Oldenburg/van Bruggen, Shelf Life (Installation View), via Art Observed

After 12 years, pop master Claes Oldenburg returns to Pace Gallery for a show of new works this month, united under the title Shelf Life.  Incorporating a a range of sculptural techniques and objects into a swirling series of “still life” arrangements, the artist’s work re-contextualizes his own range and output as a sculptor into the broader landscape of his own life.  Shown under the name “Oldenburg/van Bruggen” the exhibition feels like something of a tribute to the artist’s late wife Coosje van Bruggen, with whom he built a range of sculptures and projects appearing in smaller scales throughout the exhibition. (more…)

Bonn, Switzerlands Bundeskunsthalle is placing the first works from the Gurlitt Art Trove on public view, featuring work by Albrecht Duerer, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, the first time these pieces will be on view in public since their confiscation. (more…)

Rome’s Galleria Borghese will launch an ambitious study center dedicated to Caravaggio, done in partnership with Italian luxury goods brand Fendi. The project “seeks to reintroduce within museums the most advanced research to make them producers of culture and not mere producers of blockbuster exhibitions,” says says the Galleria Borghese’s director, Anna Coliva. (more…)

Sotheby’s posted a loss of $23.5 million in its third quarter this year, improving slightly on expectations after a moved Hong Kong Sale and unexpected tax benefits saw the auction house perform better than expected. “There was a lot of uncertainty,” says CEO Tad Smith of recent months following the U.S.’s complex political situation. “But there was a breath of fresh air and you saw that in the marketplace.”

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Artist Frank Stella is interviewed in the NYT this week, and notes his favorite travel experiences over the course of his life. “I find many cities in Europe compelling for art including Munich, Berlin and Madrid, but Rome truly overwhelms me,” he says. (more…)

Forbes has a piece this week on the widespread proliferation of artist books in recent years, and speaks with longtime sister publishers onestar press and Three Star Books in France about the popularity of the medium. “Our offices and competences could be transported anywhere; ideally we would love the idea of becoming nomads,” says founder Mélanie Scarciglia. (more…)

Alex Katz is profiled in the New York Times this week, as the artist prepares for a massive three-floor show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in Harlem. “This is the most productive time in my whole life, right now,” he says.  “You try to do about five things at once, one of which is dare the other guys to try, raise the bar.” (more…)

David Zwirner will finally open his first outpost in Hong Kong on January 27, 2018, staffing it with directors Leo Xu (formerly of Leo Xu Projects and James Cohan Gallery) and Jennifer Yum (formerly of Christie’s).  The gallery will open its new gallery with a show of works by Michael Borremans. (more…)

Artist Simone Leigh has been named the 2017 winner of The Studio Museum’s Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, the Art News reports.  Leigh’s work is currently included in the New Museum’s “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” show. (more…)

Melike Kara, naked words, (2017), All images by Anna Corrigan for Art Observed.

Through November 3rd, Berlin gallery Peres Projects is currently hosting Köpek, a solo exhibition by artist Melike Kara. For this exhibition, the artist addresses questions of identity, belonging, and alienation through  photography, sculpture, and painting, ultimately articulating the multiplicities at the heart of belonging through a series of illustrations of anonymous human, animal, and material groups. (more…)

The New York Times profiles the string of construction delays and funding hiccups that have ultimately scuppered the deal for a British Museum collaboration with the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi. The museum has terminated an arrangement for a string of loans between museums over the course of ten years. (more…)

A string of major galleries have been the victims of a cyber-attack, with hackers intercepting payment invoices and making off with the money from various transactions.  Afflicted galleries include Hauser & Wirth, Simon Lee, and Thomas Dane, among others. “We know a number of galleries that have been affected. The sums lost by them or their clients range from £10,000 to £1m,” says the insurance broker Adam Prideaux of Hallett Independent. “I suspect the problem is a lot worse than we imagine.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper spotlights the impact that former Tate Britain Director Penelope Curtis has had on the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Portugal, uniting the museum with the collection of the Centre de Arte Moderna.  “You might think they were chalk and cheese, but for me it was an interesting challenge to think about how they speak to each other,” she says. (more…)

The Bass in Miami Beach. Photo by Robin Hill : Courtesy of The Bass.

