An article in The Guardian traces the history of Van Gogh’s famous sunflower paintings, as two of the original versions of the still life are preparing to go on exhibit at London’s National Gallery.  Originally received quite poorly by the art establishment, the works occasionally caused heavy contention among artists and critics exhibiting alongside “the laughable pot of sunflowers by Mr. Vincent.”  The article also discusses the artist’s long relationship and correspondence with his brother Theo.  “Always continue walking a lot and loving nature,” Van Gogh once said to his brother, “for that’s the real way to learn to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see.” (more…)

The New York Times publishes a feature on LES Gallery owner Lisa Cooley, as she discusses her work in the New York Art World, the current show on Ileana Sonnabend at MoMA, and her the long history of prominent female art dealers.  “There have always been women dealers,” Cooley says. “It is a profession that has always attracted women. Women have relatively easy access to the field.” (more…)

ArtNet has published its annual list of the Top 10 Highest Selling Artists for 2013, with Andy Warhol once again the top of the list, with a yearly sales tally of $427.1 million, aided considerably by the record sale for the artist’s Silver Car Crash last year for $105 million.  Warhol was followed closely by Pablo Picasso at $422 million.  Also notable is the presence of three Chinese artists in the top ten: Zhang Daqian, Qi Bashi, and Zao Wou-Ki, respectively.   (more…)

A series of sculptures cast from original plasters by Constantin Brancusi have reignited debate over the authenticity of works created after the artist’s death.  Brancusi in New York, currently on view at Paul Kasmin, is showing 5 such works, cast between 1992 and 2010 from the artist’s original casts, and with the permission of the artist’s estate, but some critics are calling foul, saying any work made after the Romanian’s death could only be considered a replica.  “There are always going to be people who say they’re 100% against it. I can only help guide you with what’s fact—I can’t decide somebody else’s morals for them,” says Kasmin. “What we want to come of this is to know that Brancusi, like many other great artists’ estates, is open for business.” (more…)

Artists Barbara Kruger and Sterling Ruby are collaborating with Benjamin Millepied’s L.A. Dance Projects to present a pair of performances at a 1,600 seat historic theater built in 1921 at the newly opened Ace Hotel in Los Angeles.  The artists each provided visual concepts for one performance, with Kruger collaborating with Millepied on his piece Reflections, and Ruby working on Murder Ballads by Justin Peck.  The works will be performed on February 20^th, 21^st and 22^nd at the Theatre at Ace Hotel Los Angeles. (more…)

Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States has announced a month-long visual arts festival to take place in April of this year, across 46 venues in New York City.  The ART2 Festival “will consider issues prevalent in today’s patently global art world…with the goal of encouraging intellectual discourse between institutions, artists, scholars, students and the public,” the organization said in a statement. (more…)

Yutaka Sone (Installation View), via David Zwirner

Yutaka Sone’s marble scale-models of some of the world’s most famous island cities are now on display at David Zwirner’s London gallery. The show, entitled Sculpture, includes replica banana trees and three of Sone’s city replicas: Hong Kong Island (Chinese) (1998), Little Manhattan (2007–2009), and Venezia (2013, brought together for the first time. The three marble works span over twenty years of the artist’s practice, and have each taken years of painstaking labor to produce. (more…)

Philippe Vergne, the current director of the Dia Art Foundation has been selected to replace Jeffrey Deitch as the head of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.  Vergne has previously worked on the 2006 Whitney Biennial, and also served briefly as the head of the François Pinault Foundation.  “The most important challenge for the new director,” former director Richard Koshalek says, “is to raise the standard of expectations of the museum within this community and beyond, and that means new, original ideas for the future.” (more…)

Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Sale in London next month will be lead by a 1994 piece by Gerhard Richter, valued at $49 million.  Wand (Wall) sat for many years in the artist’s personal collection, during which time it was exhibited in a number of major exhibitions.  “As its title suggests, Wand (Wall) presents a compelling wall of colour with horizontal bands of cadmium red, blue and magenta that deliberately echo the chromatic intensity of a Mark Rothko,” Sotheby’s notes in its statement. (more…)

Christie’s London art auction next month will see the sale of another iconic Francis Bacon painting, a portrait of the painter’s lover George Dyer, which is estimated to sell for $49 million.  “These sellers understand margins, and the uplift can be colossal,” says dealer Alan Hobart. “The auction houses have the buyers at the top end of the market. It’s globalized money. Bacon is now an auction commodity.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports that two sources close to the record-setting sale of a Francis Bacon triptych last year at Christie’s have said that the work was purchased by Elaine Pascal Wynn, the billionaire ex-wife of casino mogul Steve Wynn.  While her motives are unclear, sources state that she purchased the work through dealer Bill Acquavella, who placed the $127 million bid by phone. (more…)

Josephine Meckseper (Installation View), All images courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery

On view at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York is an exhibition of large-scale vitrines, mirrored wall panels and photographs, all by Josephine Meckseper, and alluding to the rise of the Bauhaus and Deutscher Werkbund in Weimar Germany, and their subsequent destruction by the Nazi regime.

