This Sunday, the Tate Modern will host an ambitious performance work, organized by artist Suzanne Lacy, in its new performance space, The Tanks.  Welcoming 400 women over 60 who were active in mass political actions of the past 40 years, Silver Action will provide the platform for open, unscripted discussions on aging and political activism.  Visitors will be able to listen into the many conversations concurrently running, and dialogues will also be transcribed online.  “I’m trying to shift the discourse away from one of isolation and increasing frailty: we should see older women as an amazing resource – not just talk about them taking resources.”  The artist says.   (more…)

German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer’s 1515 woodcut “The Rhinoceros” has sold at Christie’s in New York City for $866,500, setting a new record for the artist’s works.  Originally estimated at $100,000 to $150,000, the price of the piece quickly exceeded its estimate.  While some highly valued works, including Knight, Death and The Devil failed to attract bidders, Dürer’s record price for a single work was broken three consecutive times over the one-hour auction.   (more…)

Christie’s has announced its first online only auction of works by Andy Warhol, with all proceeds going to benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.  The auction includes a selection of highly recognizable works, as well as a number of Warhol’s photographs, and will open for bidding on February 26th.

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Mere weeks after the announcement that Christopher D’Amelio would be joining David Zwirner Gallery, the gallery has  announced that it will be opening a new, five-story location in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.  The gallery will be christened with a dual show by Dan Flavin and Donald Judd on February 15th, and plans to host major exhibitions that rival the those of much larger art institutions.  “The first show is a marriage between the space and the work,” Zwirner said last week. (more…)

In an effort to encourage visitors to enter the Milton Keynes Gallery in Milton Keynes, England; artist Tomas Georgeson has hidden a blank check for £8,000 somewhere inside.  While Georgeson stands by the check as art, he also considers it an investment in the gallery and its visitors.  “It almost doesn’t matter what happens, it’s the fact that it’s there. If somebody chooses to spend it on mortgage payments, then those mortgage payments would become art, which is quite miraculous to me.”  He says. (more…)

Maxwell Snow, Shroud V (2012), via Colette

Paris’s iconic Colette concept store is currently exhibiting new photographic works from artist Maxwell Snow, brother of the late Dash Snow. Monochromatic images feature French actress Rebecca Dayan and model Arizona Muse in a homage to 19th century Romanticism, fittingly titled after Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott”. (more…)

Billionaire Roman Abramovich has purchased a collection of works by Ilya Kabakov, Russia’s most expensive living artist.  The collection of over 40 works ranges from early installations and albums to paintings, and is estimated to have totaled over $60 million.  “It’s one of the largest Kabakov collections in the world,” said Emilia Kabakov, the artist’s wife and collaborator since 1989. (more…)

Frank Cohen, the Mancunian billionaire and art lover, has announced plans to open a free art gallery in the Bloomsbury area of London.  The new space, situated in the former depot for Express Dairies, has already drawn comparisons to Charles Saatchi’s Chelsea location, and has been purchased in partnership with fellow collector Nicolai Frahm.  “We’re trying to give London another space which has a completely different feel.” Says Cohen. (more…)

The heir to Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim is pushing the German government for a decision on a pair of paintings by Paul Klee and Juan Gris that he claims were sold to Nazi collectors under duress.  Flechtheim’s great-nephew, Mike Hulton, claims that there is sufficient evidence to prove his claims, but he is currently being challenged by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.  “We are asking for late justice. My aged stepmother Penny and I are very disappointed and somewhat puzzled — we hope this emotionally stressful and difficult situation will come to an end soon.” Hulton says.

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Salem, MA’s Peabody Essex Museum has quietly risen up the ranks to become one of the United States’ top 20 art museums for gallery space and endowment, thanks in part to a new revenue model that focuses on strengthening the museum’s endowment over physical expansion.  Led by director Dan L. Monroe, the museum has also shifted its focus towards the local community, and away from occasionally unreliable streams of tourists.  “That gives you a dynamic relationship with the community and the capability to develop a support base,” Mr. Monroe says. (more…)

Sotheby’s announced that its will soon hold its first evening auction of Indian works in 12 years, a collection of 43 works from collector and dealer Amrita Jhaveri.  The upcoming auction will be exhibited in New York, London and New Delhi in advance of the sale, and will include works by Tyeb Mehta, Francis Newton Souza and Syed Haider Raza, with a total value of $7 million. “Her father and mother were also collectors and knew various artists. But I believe that these are her works.” Says Yahmini Mehta, international director of Indian and South-east Asian art at Sotheby’s. (more…)

While fine arts auctions in New York State generate total sales of $8 billion annually, many dealers and market analysts are calling foul on auction practices intended to drive up the price of works with little to no supervision of the market.  “The art world feels like the private equity market of the ’80s and the hedge funds of the ’90s,” says James R. Hedges IV, a New York collector and financier. “It’s got practically no oversight or regulation.”

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LA Art Show (2013), Installation View

The LA Art show held its opening night premier party on Wednesday, January 23rd at the LA Convention Center. During the Patron Hours, James Franco was the guest of honor and was joined by an eclectic LA crowd, with an incredible mix ranging from the overtly contemporary to the traditionally elegant. Entering its 18th year, the fair has earned a reputation for its well planned juxtaposition of traditional and modern art, and this year’s edition was no different.  The milling crowd moved easily from the traditional to contemporary sections and back, taking their time to comb through the sheer scale of the festival and its one hundred prominent worldwide galleries.

