Sarah Crowner, Folded Greens (2018), via Casey Kaplan

Notching her second exhibition with Casey Kaplan Gallery, artist Sarah Crowner has returned to the dealer’s Flower District space for a show of new paintings and a site-specific installation that underscores her continued interest in the language and lineage of the natural world in modern painting. Drawing on any number of figurative and abstract histories of painting the world around us, Crowner’s work is a refreshingly nuanced interpretation, one that draws similar graceful curvatures and natural forms from cut and sewn canvases.  (more…)

The New York Times looks at the continued growth of private sales at auction houses, noting Sotheby’s private sales growth by 28 percent last year, up to $744.6 million. “It was something that was kept under wraps at most of the houses for some time,” says David Schrader, who joined Sotheby’s last year as its head of private sales for contemporary art. “Now we’re being very vocal about it and putting more energy into it.” (more…)

A recent report notes that online sales could stagnate if market transparency does not improve, the Art Newspaper says. “In a world where online consumers can easily compare prices for most goods, and where ‘value’ is more universally understood, the online art market has a real challenge… when it comes to educating and creating confidence among new online buyers,” says Anders Petterson, founder of ArtTactic. (more…)

Congratulations to Jerry Saltz, who has won the Pulitzer this year for criticism, recognizing “a robust body of work that conveyed a canny and often daring perspective on visual art in America, encompassing the personal, the political, the pure and the profane.”  (more…)

Richard Aldrich, Wizard (2017), via Bortolami

Diving into the language and history of painting, artist Richard Aldrich’s new exhibition at Bortolami Gallery comes up to the surface with a diverse series of finds, spanning a range of practice that underscores his unique and energetic practice.  The show, which combines both sculptural interventions and a range of canvases mixing text, drawing and oil painting, offers an impressive look at the artist’s recent work, and leaves the viewer grasping for steady ground.  Yet, as the case with many great artists, Aldrich seems to fundamentally understand the joy in a little hard work, and the conceptual twists his pieces carry make their often confounding arrangements particularly rewarding for intrepid viewers ready to crack open a puzzle.

Richard Aldrich, Enter the Mirror (Installation View), via Bortolami

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David Hockney is profiled in the New Yorker this week, as the artist opens a show of new work at Pace Gallery, and his recent interest in reverse perspectives.  “If you’re going through a tunnel, when you get out, everything opens up. That’s reverse perspective,” he says. “The problem with perspective is this: you’re an immobile point, here, outside the picture. But, with reverse perspective, you can be a moving person—you can see all sides of things from a single point. And we’re always in movement. The eye is always in movement. It’s never still. Cubism, for example, was really an attack on perspective.” (more…)

Amanda Hicks has joined the Museum of Modern Art in New York as director of communications and public affairs, arriving from the Art Institute of Chicago. “It’s an honor to join MoMA and a privilege to help tell the stories of extraordinary art and artists that inspire, provoke, and connect with millions of people inside and outside the museum,” Hicks said in a statement. “This moment at MoMA—with the visionary renovation and expansion underway—sparks new and exciting conversations about its unparalleled collection, exhibitions, and programs.” (more…)

A Marc Chagall painting, Othello and Desdemona, 1911, has been recovered by the FBI almost thirty years after it was reported missing, Artforum reports.  “Gallery owners are our first line of defense in identifying pieces of art that do not have the appropriate documentation and should be brought to the attention of law enforcement,” says supervisory special agent Tim Carpenter of the FBI’s Art Crime Team. (more…)

Cosima von Bonin, WHAT IF IT BARKS 1 (WHITE BASS GUITAR VERSION) (2018), via Petzel

Expanding a body of work already recognized for its exceptionally whimsical, imaginative fusions of form, color and context, artist Cosima von Bonin is currently showing a series of new works on view this month at Petzel in New York.  The artist’s eighth show with the gallery, What if It Barks is also perhaps her most ambitious for the space, continuing her unique formal interventions on a grand scale with AUTHORITY PURÉE, her first full scale installation at Petzel’s 18th Street location.  (more…)

Ellen Salpeter will step down as director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami after joining the institution in late 2015, Art News reports.  “With the new building launched, the museum’s program for the coming seasons set, and the institution on stable financial footing, the timing is right for me to pursue new projects,” she said in a statement. (more…)

Former director of the Tate Modern Chris Dercon is leaving his position as director of the Volksbühne Theatre in Berlin after rampant protests and concerns over his leadership.  “Both parties have agreed that the concept of Chris Dercon did not work out as hoped, and the Volksbühne needs a fresh start immediately. [Following] the amicable agreement between the culture senator [Klaus] Lederer and Dercon, there is now a chance to initiate this necessary reboot,” a joint statement reads. (more…)

