After much back and forth over whether or not Art Basel Hong Kong would attempt to continue in the face of the coronavirus outbreak in China, parent company MCH Group announced today that the 2020 edition of ABHK is cancelled.  “Our thoughts are with those affected by the recent coronavirus outbreak all around the world. We are acutely aware of the important role that the fair plays within the region’s cultural scene and for our galleries, both in Asia and around the globe,” says Marc Spiegler, Member of MCH Group’s Executive Board and Global Director Art Basel. “Our team dedicated extensive time and effort to ensure our show in March would be a success over the course of the past year. Unfortunately, the sudden outbreak and rapid spread of the novel coronavirus radically changed the situation.” (more…)

Sotheby’s will sell a David Hockney sunflower painting in Hong Kong this spring, estimated at around $10.3 million, and will embark on a tour of Asia before its sale. “Having witnessed substantial interest in Hockney amongst Asian collectors in our international sale locations, this was a natural move for us. The flower still life is furthermore a popular motif for Asian audiences,” Yuki Terase, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, Asia said. (more…)

Bloomberg has a piece this week on collectors increasingly borrowing against their collection to fund new purchases, taking advantage of low interest rates to drive spending. “The collector base tends to come from credit-savvy, market-driven industries: private equity, hedge funds, tech, big data,” says Evan Beard, art-services executive at Bank of America Corp. “They built their companies using debt, and now they apply the same methodology to building art collections.” (more…)

Artist Pilvi Takala has been tapped for the Finnish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale next year. “The fact that I could start researching early on means I don’t have to make any compromises due to lack of time and can be more ambitious about what I’m making,” Takala said in a statement. (more…)

Tamara de Lempicka, Portrait de Marjorie Ferry (1932), final price: £16,280,000, via Christie’s

With the UK now into its first days of Brexit, attention turned to London this week for a string of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist Sales that looked to take the first test of the market.  Considering the results this week, a path forward seems uneasy but possible, as mixed results between the auction houses made for a series of compelling auctions and unpredictable results (more…)

Beijing Gallery Weekend has been postponed over coronavirus concerns. “Facing this major threat to public health, all members of the team will fully cooperate with prevention and control measures while still working online with the utmost efficiency,” reads a statement from the organization. (more…)

Deutsche Bank is scaling back its art collecting activities, and has already sold some of its key works.  The works sold include a massive Gerhard Richter triptych from the lobby of the bank’s Wall Street tower. (more…)

Martine Gosselink, current head of history at the Rijksmuseum, will head to The Mauritshuis as its next general director.  “Alongside her wealth of experience in the museum sector, we see great added value in her historical expertise and ability to present artworks in their historical context, as a result of which the story of the Mauritshuis collection can be even better communicated,” said Lokke Moerel, chair of the Mauritshuis’s supervisory board. “The museum’s objective is to connect the present with the past and thereby contribute to contemporary themes and the social debate. We believe that Martine, together with the Mauritshuis staff, will bring this to life in an inspiring way.” (more…)

Jaime Botin’s fine from the Spanish government over his taking a Picasso work out of the country has been increased to €91.7 million (about $101.2 million), Art News reports. (more…)

A German court this week ruled that the current holder of a work cannot its registration on a government database of Nazi-looted art, despite dealer claims that these postings make the work unsellable. “From the moment an artwork is listed in lostart.de, a serious art dealer cannot trade it,” says Rupert Keim, the president of Germany’s Federal Association of Art Auctioneers. “The seller is forced to find a solution with the claimant.”  (more…)

Robert Grosvenor, Untitled (2020), via Karma

Artist Robert Grosvenor could perhaps best be described as an artist invested in space.  His interests rely not only on how the object exists within it, but equally how the space around an object twists and responds, moves and carves up space.  His sculptures capture a similar idea, pulling the viewer through their specific materiality and unconventional formal language that at one point might incorporate a distinct industrial materiality, while at others moving into a hard-edged, classic minimalism.  Each of the elements of this historical movement’s conceptual interests are there: heft and weight, density, scale, and even color, yet Grosvenor, more and more over the past years particularly, seems to take these principles and turn them towards the everyday, mining the language of the world around him to find new ways to ask similar questions . For his third show at Karma in New York, Grosvenor continues this particular interest in the realm between space and object, presenting a room-sized sculpture that the artist refers to as a “block of water,” as well as a collection of found and variously altered models of aircraft, watercraft, and automobiles.

