Marianne Boesky Gallery and Paula Cooper will share representation of artist Jennifer Barlett, showing her work this year at Art Basel Miami Beach and scheduling a show for the artist next year. “I admire Jennifer’s ambition and her courage to constantly challenge herself and her audience through painting,” Boesky said in a statement. “She began her career as a rare female minimalist painter during the 1970s and has maintained an ever-evolving practice. Her most recent works continue to showcase her unbound curiosity and ability as a painter—something that is markedly difficult to find. Her work deserves much greater visibility.”

Koji Inoue will join Hauser & Wirth as international senior director of postwar and contemporary art newt summer, Art News reports. “We have always successfully combined activities across the primary and secondary markets, the historical and the new,” says president Iwan Wirth. “A core principle of our approach is that a strong 20th century program contextualizes the art of today, and the art of the present re-contextualizes the art of the past. It’s a full circle, and we look forward to tracing it in many interesting ways with a dedicated space for historical exhibitions at our 69th Street gallery.” (more…)

The New York Times traces the lives of dealers Benjamin and Nathan Katz, the sales their artworks to Nazi officials, and the lawsuit filed by the Katz family to reclaim it. “The Dutch have a vested interest in keeping this art, the United States only has a vested interest in what’s fair,” said Joel Androphy, the lawyer for Katz heir, Bruce Berg, who filed the lawsuit in the states. (more…)

Artists Phyllida Barlow and Anna Maria Maiolino are interviewed in the New York Times this week, covering their time in New York, their work, and their interests in other modes of art. “I think all artists are political because they put out into the world their emotional response, however intellectualized it is,” Barlow says. “They put out into the world an opinion about being alive, and that is political.” (more…)

Damien Hirst’s installation of 14 immense statues depicting gestating fetuses outside a Qatar Hospital is now up. “You know culturally, it’s the first naked sculpture in the Middle East,” the artist said. “It’s very brave.” (more…)

Arshile Gorky will come to Venice next year, opening his first Italian retrospective at the Ca’ Pesaro museum of modern art. “What we can see from our perspective now, and what this retrospective survey seeks to demonstrate,” says co-curator Edith Devaney, “is that Gorky’s artistic voice can be detected from the very start—even when he appears to be immersed in an interrogation of the work of others.” (more…)

A study on UK arts and diversity has found a substantial barrier caused by class in the nation, Arts Professional notes. “Language, attitudes and the prevailing ‘excellence’ narrative in the arts can be seen as divisive in terms of engaging a broader audience in arts,” the report reads. (more…)

The Guardian has an interview this week with artist Nick Cave, as he opens a commanding show of new work and reflects on the violent landscape of modern America, and how work like his Soundsuits address some of these issues. “You are liberated: it hides gender, race, class – so you’re forced to look at something without judgment,” he says. “It’s about getting outside of yourself and surrendering to this other.” (more…)

The Swiss Institute has elected three new members to its board: Monique Burger, John Garcia, and Florian Gutzwiller, Artforum reports. “I am immensely grateful for the continuing support we have been receiving as we create the very first long-term home for SI after more than three decades,” says chair Maja Hoffmann. (more…)

A piece in Art Newspaper looks at the recent trend toward auction guarantees, and the damage some say it’s causing to larger art market health. “Guarantees have the potential to be the next big art-market scandal, if they are not carefully managed,” says Harry Smith, the executive chairman and managing director of the London-based art advisory firm Gurr Johns. “We seem to have one every 20 years, so maybe we’re due for another. And most crises come out of conflicts of interest.” (more…)

A prank by a Romanian theater group led many in Europe to believe a Picasso stolen from the Rotterdam Kunsthal in 2013 had been found under a tree.  “We never assumed this would be easy, but wanted to find out at which point in the process things would falter, with whom and why,” a statement by the theater group read. “The work is one of the storylines of a performance, which as a whole focuses on the value of truth. What is real and what is not?” (more…)

MassMoCA will add another decade to the run-time of its iconic Sol LeWitt wall-drawing show, Art Newspaper reports. They will now be exhibited until 2043. (more…)

Glenn Lowry will remain at the helm of MoMA through 2025, the NYT reports.  “There is no better leader with whom we can expand upon MoMA’s success,” Museum Board president Ronnie Heyman said this week. (more…)

