A drawing stored in a locked cupboard at the University of Reading has been rediscovered as an original work by 17th century artist Peter Paul Rubens.  The work, a depiction of Queen Marie de’ Medici of France, was originally thought to have been made by a follower of Rubens, until a conservation effort revealed telltale signs that the work was made by the Renaissance master.  “It was bought as a so-called Rubens, attributed to Rubens,” said Reading professor Anna Gruetzner Robins. “But we didn’t take it seriously.” (more…)

The late Chinese artist Zhang Daiqian saw impressive auction results this week during both Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions of contemporary Asian art in Hong Kong.  Daiqian’s Lotus work, consisting of four painted scrolls more than five feet high, sold for five times its estimate at $10.4 million during Christie’s auction yesterday.  In addition, an auction dedicated solely to works by Daiqian reached $42 Million in sales at Sotheby’s on Monday.  Zhang currently stands as one of the top-selling artists at auction worldwide. (more…)

Noted Max Ernst scholar Werner Spies has been ordered to pay half of the â‚¬652,883 owed to collector Louis Reijtenbagh for the purchase of a falsely attributed work.  This is not the first time Spies has had issues over his authentication; he was fooled by noted forger Wolfgang Beltracchi in 2011 over several works he authenticated as Ernsts. (more…)

A recently completed, ten month study of Jackson Pollock’s One: Number 31, 1950, has revealed new insights into the the artist’s work and practice, as well as a number of layers of paint that had been added to the work after Pollock had died.  Evidence points to new areas of paint added by Pollock’s friend and dealer Ben Heller, perhaps in an attempt to improve the presentation of the work.  The restoration, done by the Museum of Modern Art, also uncovered that Pollock had added final elements to the work after he had completed the initial painting, showing that they were not in fact grand exercises of impulsive action, but rather “really carefully conceived compositions.” As conservator James Coddington says, “(he) looked at these paintings with a level of detail that was so great even we can’t understand it.”
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Uriel Landeros, the University of Houston student who spray-painted over Picasso’s Woman in a Red Armchair at Houston’s Menil Collection, has been sentenced to two years behind bars for vandalism.  Landeros was facing up to 10 years in prison for felony vandalism, but pleaded guilty for a reduced sentence.  “We are heartened and grateful that the judicial process has come to completion,” said Menil spokesperson Gretchen Bock Sammons. “As for the Picasso, the restoration is complete and successful and the painting will eventually go on view — as works from the collection do, in rotation.” (more…)

In an effort to increase public engagement with their collections, a number of museums are now offering free, high-quality images of their works for download and open use. In one such example, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has begun allowing visitors to reproduce images of its collection anywhere.“We’re a public institution, and so the art and objects we have are, in a way, everyone’s property.” Says collections director Taco Dibbets. (more…)

Capitalizing on the platform of the Venice Biennale, artist Ai Weiwei has created six dioramas depicting the events of his 81 day detention under the Chinese communist state, which will be on view at Zuecca Project Space, running concurrently with the festival.  The half-scale works were created in Beijing, and secretly transported to Venice, showing the psychological torment of confinement and constant surveillance.  “Can political art still be good art?” Ai says.  “Those questions have been around for too long. People are not used to connecting art to daily struggle, but rather use high aesthetics, or so-called high aesthetics, to try to separate or purify humans’ emotions from the real world.” (more…)

A scheduled Kanye West video projection at Houston’s Rothko Chapel was shut down last week by police, closing down the event before it started.  Another screening was also closed down by police after technical difficulties later that night.  The video projections, done by West for his new single “New Slaves,” is part of a worldwide series of projections to promote his new album, Yeezus. (more…)

Hong Kong Convention Center, site of the Art Basel Hong Kong Art Fair, via Forbes

With the closing of the doors at the Hong Kong Convention Center this past Sunday, the first edition of Art Basel Hong Kong was brought to a conclusion after a flourish of strong sales, critical praise, and notable attention for the art fair giant’s first foray into the Asian continent.

