Uta Werner, a cousin of embattled collector Cornelius Gurlitt, has stepped forward to challenge the late man’s will in a Munich court.  The move comes as Kunstmuseum Bern is preparing to announce its decision on the artworks, which were initially bequeathed to the institution when Gurlitt passed away earlier this year. (more…)

Former auction house head Simon De Pury is branching out once again into the world of curating, preparing a show at 3 Grafton Street in London, focusing on the work of 92-year-old Polish artist Wojciech Fangor.  “The idea is to show great art in this space, we will have an international program,” De Pury says. (more…)

As construction gets underway for the new Tate Modern extension, Guardian writer Well Self asks if the new renovations to the museum is just another step in the ongoing transformation of the museum as an extension of influence by the hyper wealthy, and an indication of the financial impact the contemporary market has made on the museum’s curatorial practices. “The new Tate Modern will not be an art gallery per se, but a sort of life-size model of what an art gallery might be should our culture have need of one,” he writes.  “Since it doesn’t, but rather has a requirement for visitor attractions that reify the ever‑widening gulf between haves and have-nots, I’m absolutely certain it will prove an outrageous success” (more…)

An article in the New Statesman takes a hard look at the state of British art schools this week, noting tuition fees higher than anywhere else in Europe, and a change in the curriculum that has changed how students practice, both of which have limited access to education for lower income classes and discouraged Britain’s famously egalitarian higher education system. (more…)

Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe, Floating Chain (High-Res Toni) (Installation View)

In their newest exhibition at Marlborough Chelsea, artist duo Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe are inviting the viewers into another realm of phantasmagoria, in which rooms full of ambiguous tales are revealed in their most bizarre and contradictory forms. Floating Chain (High-Res Toni) is the duo’s third collaboration with Marlborough after 2012’s Stray Light Gray, which absorbed gallery visitors into adjacent chambers of gory experiments and untold incidents connected through curiously large holes on the walls. (more…)

The record for the most expensive work of art by a female artist fell in unexpected fashion at Sotheby’s in New York last night, as a Georgia O’Keefe painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1 from 1932 sold for more than three times its estimate for $44 million.  The work was included in a sale of American Art last night, and beats the previous $11.9 million auction record for a female (held by Joan Mitchell).  (more…)

The Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland, which found itself as the unlikely recipient of the late Cornelius Gurlitt’s trove of looted artworks, is preparing to announce its decision of the collection following a lengthy discussion among museum officials.  Initial reports are claiming that the museum will in fact accept the works. (more…)

John Baldessari, Movie Scripts/Art: With a Fly Crawling on It (2014), via Art Observed

One of the most prominent names that defines the past 40 years of West Coast conceptualism, John Baldessari is currently presenting a new body of work at Marian Goodman Gallery. Titled Movie Scripts / Art 2014, the series resumes the pioneer’s investigation on the visual language of artworks and the possibility of a dialogue between images, words and cultural formats like film and literature. Baldessari, who has always been curious about the range text can explore in artistic expression, has not been hesitant about placing images next to sentences and written situations, often directly posing questions to the work or offering sarcastic alternatives to its surface level relationships. (more…)

The Park Avenue Armory has announced the list of events and exhibitions for its 2015 season, which will include a new work from Laurie Anderson’s “Language of the Future” series, a multimedia installation by Philippe Parreno, and a collaboration Marina Abramovic and the pianist Igor Levit. (more…)

Sotheby’s CEO William Ruprecht has announced that he will be stepping down from his position at the auction house, following a nearly year-long battle over control against investor Dan Loeb.  “The last few years have been the most successful in the company’s history,” Ruprecht said in a statement.  “I am comfortable and confident saying Sotheby’s is well positioned for the next chapter of its success and I will do all I can to contribute to a smooth leadership transition.” (more…)

The Guardian reports that Marina Abramovic is currently working on a major installation in Sydney for July of 2015.  The artist was courted by arts philanthropist John Kaldor, who previously brought Abramovic’s work to the country in his 2013 exhibition 13 Rooms. (more…)

Artist Paul Chan has been awarded the 2014 Hugo Boss Prize, the biennial award given by the Guggenheim Museum which carries a $100,000 prize as well as an exhibition at the museum.  “Paul’s protean ability to work across multiple platforms from his videos to his more elegiac light pieces and community-based performances is what particularly stood out,” Nancy Spector, the Guggenheim’s deputy director and chief curator told the New York Times. (more…)