The Art Newspaper has a piece this week on the works in private collections now withheld from public viewing, and the works that often are never seen again, including speculation on some works owners have wished to have destroyed when they die. “The idea of a right to destroy gave way to the idea that you cannot do this, and nowadays there is a ‘duty of care’ for owners of art works,” says Dr. Edgar Tijhuis, an art law specialist. (more…)

The Hepworth Wakefield museum in England has named the London-based artist Cerith Wyn Evans has been awarded the 2018 Hepworth Prize for Sculpture, a recognition that comes with an award of £30,000. (more…)

Installers and maintenance workers at MoMA PS1 staged an action today at the museum over negotiations over their wages at the museum, which they claim are not on par with those of their colleagues at the Museum of Modern Art. “MoMA PS1 has a terrific team of installation and maintenance staff, and we are committed to reaching a new contract with Local 30,” the museum said in a statement. “We continue to make progress in negotiations, and have our next session scheduled for later this month. It’s been a productive process and we’re confident we’ll arrive at an amicable resolution.” (more…)

Peter Halley, Unseen Paintings (Installation View), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

During the years 1992 to 2002, Peter Halley’s paintings were rarely seen in New York City — during that entire ten-year span there was only one exhibition of his paintings in the city. The artist, whose body of work helped to define a return to abstract, painterly language in the New York avant-garde during the 1980’s, was noticeably absent, a note that often leaves his work somewhat divorced from some of the other artists living and working during that era. Now, an exhibition at Sperone Westwater aims to reintroduce the artist’s work from that era to the city, culling together a body of eight works that emphasize his aesthetic interests during the period, and continuing his exploration of geometric and geographic forms. (more…)

Installation View. All images via Art Observed.

Nairy Baghramian’s third solo exhibition at Galerie Buchholz in Berlin is on view at the gallery through November 17, 2018. It is accompanied by a publication produced alongside Déformation Professionelle. This exhibition, shown over the last two years at SMAK, Ghent, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, was originally conceived as a retrospective. However, the artist decided to modify this approach and instead construct a show around new pieces that refer back to earlier ones. At Galerie Buchholz, many of these self-reflexive pieces are on view in the gallery’s first floor exhibition space. (more…)

David Hockney, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972), Final Price: $90,312,500, via Christie’s

After a marathon of sales this evening, running through a heavy first snowfall of the year in New York, the Contemporary and Post-War Evening Sales are a wrap, closing out the year on a high note.  Over the course of two consecutive evenings, the auction houses orchestrated a smooth-running series of sales that saw a number of major records fall, and a number of strong results.

Jean Michel-Basquiat, Untitled (Pollo Frito) (1982) Final Price: $25,701,500, via Sotheby’s (more…)

Syracuse’s Everson Museum of Art in New York has received a donation of $4.8 million, one of the largest gifts ever made to a Syracuse arts organization, given by board members Paul Philips and Sharon Sullivan. “This campaign is the most ambitious fundraising effort in our institution’s 120-year history,” says Elizabeth Dunbar, director and CEO of the Everson. (more…)

The New York Times looks at the new storage facilities popping up in New York and around the US for art collectors. “Dealers have to store it, then they sell it to collectors who have to store it, then they donate it to museums that have to store it,” says art adviser Todd Levin. (more…)

The Knight Foundation in Miami, Florida, has earmarked a total of $435,000 for four digital art projects. “As in many parts of modern society, technology advancements have revealed both new opportunities and challenges for artists,” says Chris Barr, director of arts at the Knight Foundation. “At the moment, there are few organizations providing support systems for digital art. These projects are filling that gap, helping artists navigate and thrive in this new terrain.” (more…)

Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev has been formally charged by Monaco prosecutors in relation to corruption probe over his ongoing dispute with Geneva art dealer Yves Bouvier. “we do insist on the fact that at this stage Mr. Rybolovlev is presumed innocent,” said Herve Temime, a lawyer for Rybolovlev, “and that this presumption and the rights attached to it should be strictly respected.” (more…)

Tony Bechara, the chair emeritus of El Museo del Barrio’s board of trustees, has donated $1 million in support of the museum’s curatorial and education programs, and towards its endowment. “This is a significant moment for Latino artists and for El Museo,” he says. “We are entering into a transformative period of achievement after some years of instability.” (more…)