LA Art Show (2013), Installation View

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MoMA PS1 is reportedly working with city officials to bring a large-scale performance dome to the Rockaways in an effort to help raise funds for the neighborhood that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.  While little news has been released, funding for the dome has apparently been acquired from Volkswagen. (more…)

A recurring theme of late for American museums has been that of repatriation, with several major institutions announcing that they will return ancient works to foreign countries claiming that the works were theirs.  However, many critics and museum employees posit that these claims on ancient art are often little more than extortion, and that the claims do little more than starve the cultural offering of museums and institutions around the globe, all while ignoring key issues of theft and looting.  “Has any of this affected the real evil, which is looting?” asks Stephen Urice, a cultural property lawyer at the University of Miami. “From what I see, it’s getting worse.” (more…)

With the Spanish economy in the throes of stagnancy, the annual ARCOMadrid Art Fair is looking abroad to ensure a productive year.  The fair has compensated 150 VIP guests to attend from the United States, Asia, and elsewhere in order to ensure a strong turnout this February.  “We’re very aware of the difficult moment the Spanish economy is in, so we’re trying to compensate with foreign buyers,” said ARCO director Carlos Urroz. (more…)

Luc Tuymans, The Summer Is Over (Installation View), via David Zwirner

With a consistency that can almost be regarded as mechanical, 2013 marks another show by Belgian painter Luc Tuymans at David Zwirner in New York.  Since joining the gallery in 1994, the Belgian painter has held solo exhibitions in the gallery every two years, and is currently presenting a new series of thematically interwoven works that expound on his sparsely colored, figurative approach, titled The Summer is Over.

Luc Tuymans, Zoo (2011), via David Zwirner

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A painting by French Master Charles Le Brun has been discovered at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris.  The work, titled Le Sacrifice de Polyxène, had hung for years in plain sight in the suite where Coco Chanel had lived for 30 years, but only drew attention recently, when the Hotel closed for renovations.  “It is a magical discovery,” said Cécile Bernard, a Christie’s expert. “The painting must have been there for at least 50 years.” (more…)

A large banner featuring one of George Condo’s Jesters has been unfurled outside of the Metropolitan Opera.  The banner promotes the Opera’s current production of Rigoletto, as well as Condo’s current show of work in Gallery Met, the exhibition space in the Met’s south lobby, which opens Monday.  (more…)

The Dutch Restitutions Committee has rejected the claim of two Jewish art dealers for all but one of 189 works in the country’s national collection.  The committee did return one work, Ferdinand Bol’s Man With High Cap, but was unable to find enough evidence to return any of the other contested works.  “Ownership of most of the works has not proved very probable,” the Dutch Restitutions Committee said in its recommendation, published late yesterday on its website. “During the occupation, the Katz brothers often acted as middlemen and intermediaries for German buyers.”  (more…)

Frieze New York has announced its 2013 “Projects”, a selection of seven specially commissioned works that will be brought to life at the fair this May.  The show will feature works by Liz Glynn, Maria Loboda, Mateo Tannatt, Andra Ursuta, Marianne Vitale, a special tribute to the artist-run restaurant Food, and an original text by novelist Ben Marcus.  Says Frieze New York Projects Curator Cecilia Alemani: “For the second edition of Frieze Projects in New York, I asked the commissioned artists to intervene in the fair and its surrounding landscape by staging challenging works that play with everyday habits and collective behaviors. Basic actions such as eating, drinking, speaking and praying serve as the starting point for a series of site- specific installations that engage the ritualistic dimension of the fair and the unique landscape of the island.” (more…)

Following a well-attended VIP preview at this year’s Art Stage Singapore, dealers are saying that the Asian art fair is off to a strong start.  The growing wealth of Southeast Asia is reflected in the high number of Asian galleries at the fair, but Western artists have also fared well, with a number of Antony Gormley works already sold, and major interest in the butterfly works of Damien Hirst.  “With the Dow at a four-year high, a lot of people have loosened their purse strings,” said Jasdeep Sandhu, of Singapore-based Gajah Gallery. (more…)

Sculptor Marc Quinn has unveiled his most recent installation commission, a massive rendering of the artist’s son at the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore.  The sculpture, titled Planet, is intended to play on notions of weight and scale, and continues Quinn’s record of major public works, following his bust of Allison Lapper on Trafalgar Square’s 4th plinth.   (more…)

Ed Ruscha, I’m Amazed (1971),via Bernard Jacobson

This January, Bernard Jacobson Gallery is home to Ed Ruscha’s I’m Amazed collection, which presents some of the artist’s most abstract works.  Known for his treatment of text as objects, the titles of Ruscha’s images become the works themselves. Single words are juxtaposed against simplistic images (i.e. gas stations or landscapes) while others dominate the work completely. His statements, or individual words, become ambiguous against their backdrop. The title of show is adopted from a work that reads ‘I’m Amazed’ in faint grey print,engulfed by a swarm of flies to the point of illegibility. The laconic effect of such imagery sufficiently summarizes the collection and sets the sombre and subdued atmosphere of the show.

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