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New York Times Magazine profiles the Retrospective Gallery, which just opened last Saturday in Hudson, N.Y.  The space, founded by dealers Zach Feuer and Joel Mesler, is looking to experiment in the upstate city, trying new events and strategies “outside the pressure cooker,” as Feuer says.   (more…)

Hyperallergic reports on Congress’s 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which was released yesterday with the National Endowment for the Arts seeing a funding amount of $146.02 million, only slightly down from last year’s $146.26 million. The funding amount comes after a fractious several months of negotiations, including a proposed cut of 49% to the NEA by the House last year.  The Arts in Education Program was also rewarded a similar amount of $25 million, which is up from last year’s $24.6 million. (more…)

Sotheby’s London will host the second half of sales from the Krugier Collection this February, following a sale at Christie’s late last year where several of the top lots failed to sell.  The sale next month is noted to include a number of more personal works, and carries of total estimate of $39 million, somewhat more than a third of the $113.7m that Christie’s realized. (more…)

Vilma Bautista, the former secretary to Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, has been sentenced to two to six years in prison in New York for attempting to sell Impressionist masterpieces belonging to the Philippine government, which vanished when Marcos’s husband was overthrown.  Bautista will remain free on bail while her case is undergoes an appeal.  “The court agrees with the people, the evidence was overwhelming,” presiding Justice Renee A. White said. “But you never really know what the appellate division will do on any case.” (more…)

Writer Melanie Gerlis summarizes her book Art as an Investment? in the Financial Times this week, which reports on the current interest in the art market by major banking and investment firms, and questions the assurances of its value and use in the market.  While often compared favorably to other assets, analysis shows that it is not quite as ideal of a market as some would attest.  She writes: “Equating a popular asset with a profitable asset is misleading. From an investment point of view, art seems to be a very fragile prospect.” (more…)

A coalition of 9 national and local foundations has agreed to pay $330 million to help stabilize the city of Detroit’s pension plans, taking a major step in preventing the sale of the Detroit Institute of Arts‘ collection.  Even so, the city has several hurdles to get past before the deal to get the Institute’s collection off the table.  “There are many things that could still go wrong,” says Alberto Ibargüen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “The devil is always in the details in these things.” (more…)

Theaster Gates is profiled in the current issue of the New Yorker, talking about his work, his life in Chicago, and his current project working with the University of Chicago’s Arts Incubator to renovate and develop an artistic community on Chicago’s South Side.  “I told the artists, ‘We need to make the building work’… That was wrong. We don’t need to make the building work. We need to support you.” (more…)

Colorado collector and philanthropist Frederic C. Hamilton has bequeathed a collection of French Impressionist works to the Denver Art Museum.  The works, which include pieces by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and Gustave Caillebotte, have not been formally appraised, but could be worth up to $100 million.  “This is a game-changing gift,” said DAM director Christoph Heinrich. “We will have the biggest collection in the West of Impressionist art.” (more…)

The Guggenheim’s proposed outpost in the Finnish city of Helsinki seems to moving forward, with the museum posting an international call for architectural proposals following the city’s agreement to set aside a parcel of land on the city’s South Harbor waterfront.  The competition “will provide an opportunity to deepen public discussion surrounding the proposed museum,” the institution said in a statement. “We also believe it will bring Helsinki the heightened level of international attention the city deserves as a vibrant cultural center.’’ (more…)

Christie’s offerings for its February 4th, 5th and 7th auctions in London are already indicating a strong sale, with works by Picasso and Magritte leading an offering that is anticipated to earn nearly $380 million.  Picasso’s Femme au costume turc dans un fauteuil leads the auction, and has not been on sale in over 50 years, valued at £15-£20 million.  “This stellar sale presents international collectors and institutions with rare opportunities to acquire exceptional works with illustrious provenance by key impressionist and modern masters,” Jay Vincze, Christie’s International Director and head of its Impressionist and Modern Art Department, said in a statement. (more…)

Do Ho Suh, Specimen Series: 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, Corridor, Radiator (2013), Courtesy Lehmann Maupin

On view at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong is a solo exhibition by Korean artist Do Ho Suh, coinciding with his installation Home within Home at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul.

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New York Magazine has published an extensive profile of Jeffrey Deitch, marking the former MOCA head’s return to New York.  Speaking on his inspirations, sense of history, and views on creative collaboration, the piece offers a broad view into Deitch’s creative and entrepreneurial views .“I’m very aware of the connections between art, literature, and music. I look for aesthetic energy, aesthetic movements that are so big that they’re too big to just be an art alone, that they spill over,” he says. (more…)