The Whitney Museum has set the opening date for its new, Renzo Piano-designed building in the  Meatpacking District location on May 1st of next year.  The news came this week during the Museum’s annual gala benefit. (more…)

A recent article in Financial Times by writer Bendor Grosvenor takes a discerning look at the specter of price speculation in the contemporary market, and notes some of the more manipulative practices in guarantor purchases.  “To liven things up, they are allowed to bid the work up during the sale too. But if they happen to buy it, their presale negotiation (again, undisclosed) means they will not pay anything like the “price” reported by the auction house, and nor will the new ‘value’ of the work be representative,” says Grosvenor.  “Almost half of the lots in Christie’s sale last week were guaranteed.” (more…)

A recent article by the New York Times cites the newest trend among today’s ultra-rich art collectors is the founding of their own boutique museums to house their collection, tracing the trend back to François Pinault’s purchase of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 2006.  Other museums covered include Bernard Arnault’s Fondation Luis Vuitton, and Eli Broad’s Los Angeles museum currently under construction. (more…)

Thomas Houseago, Moun Room (Installation View), via Ellen Burke for Art Observed

Thomas Houseago is known for his large-scale sculpture work, immense, roughshod works that use cheap materials and a relatively unstable construction process to create immediately impressive, visually stimulating objects that often play on the dissonance between subject and depiction.  Pulling the viewer into the artist’s unique sculptural vision, the works unfold over the course of their creation, physical demands and limitations aiding in the work’s construction. (more…)

London-based artist Jonty Hurwitz has unveiled a series of 3-D printed sculptures so small that they can not be seen with the naked human eye, works that are so small they can be placed inside the eye of a needle.  “The challenge is that these works exist beyond the limits of our perceptual capabilities, and as a consequence beyond the realms of what we can visualize,” Hurwitz says. “The thickness of a single hair is something that every person has pondered at some point in their childhood.” (more…)

The inaugural Los Angeles edition of Paris’s FIAC art fair has been pushed back to 2016 in an effort to give galleries more time to prepare for the event.  “FIAC has listened to the recommendations of its participants to modify the launch of its Los Angeles endeavor to provide both organizers and galleries sufficient time for optimal preparation,” the organization said in a statement. (more…)

Mass MOCA has announced a series of important collaborations with James Turrell, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Laurie Anderson and Jenny Holzer, among others, each of which will be included in the museum’s newly constructed exhibition spaces, which will be completed in 2017.  “We’re teaming up with people who have great bodies of artworks that we are hosting,” says Director Joseph C. Thompson. (more…)

Manifesta 11, held in Zurich in 2016, has announced Christian Jankowski its lead curator, the first time an artist has been invited to fill the role.  “Jankowski will investigate the whole array of art’s authorship, its production and its reflection on Zurich’s professional landscape,” says Director Hedwig Fijen. “In doing so, Manifesta 11’s Chief Curator approaches the complex identities of the city in an unexpected way, reaching out to audiences beyond the inner circle of contemporary art biennials.” (more…)

Sam Durant, Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington D.C. (2005), via LACMA

After its entry to LACMA’s permanent collection in 2013, Sam Durant’s Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington D.C. is on view for the first time at its permanent home.  Durant has always been strongly tied to the historical and social dynamics in America, and the artist’s ongoing work with the flux of history and spatial politics perhaps reached an apex with this installation. (more…)

Mick Peter, all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The newly re-opened SculptureCenter in Long Island City has earned a reputation for forward-thinking exhibitions and thematic concerns, opening new dialogues between the constructed, three-dimensional object and its related artistic formats.  It’s perhaps highly fitting then, that the exhibition space’s newest show, and its first since its impressive renovation, would focus specifically on these links of space and form. (more…)

Richard Serra, Dead Load (2014), via Art Observed

Richard Serra has had a strong showing in the past months.  The 74-year old artist closed out a pair of wildly praised exhibitions at Gagosian New York late last year, and followed it up with a lifetime achievement award this year from Americans for the Arts.  The New York-based artist is bringing a series of new works to Gagosian’s London locations on Davies Street and Britannia Street, offering a concise look at the artist’s current aesthetic interests. (more…)

The ongoing dispute between the city of North Miami and MOCANoMi has finally been resolved, with the museum giving a small percentage of its permanent collection to the departed board members, who have since founded a new museum called the Institute of Contemporary Art.  “Our focus is that MOCA shall remain an internationally recognized force in contemporary art while continuing to have a profound impact in our community,” says Mayor Philippe Bien-Aime. (more…)