Art Newspaper has a piece this week on the future of art auctions, and the category’s gradual folding into the broader luxury goods market, and new approaches to technology. “The fundamentals of auctions should be conducive to new technology… it is not the silver bullet,” says Bonhams Chief Marketing Office Marc Sands, “but to deliver technological change, you need someone who understands it.” (more…)

Arts Professional looks at a proposed â‚¬17.9m cut to European Union (EU) culture budgets proposed by the Finnish leadership, a point that could seriously impact the organization’s culture-making activities.  “We have been crunching the numbers and the picture is bleak,” says European Parliament’s Culture and Education Committee’s Chair Sabine Verheyen.   (more…)

The Foundation for Contemporary Arts has set up a new $40,000, annual prize, named after Helen Frankenthaler.  “Helen would like nothing better than to see us supporting artists who carry on her pioneering approach to art making—and her adventurous spirit,” says Clifford Ross, board chair of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, which underwrites the grant. “FCA gives us the perfect opportunity to support new generations of visual artists.” (more…)

Merlin Carpenter, Untitled (2019), via Simon Lee

Artist Merlin Carpenter is a relentless shapeshifter, continuing a critique of modern art through a boundless series of projects and practices that often delve into ruptures and problems with the language of modern art. Exploring problems not of understanding, but of functionality in terms of art’s presentation and use, the artist explores just how aesthetics and value systems can be extended over the canvas. Emphasizing new levels and layers of observation intended to focus not only within the world of art-viewing, but in the world more broadly, the artist’s work makes a striking visual impact. (more…)

A piece in The Guardian this week charts the challenges of moving the collection of the V&A Musueum, from the heaps of paperwork to the difficulties in handling older items, to the odd bombshell. “I got a text last week saying we’ve found a bombshell,” says Ruby Hodgson, the collections move team manager. “My immediate thought was: ‘Oh God, are there explosives still in it?’” (more…)

The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra has closed its doors due to poor air quality caused by the bushfires that have devastated the country. “Due to an increase in smoke in the Canberra area the National Gallery of Australia will be closed today,” a statement reads. “Closing our doors allows us to mitigate any risk to the public, staff and works of art on display.”  (more…)

The last major auction of assets belonging to Johnson Publishing Co., a sale of the company’s impressive art collection, including a series of works by Carrie Mae Weems, will take place later this month. “The collection represents the stature and history of Johnson Publishing,” said Nigel Freeman, director of the African-American Fine Art department at Swann Auction Galleries in New York. “And it’s never been seen before by the public.” (more…)

A piece in Arts Professional this week notes a distinct drop-off in direct funding to artists, as it studies the impact of lottery funds on the art world and the artists benefitting from its program. (more…)

John Baldessari

Artist John Baldessari, who pioneered a uniquely humorous and challenging approach to painting and conceptual art making over the past half century, has passed away at the age of 88.  A leading voice in the development of conceptualism, his interest in ideas and their functioning over the image itself would make him an influential and dynamic voice for post-war art. (more…)

Art News has a piece on modern art works that entered the public domain this year, among them Joan Miró’s Head of a Catalan Peasan, Madonna with Begonia by Emil Nolde, and Portrait of the Art Dealer Johanna Ey by Otto Dix. (more…)

Russian collectors Igor and Olga Toporovsky, have been arrested on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. “The Toporovskys were arrested early last month by the Belgian federal police after a criminal complaint deposited 18 months ago by our clients. Both are held in custody; the criminal court prolonged their arrest for one month on Friday 20 December,” says lawyer Geert Lenssens. (more…)

Calvin Marcus, City Pig/Wild Boar (2019), via David Kordansky

Opening his second exhibition at David Kordansky in Los Angeles this winter, painter Calvin Marcus returns to his enigmatic, always challenging body of work, turning his approach towards painterly composition towards increasingly complex, and increasingly nuanced compositions. Titled GO HANG A SALAMI IM A LASAGNA HOG, the show features four bodies of work—including paintings, sculpture, and photography across its three exhibition spaces. (more…)

