All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

With the closing of the weekend, Art Basel has reached the culmination of what has been an extensive and prolific week of exhibitions, sales, salons, and performances.  The cultural capital sited on the banks of the Rhine attracted more than 2,500 artists, 300 galleries, and an international presence of 36 countries for the festival’s 43^rd successful installment.

“System of Display” (2010) from Pace, reflecting Andy Warhol‘s “Mao” (1973) at the LM ARTS booth

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‬Edward Spencer-Churchill in ownership dispute with the Mugrabi family over sale of Jean Michel Basquiat painting, currently held by Christie’s until the issue is resolved.

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Richard Prince, Untitled (2012)

In his first exhibition at 303 gallery since 1991, Richard Prince presents a show titled 14 Paintings – a small collection of paintings and a single sculpture. Some 30 years ago, Richard Prince actually lived in the current gallery space where his work is now showing.

Installation View of Richard Prince’s 14 Paintings at 303 Gallery

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‬Frieze London announces 2012 fair details, namely a list of 170 exhibitors and the addition of a new section ‘Focus’, featuring post 2001 established galleries. “Every year, Frieze London gets tens of thousands of people thinking about how we see the world through art,” says Michele Faissola of Deutsche Bank, Freize sponsor for the 9th consecutive year.
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NY Times reviews this year’s Documenta art fair. “It is alternately inspiring — almost visionary — and insufferable, innovative and predictable, meticulous and sentimentally precious.”

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Jeff Koons, the artist; All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed

Adjoint to the week-long Art Basel fete, Swiss museum Fondation Beyeler partnered with American artist Jeff Koons to assemble and showcase key series from his repertoire under one roof, namely, The New, Banality, and Celebration.

Vienna’s Leopold Museum pays $5 million to keep Egon Schiele’s 1914 “Houses by the Sea,” a Nazi looted piece taken from Jenny Steiner in 1938.

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A Gerhard Richter piece sold for $20-25 million, so far leading the sales at Art Basel. 1986 “A.B. Courbet” was purchased by an unidentified collector.

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Louvre Museum hosts its first ever catwalk show, a collection by Italian designer Salvatore Ferragamo. “The clothes’ light colored palette is on purpose and in tune with the Louvre’s light colored stone,” said Creative director Massimiliano Giornetti.

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‬The Guardian interviews Turner prize winner Rachel Whiteread, revealing the thought process and controversy behind her latest endeavor, a frieze on London gallery Whitechapel. “You can’t make a good piece of public art by consensus; it’s just not possible. So I really had to stick my heels in,” says Whiteread.

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‬An installation of Anish Kapoor works at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park will open this Saturday, June 16th.

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Vanity Fair delves deeply into minimalist sculptor Donald Judd’s legacy in the remote border town of Marfa, Texas as well as the  town’s renaissance, “Part of the thrill of being in Marfa is adding to what Judd left undone. The town is animated by a state of perpetual suspense.”

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The Water Tank Project to collaborate with a team of artists including Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, and Jay-Z in designing 100 New York City water tanks for next Spring.

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Also in museum news, Kunsthalle Zürich renovation complete which adds an intermediate floor with a public library, offices, meeting rooms, an archive and workshops. “It promises to give the Kunsthalle Zürich an exciting future and will enable us to extend our programme and improve our facilities for the benefit of our visitors,” says the director, Beatrix Ruf.

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Swiss art collector Uli Sigg donates $167 million of art to Hong Kong. The majority of his Chinese art collection to be displayed in the now unbuilt Museum Plus (M+) “To me it’s very important that a Chinese public can ultimately get access to these works. (There are) still limitations that exist in mainland China for that.”

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Aaron Young discusses his work in Matt Black’s “Reflections” series. The New York artist explains his development and use of minimalism in the short film: “I always feel like it can pull one step back and strip it down a little bit more… you can talk about the process as erasure, but what it really breaks down to is a kind of loss.”

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‬First official trailer released for Alison Klayman’s film on Ai Weiwei “Never Sorry” to debut in theaters on July 27.

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Fridericianum in Kassel via dOCUMENTA

Every five years, the city of Kassel in Germany plays host to dOCUMENTA, a colossal, 100-day long exhibition of contemporary art from all over the world.  Participating artists are provided at least two years to complete their work and the results are thus consistently thorough and complex.  This year is dOCUMENTA’s thirteenth edition and is expected to attract more than 750,000 visitors, nearly twice that of last year’s Venice Biennale.

Yan Lei‘s  “Limited Art Project”, a room of works completed daily over the past year.  The room and the art hung on its walls will be sprayed over with car paint, retransforming every piece into a blank canvas.  This image is featured on BBC News’ Big Picture series.

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Barrons examines the growing trend for auction houses to facilitate private art sales, which is said to be faster than other art acquisition processes.

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The Guardian UK, claiming that East London’s art scene was “dying” less than a week ago, now reports that the East End will stay ‘vibrant’ positing that although galleries have moved out of the East End, the area holds many advantages over the tourist-centered Fitzrovia.

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Hennessy Youngman interviewed regarding his Art Thoughtz videos, preferences, and current projects: “The Art World and the World of Hip-Hop… are pretty similar actually. They’re both filled with delusional people who truly believe the things written about them in their press releases.”

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Two Yves Klein pieces to be presented at Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Auction in London on June 27.  Christie’s New York last May sold Klein’s FC 1 (Fire-Color 1), for $36,482,500 (£22,619,150), setting a new world record for the artist at auction.

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Fashion brand Band of Outsiders to present a Marina Abramović-esque performance in an unannounced Paris gallery. A male model will spend 60 hours in a “small compartment built from cardboard boxes and wood planks.”

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Vincent Gallo, against releasing his film, “Promises Written in Water,” leaves the Whitney Biennial without response.

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