Robert Grosvenor, Untitled (2020), via Karma (more…)

Peter Saul and Jamian Juliano-Villani speak with each other for an interview this week in Art News, discussing their work and their senses of humor. “You know how you have all the different areas for tastes on your tongue? In paintings I’ve got to hit those marks—and humor is one of them,” Juliano-Villani says. “When I make a painting, I like to start out with something stupid, then bring it somewhere to cancel that out—then bring it back to something else.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper has a piece this week documenting the immense cost of the recent flood damage in Venice, and the challenges the city will face as climate change continues to threaten the lagoon city. “We now need to draw a line between the emergency response and subsequent restoration projects,” says Manuela Carpani, the head of the local authority for archaeology, fine art and landscape. (more…)

Artist Christine Sun Kim, who showed in last year’s Whitney Biennial, was tapped this week to perform the sign language version of the National Anthem during the Super Bowl, calling out the broadcasters for failing to include more footage her performance.  “To be honest, it was a huge disappointment — a missed opportunity in the struggle for media inclusiveness on a large scale,” she writes in the NYT. “Though thrilled and excited to be on the field serving the deaf community, I was angry and exasperated.” (more…)

A “community artwork” referencing recent anti-government protests and placed on view at the India Art Fair (IAF) in New Delhi was shut down by police this week, Art Newspaper reports. “Our contract with the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre (where the work was exhibited), consistent with others, required them to share with us the details of all activities which were to take place at their booth over the course of four days of India Art Fair,” a statement from the fair reads. (more…)

The New York Times has a piece on the explosion of recent street art in Iraq as anti-government protests grow in scale and focus.  “You know, we have many thoughts about Iraq, but no one from the government ever asked us,” says art teacher Riad Rahim. (more…)

A group of alumni at CalArts are working to make the school’s tuition more affordable. “The aptitude to be a great artist comes from all over the world, from every income bracket, from every gender identity, from every racial identity, and from different countries,” said Ravi S. Rajan, the school’s president. “But I know there are students who don’t come to CalArts because they cannot afford it.”  (more…)

A large-scale portrait thought to be of the son of Louis XIV has been revealed to be of a lord mayor of London. “Of all the periods of art history this is the one people find the most difficult,” says Tabitha Barber, curator of British art 1550-1750 at Tate Britain. “Mainly because there aren’t many British names to latch on to. So I think there is a great deal to be discovered about this period, still. I’ve been working on this period for goodness knows how many decades and I’m still being surprised.” (more…)

Lisson Gallery now represents the work of Joanna Pousette-Dart, the Art News reports.  Poussette-Dart’s first show with the gallery will open at the end of February.   (more…)

David Hockney, The Splash (1966), via Sotheby’s

As the first batch of major art fairs gets underway in North America, the secondary market turns its attention to Frieze London this week, as the first test of its health gets underway in the British capital. Kicking off two weeks of auctions at the major auction houses, there should be ample chance for bidders to show just how confident they are on the current state of Britain, its place in the European art market, and how Brexit might have changed those forecasts. With Impressionist and Modern Sales scheduled for this week, and a trio of Contemporary and 20th Century Sales next, the month of February should be an intriguing bellwether for the coming months, and perhaps for 2020 more broadly.

Ed Ruscha, God Knows Where (2014), via Phillips

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The Guardian has a piece this week on the studio of conservators Hans Thompson and Maxwell Malden, and their practice working with both historical and contemporary art works. “We’d always worked together on freelance jobs,” Malden says. “We knew we’d work together at some point. We just didn’t think it would happen quite as quickly.” (more…)

Collector Steven Tananbaum and Larry Gagosian have reached a settlement in a suit over Jeff Koons works that the collector claimed he purchased and never received. “Mr. Tananbaum is a passionate collector, and we look forward to our continuing relationship,” Gagosian gallery and Koons said in a joint statement. (more…)

Erwin Wurm, Urinal (2011/2019), via Lehmann Maupin

Currently on view at Lehmann Maupin in New York, artist Erwin Wurm brings forward a new body of work that marks an expansion and elaboration on his already precise and peculiar style of sculpture. Titled Yes Biological, the show utilized biological effects and elements to create a new series that pushes the boundaries of sculpture ever further. (more…)

Collector George Way’s impressive holdings of British and Dutch art will go on view at the New York State Museum and the Van Wagenen House after the collector’s passing last June.  Way was planning a number of exhibition projects during the time of his death. (more…)