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac now represents the estate of Joseph Beuys, Art News reports. “Joseph Beuys is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, a groundbreaking radical thinker in contemporary art whose profound influence endures today,” a statement from the gallery said. “It is a great privilege and honor to represent the works of this visionary artist on behalf of his estate and to work closely with his family.” (more…)

Tedd Stamm (Installation View), via Lisson Gallery

Walking from Ted Stamm’s current exhibition at Lisson Gallery to Dan Flavin: in daylight or cool white at David Zwirner, the sharp angles of the two artists’ works seem to echo each other, representing two bodies of minimalist experimentation with a similar interest in form, and riffing on the shape of their canvas, whether that canvas be paper, neon, or stretcher. Stamm’s show is perhaps the more grounded in the traditional language of art-making, yet equally pushes his works to the semantic breaking points of the art object. (more…)

Anri Sala, The Last Resort (2017), all images via Marian Goodman Gallery

For his first show in New York since his solo exhibition at the New Museum in 2016, Anri Sala presents two new major installations at Marian Goodman Gallery that continue his interest in utilizing sound and music to question experience.

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Francis Bacon’s Study for Portrait (1977) will hit the block at Christie’s next month in New York, estimated to sell in the region of $30 million.  The work is a portrait of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer. “I find this work is so powerful—for me it is probably one of the best paintings of their mystical love affair, and that’s what drew me to it,” says collector Magnus Konow, who is selling the work. (more…)

The Smithsonian Institution has confirmed that it will work with the Victoria and Albert Museum to set up a joint gallery and exhibition site in East London, on the site of the former Olympic games.  The site will be the first for the Smithsonian outside the U.S. (more…)

The Economist charts the challenges to the continually expanding art fair circuit, and the possible limits such an economic model may face for dealers. The piece charts challenges included the sheer scale of work needed to show at each event, and the high costs to attend so many showings. (more…)

The Mike Kelley Foundation has announced the 2018 recipients of its Artist Project Grants, including projects by Andrea Fraser at the Hammer Museum and a presentation of work by Rodney McMillian at the Underground Museum. “The grantees this year reflect Los Angeles’s energized and diverse art scene, and underscore the foundation’s commitment to support risk-taking, underseen, and hard-to-fund work,” says Mary Clare Stevens, the foundation’s executive director. (more…)

Kim Tschang-Yeul, Waterdrops (1980)

In a decade-spanning exhibition at Upper East Side’s Almine Rech Gallery, Kim Tschang-Yeul exhibits a body of water drop paintings that have become something of a calling card for the Korean artist. Pursuing the singular idea of depicting water drops in ever-shifting narratives, the artist has built an elaborate series of works in this form over the past few decades, exhibiting his meticulously-illustrated oil on canvas compositions to a broad audience in Europe, Asia, and America. The exhibition emphasizes the artist’s unending quest to expand this signature style to implement political, personal or artistic narratives into simple, yet poetic presence of oozing water. Using the drop’s magnifying ability and translucent ethereality in diverse formats, Kim merges techniques of hyperrealist painting with cues from abstraction, particularly with his direct reference to monochromatic painting. (more…)

The New Yorker embarks on a profile of new Met Director Max Hollein, and his string of past appointments in San Francisco and Frankfurt. The piece focuses on Hollein’s experience in both large-scale renovation projects and updating programming to appeal to digital natives.  (more…)

Artist Christo is planning to open a version of his Mastaba sculpture in London, the Guardian reports, featuring an interview with the artist as part of the announcement. “I have no reason to justify myself as an artist. I cannot explain my art. Everything I do professionally is irrational and useless,” he says. “I make things that have no function – except maybe to make pleasure.” (more…)

Max Hollein, currently the director and chief executive of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, will become the 10th director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Times reports. “The museum has the opportunity to be not just an art destination,” Mr. Hollein says, but also “a major provider of understanding and different narratives to a global audience.” (more…)

Artie Vierkant, Image Object Thursday 5 October 2017 2:17PM (2018), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Galerie Perrotin’s spacious Lower East Side headquarters is a body of new works by digital artist Artie Vierkant.  The show continues Vierkant’s interest in the shifting modes of perception and criticality as the art object moves from a concrete object in the gallery space to an image of documentation online.  Filling the gallery with a series of his Image Object works, Vierkant’s pieces open an extended engagement between the object and its digital referents, ultimately seeking to break down connections between the two. (more…)

Cathy Wilkes will represent Great Britain at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Art News reports. Wilkes joins a group of recent exhibitors including Phyllida Barlow (2017), Sarah Lucas (2015) and Jeremy Deller (2013). (more…)