroids, daguerreotypes and an acrylic painting exploring the artist’s continually shifting approach to the human figure.  The exhibition focuses on “the body,” a subject long-investigated by the artist.  Born in 1940 in Monroe, Washington, Chuck Close is best known for his many renditions of the human face. Mostly large in scale and based on photographs, his works are in the permanent collections of major museums and galleries around the globe, and have been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions in more than 20 countries.

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Brad Kahlhamer, The Four Hairs (2012), All images courtesy Andréhn-Schiptjenko.

New York-based artist Brad Kahlhamer is currently on view at Stockholm’s Andréhn-Schiptjenko. The artist, who works across mediums ranging from painting and sculpture to video and music the gallery has chosen to invite viewers to access his unique understanding of his surroundings or perhaps, alternative reality, through his painting, assemblage and sculpture.

Brad Kahlhamer, Kill Chiefs, (2010)  (more…)

Georg Baselitz, Untitled (2013), all images courtesy Gagosian Gallery

On view at Gagosian London is an exhibition of recent works by German painter Georg Baselitz, focusing the artist’s distinct style through a series of paintings focused on the self-portrait, while paying direct homage to the gestural figures of Willem de Kooning. The exhibition will remain on view through March 29, 2014.

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