Located in the center of Miami Beach’s rapidly expanding art and architectural hub, The Bass Museum has finally reopened after an ambitious renovation spearheaded by principal architect David Gauld. The $12 million renovation and expansion, which adds 4,100 square feet to the existing 8,700 square feet exhibition space, as well as a brand new 5,200 square feet wing for educational programming, is the second major renovation the museum has undertaken since opening in 1964. The Bass (which was originally named the Bass Museum of Art) went through an expansion of 16,000 square feet in 2001 under the creative consultancy of Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, whose team then had included Gauld. In the new space, the New York-based architect’s vision suggests commitment to authenticity, while expanding towards new horizons in the museum-going experience. The additions of new programmable space merges with the building’s monumental integrity and refined Art-Deco façade, allowing a sophisticated vision of a global contemporary art museum under the welcoming dome of a landmark institution that has catered to local residents in Miami Beach for decades.

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Artist Gary Hume is profiled in the New York Times this week, as the artist reflects on his recent work, which features a tribute to his mother. “I just wanted to paint a picture of my mum, and I wanted to do it to honor her,” he says. (more…)

A series of Barbara Kruger designed MetroCards are set to spread throughout the city of New York, bearing a variation on the artist’s famous 1992 work Whose Values? “These issues of power and control and physical damage and death and predation are ages old,” Ms. Kruger says. “I wish some of these issues would become archaic.” (more…)

Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley, The Newcomers, via Performa

Returning for another year of dynamic events, expansive projects, installations and performances spread throughout New York City this month, the wildly popular Performa Performance Art Biennial is set to touch down once again this year.  Curated once again by founder RoseLee Goldberg, Performa spans the next three weeks, bringing with it a sudden charge of energy and life to a city preparing for the subdued energy of the winter months. (more…)

A former assistant of painter Sean Scully was arrested this week, after trying to sell a piece he allegedly stole from the artist at Bonhams Auction House, the New York Post reports.  Scully was contacted when his employee, Arturo Rucci, showed up with the work, and promptly called police. (more…)

The Dia Art Foundation has had its directorship endowed for the future thanks to a donation by Nathalie and Charles de Gunzburg, the Art News reports. “She has increased the collection, incorporated women artists, reopened the program in Chelsea, organized programs in Beacon—she has made Dia alive and moving forward in the right direction while staying true to the mission,” de Gunzburg says of current director Jessica Morgan. “It’s clear she has an understanding of the institution, not only its history but also where it should go.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal follows a major offering of works from the collection of Brazilian banker and convicted money-launderer Edemar Cid Ferreira (including Jean Michel-Basquiat’s work Hannibal), which were returned to the Brazilian government after uncovering a massive laudering scheme including the works. Joon Kim, the Acting U.S. Attorney in the case, described Ferreira’s buying as “used to mask an audacious criminal scheme.”  The works are set to go on sale at Sotheby’s next month. (more…)

Wim Delvoye, Twisted Cement Truck (2017), via Art Observed

Taking over the spacious downtown location of Galerie Perrotin, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye has returned to New York City, capping his sixth one-person show with the gallery and his first singular presentation at Perrotin New York with a body of new works that continue his irreverent and critically-nuanced practice.  Continuing his formal deconstructions and spatial riddles with a series of works made during preparations for an exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the show sees Delvoye engaging broadly with the history of Iranian art, and the modern landscape of the Middle East.  (more…)

The New York Times has a piece this week looking at the recent string of works removed from exhibition after protest, and questions what the best way to dispose of these works might be. “For one thing, the work of exhibition-making no longer ends when the show opens. Instead, it continues as a process of listening, a public performance that goes on for months,” says David Xu Borgonjon. (more…)

Walter Swennen, Demasiadas Palabras (2017)  all images Copyright Walter Swennen Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.

In his third solo exhibition in New York, Belgian artist Walter Swennen delivers a broad range of takes on his text and poetry-based work, splashing doses of humor and introspection into each canvas spread across Gladstone Gallery, on which bright, cartoonish colors and existential subjectivities build a delicate, yet compelling balance. From the title bewtie (a riff on the word “beautiful” that also manages to sound Flemish), to Swennen’s utilization of language to problematize the banal, this exhibition chronicles his sense of absurdity embedded in mundane elements, and most particularly in language, as a crucial part of the ritual of the everyday. (more…)

The Art Newspaper profiles the new Bloomberg offices in London, and the impressive Olafur Eliasson work No future is possible without a past, installed in in the foyer. It’s not just about the money… I’m impressed by [Bloomberg’s] commitment to the environment and green funding,” Eliasson says. (more…)