The Art Newspaper spotlights the arrival of over 100 Modernist masterworks of the Sergei Shchukin collection at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the first time this many of the works from the renowned Russian collection have been shown together outside the country.  “All curators working on the Modern period dream about staging a Shchukin exhibition,” says Anne Baldassari, former director of the Musée Picasso in Paris. “It’s one of the great pioneering collections that has never received a comprehensive presentation.” (more…)

NADA will move its annual New York edition to March in 2017, aligning the event with the Armory Show, and taking place at the Skylight Clarkson North, a venue at 571 Washington Street in Hudson Square.  “NADA is always looking for new ways to bring contemporary art to the public on behalf of our international exhibitors and membership base,” says executive director Heather Hubbs. “We’re looking forward to this venture with Skylight Clarkson North, and returning to the west side for our sixth edition of NADA New York in March. (more…)

Dealer David Nahmad has claimed ownership of one of the works targeted for seizure in the collection of Malaysian billionaire Jho Low, stating that the work, a Claude Monet waterlily piece, is actually in his possession.  “My painting has been solely owned and possessed by me since its purchase up to the present time,” Nahmad said in a court statement. (more…)

FIAC at the Grand Palais, via Art Observed

The Foire International d’Art Contemporain (FIAC for short), has opened its doors in Paris, bringing another year of sales and shows to the grounds of the Grand Palais, and continuing to expand its scope and scale.  Marking its 43rd year in operation, the fair’s reputation and mark on the market calendar has grown in leaps and bounds in the last several years, all under the guidance of director Jennifer Flay, and the 2016 edition looks to sustain this sense of forward momentum.

Leandro Ehrlich, Changing Rooms at Luciana Brito, via Art Observed

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Marina Abramovic is profiled in New York Magazine this week, as the artist turns 70, and reflects back on the course of her life and career.  “I am one of the few people who don’t have secrets,” she says. “All of my secrets, I made performances out of them, or theater pieces.” (more…)

Ann Freedman, former director of the Knoedler gallery, has settled another of the 10 cases against her for selling forged works, reaching an agreement with collector Frank Fertitta, owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  This case is the eighth to reach a settlement. (more…)

Artist Yayoi Kusama is set to be preserved in wax at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong, the Art Newspaper reports, part of an “artistic themed zone” with the Japanese artist at the center.  “I hope everyone who passes through Madame Tussauds Hong Kong can fully embrace the positive energy evoked by the zone,” Kusama said in a statement. (more…)

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #368: The wall is divided vertically into five equal parts. The center part is divided horizontally and vertically into four equal parts. Within each part are three-inch (7.5 cm) wide parallel bands of lines in four directions in four colors. In each of the other parts, three-inch (7.5 cm) bands of lines in one of the four directions. The bands are drawn in color and India ink washes. Red, yellow, blue, ink, India ink 3” (1982), via Art Observed

Spread across all three of Paula Cooper’s Chelsea spaces, the gallery has embarked on a major celebration of the work of Sol LeWitt, posing a series of exhibitions that explores the range of the artist’s conceptual oeuvre, both as a solo artist, and in his historical impact on the development and evolution of art in both the 2oth and 21st Century.  Combining this diverse range of perspectives and interpretations of the artist’s work, the show is a fittingly nuanced exploration of an artist whose work continues to influence the progression of the field today, almost fifty years after his first exhibitions of work.

Sol LeWitt, (rip) R724, The area of Florence between the Piazza della Unita Italiana la chiesa S. Frediano and il Porticato dell ‘Ospedale di S. Maria Nuova (1976), via Paula Cooper

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Inverleith House at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh will cease using its space for art exhibitions in the wake of budgetary constraints.  “These are hard financial times for everyone, and we couldn’t afford to sustain it, and at the moment we have to focus on our core programs, which are botany and horticulture.” (more…)

Rumors are circulating that artist Sterling Ruby is collaborating with designer Raf Simons again, this time for Calvin Klein, where Simons was recently hired as chief creative officer.  Ruby has reportedly been spotted several times at the Calvin Klein offices, and has worked with Simons on several capsule collections in the past.   (more…)

Jérôme Bel is profiled in the New York Times this week, as he prepares his new performance at MoMA, featuring a group of MoMA employees performing in the museum atrium.  “I’m more interested in human beings than in objects, obviously,” he says.  “A human being is so complicated, especially a dancing human being, especially a nonprofessional dancer.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on the lawsuit between Wall Street trader Andrew Hall and professor Lorettann Gascard, who allegedly sold Hall a number of forged paintings attributed to Leon Golub.  Hall is suing for the $676,250 paid for the works, but Gascard and her son seem to have disappeared, leaving no indication of their location. (more…)