Researchers think they have uncovered the story behind the strange orb in Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, noting that the object would be a hollow glass ball. “Our experiments show that an optically accurate rendering qualitatively matching that of the painting is indeed possible using materials, light sources, and scientific knowledge available to Leonardo da Vinci circa 1500,” the report reads. (more…)

Officials at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice want to build flood-proof perspex barriers for the walls of the Cathedral, warning that the structure cannot take another damaging flood like the one last year in the city. A statement from the Prosecutoria states it hopes the plan “will have the support of everyone—Venetians, Italians and the whole world—to whom the great cultural and spiritual heritage of St Mark’s basilica belongs.” (more…)

Collectors Sandy and Louis Grotta are featured in NYT’s ‘Show Us Your Wall’ section, spotlighting their collection of furniture and sculpture. “When the pieces all have the same vocabulary, you can move something from room to room, and as long the scale’s right, it’ll work,” Mr. Grotta says of showing his works in his home. “And things tell you if they don’t belong. We’ve given a lot of thought to having a foreground, middle ground and background, too. If we had Mount Fuji outside, then we’d be perfect.” (more…)

A young man, Shakeel Ryan Massey, has been arrested for allegedly ripping a £20 million Pablo Picasso, Bust of a Woman this past week at the Tate Modern. (more…)

Roger Brown, Runaway (1968), via Venus Over Manhattan

Counted among the ranks of the Chicago Imagists, Roger Brown possessed a unique sense of figuration and composition. Celebrated for their use of imagery, figuration, narrative, and patterning, this group of artists pulled from idiosyncratic sources to produce deeply personal and visually diverse work, shirking the cool, stylistic orthodoxies that dominated on the coasts in favor of a fluid, colorful style that mixed together disparate styles and techniques. (more…)

Art News has a piece on the late Donald Marron, a passionate art collector who spent his life befriending artists. “I’m not a scholar,” he once said. “I can’t explain art. It was the power of the composition, and the feeling that you were seeing something that hadn’t existed before.” (more…)

The LA Times has a piece on Assembly Bill 1482, a new law that may provide relief for artists seeking to protect rents at spaces like the Santa Fe Artist Colony.  “The city deemed us eligible for 1482 at the old rent, and they told the owner that,” says Sylvia Tidwell, the head of the Santa Fe Art Colony Tenants Assn. “The tenants need to be prepared for a fight.” (more…)

Yinka Shonibare is planning an artist residency at two sites in Nigeria, split between Lagos and Ijebu in Ogun state.  “Unfortunately, there aren’t many opportunities for artists to develop spaces in Africa,” he says. “Artists want to share ideas and have galleries and studios. But if that’s not provided, it’s left to the artists to fill that gap and take that [responsibility] upon themselves.” (more…)

A piece in Art News charts the last ten years in the art market, and how the landscape has shifted towards a broadened collector base and more distributed competition for works.  (more…)

Three modernist works, including Barbara Hepworth’s Orpheus I have been gifted to the British Nation, The Guardian reports.  “We are thrilled that Wakefield’s art collection will receive this generous philanthropic gift.” says Simon Wallis, the director of the Hepworth Wakefield. “These are three major works of art that will find a perfect home for wide public appreciation and benefit at the Hepworth Wakefield.” (more…)

Francesco Clemente, India I (2019), via Vito Schnabel Projects

Artist Francesco Clemente opens a show of work at Vito Schnabel’s New York exhibition space, highlighting the artist’s famed nomadism and his embrace of varied geographies spread over the full expanse of the globe. Moving between Italy, the United States, India and elsewhere, Clemente has long embraced the practice of moving across sites, and allowing his aesthetic interests it follows. Clemente’s work traverses time and recorded history to probe the mysteries, ecstasies, incongruities, and, ultimately, the gravitas of the human condition, working through the metaphysics of spirituality, mysticism, identity, and the self, too render a body of work in a variety of mediums that is often charged with eroticism and intimacy, rich in references, and expansive in its openness to interpretation. (more…)

A piece in the NYT this week compiles a selection of “our favorite arts photographs” for 2019, looking at a range of documentary and art photos. (more…)