Artist Kader Attia has won this year’s Prix Marcel Duchamp, the â‚¬35,000 prize recognizing groundbreaking work in the field by a French artist.  The artist’s work is currently on view at the Centre Pompidou in Paris alongside his fellow nominees, Yto Barrada, Ulla von Brandenburg and Barthélémy Toguo in its exhibition spaces. (more…)

Marianne Boesky is now representing Sanford Biggers, the gallery announced this week.  Biggers will be featured prominently at the gallery’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach this December.  “Sanford’s work is powerful in its formal acuity and its ability to convey an intricacy and depth of meaning,” Marianne Boesky said in a statement. “Approaching his subjects with a distinct awareness of history and contemporary socio-political currents, he creates art that is intellectually, psychologically, and emotionally compelling. It moves us to connect, and engage with personal and societal truths.”  (more…)

Kerry James Marshall is the subject of a lengthy profile in the New York Times this week, as the artist prepares to open his retrospective at the Met Breuer.  “When you talk about the absence of black figure representation in the history of art,” Marshall says, “you can talk about it as an exclusion, in which case there’s a kind of indictment of history for failing to be responsible for something it should have been. I don’t have that kind of mission. I don’t have that indictment. My interest in being a part of it is being an expansion of it, not a critique of it.” (more…)

Christian Marclay, Incognita II (1990), via Paula Cooper

As October marches on, the art world once again converges on Paris for this year’s edition of the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (FIAC), a fair that has, over the recent course of its 43 year life-span, returned Paris to a place of prominence among the market capitals of the global art community.  Spread across the cavernous expanses of the Grand Palais, the fair returns this year with 189 Exhibitors, bringing a selection of works that offer a French counterpoint to the sales events on the other side of the English Channel just a week prior. (more…)

The Uffizi Museum in Florence has reopened its doors following an ambitious renovation aimed at improving the flow and space of the various exhibition galleries at the museum, where major pieces by Botticelli and other Renaissance masters hang side-by-side.  “The idea is to give emphasis to every single one of the 38 works in these galleries, and not concentrate everything on the few fetishized, iconic super-masterpieces,” says director Eike Schmidt. (more…)

Kansas City’s Nelson Atkins Museum has purchased a major early work by Piet Mondrian for its collection, and will be added to the Bloch Collection wing currently under construction.  “The renovation of the Bloch Galleries was made possible by a $12 million gift from Marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation, and will house their collection of 29 masterworks of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Integrated into the museum’s collection,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)

A group of artists including Anish Kapoor and Cornelia Parker are interviewed in The Guardian this week, reacting to the removal of A-level Art history from UK education programs.  “Our cultural industries are our biggest export, our biggest manufacturing base. Every pound spent on art education brings disproportionately large returns. It’s the biggest bang for our buck,” Parker says. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In fact, the more you put in, the greater the successes for the UK economy.” (more…)

Christie’s has announced a new method for reporting on bids from a third-party guarantor, with the auction house publishing the final prices “inclusive of buyer’s premium and net of any financing fee.”  The announcement comes after a recent interpretation of pricing rules by the Department of Consumer Affairs. (more…)

Workers on a demolition site in Germany have found a bundle of letters written by Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazi art dealer whose trove of confiscated art works continues to stoke controversy over repatriation of works from the era.  Experts are evaluating the letters to determine their value.   (more…)

Kader Attia is opening a multidisciplinary project space in Paris, called La Colonie, and located close to the Gare du Nord.  “La Colonie aims to reunite—without exclusion and through these great platforms that are of artistic and intellectual creation—all identities and all stories, in particular those of minorities,” a statement reads. (more…)

The New Yorker has a profile on Philippe Parreno this week, reflecting on the artist’s recent work, and his take on putting together his exhibitions.  “Sometimes it’s nice to have things a bit off-sync, so your brain or your imagination can do the work,” he says. “Lots of the things I do require people to endorse a fiction.” (more…)

Karin Schneider, Situational Diagram (Installation view), via Dominique Lévy

Brazilian-born, New York-based artist Karin Schneider is currently the subject of a solo exhibition, titled Situational Diagram, at Dominique Lévy this month, delving into artistic and philosophical potentials for  “grasping” an artwork, both materialistically and ideologically.  Schneider, who co-managed the experimental Lower East Side artist-run initiative Orchard Gallery between 2005 and 2008, embarks on a series of black canvases, which offer the artist a degree of freedom to leave narratives open-ended, and to allow relationships and commerce to leave their mark on the painting’s surface.  Each work is subject to a specific agreement with its potential collector, where Schneider’s monochrome-heavy works utilize art history—particularly Minimalism—as a vessel to scrutinize social and consumerist dynamics in art through color and form. (more…)