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Stuart Davis, Egg Beater No. 1 (1927), via The Whitney Museum of Art

On view currently at the Whitney Museum is a showcase of some of the museum’s deeper holdings of American artwork from the first half of the twentieth century, exploring the years before the mid-century advent of Abstract Expressionism. This part of the rotating exhibition, which began in December 2012, will continue through May 2013 before moving on to a new selection of works.

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The Venice Biennale

Every two years, the floating city of Venice floods with with the multitudes of art visitors, customers, gallerists and exhibitions that are all a part of the Venice Biennale. This year, marking the 55^th edition of the world’s largest art fair, sees the continuation of an event that first began in 1896. Between June 1^st and November 24^th over 300,000 visitors will travel to Venice for the expansive installations of exhibitions of work from artists in 88 nations, at both official and fringe sites. Art Observed will be on-site this week, with photos from variety of events around the city.

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“Francis Bacon in Raincoat,” 1967, photo by John Deakin, (c) The Estate of Francis Bacon, all images courtesy the National Museum of Art Tokyo and The Estate of Francis Bacon

Recently concluded at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo is a solo exhibition of works by Francis Bacon. Marking the first viewing of Bacon’s work in Japan in 30 years the exhibit is a retrospective focusing on the theme of the body, as well as the first exhibition of the artist’s work since his death in 1983.

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Marianne Vitale, Diamond Crossing (2013), courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery

Marianne Vitale (b. 1973, East Rockaway, N.Y.) works across various medias; drawing, sculpture, video and performance.  Her art is versatile, often large-scale and ambitious, playing with intonations of humor and aggression in equal measure.  Part of the collaborative performance piece Invasionistas (2006) with artists David Adamo, Agathe Snow, Rita Ackerman, and Michael Portnoy in which they  “invaded” Reykjavik, Iceland; Vitale was in charge of propaganda, reading an original World War II evacuation plan as she and Portnoy evacuated a group of kindergarten students out of the city.  Throughout her work, Vitale uses her art as an inquiry into the fundamentals of society. (more…)

Artist James Turrell recently spoke with the Financial Times as he prepares for his three museum retrospective at LACMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as a solo show at LA’s Kayne Griffin Corcoran space. The artist is still vigorously involved in his Roden Crater Project, as well as his early career in Los Angeles. “I would describe Los Angeles as actually not having taste. In New York there’s taste. But you have to remember that taste is censorship. It’s a form of restriction.” In Los Angeles, he said, “there wasn’t any party line so you could do what you wanted.”

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In response to a city proposal to sell off work from the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection to cover a city debt of $15 billion, the Detroit Institute’s director has stated that the work is held “in the public trust,” and cannot be bought or sold. “They’re interested in making a healthy and viable Detroit,” the director, Graham W. J. Beal, said on Friday in a telephone interview. “We believe that that kind of action — diminishing our collection, the cultural value — would not be in the long-term interest.”

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Hirshhorn Museum Director Richard Koshalek will resign from his position by the end of the year, following a split vote decision on the future of the museum’s proposed architectural “bubble,” which was planned to emerge from the top of the building’s circular structure. The project has faced a series of major delays and budgetary setbacks since its 2009 announcement. “The board was divided and could not reach a decision,” said Smithsonian Undersecretary Richard Kurin. “I think Richard was looking for a very broad endorsement, and that didn’t happen. It wasn’t about the Bubble and what it could do architecturally or what it could do for the Hirshhorn. It was much more about finances going forward.”

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Renowned art historian Sir John Richardson is profiled in a long interview with the Financial Times this week, speaking about his life, his career, and his expansive biography of Pablo Picasso. “I used to bounce out of bed to write. In the old days I shinned up a ladder, got a book down, looked in the index – I can’t do that now. But the chance is that I won’t be able to get to the end of the Life [of Picasso], not because of my health or my eyes but because, well, I know too much. I know where the bodies are buried. I think I’ll stop in 1962, when Picasso and Jacqueline got married.” (more…)

Artist David Hockney has broken the silence surrounding the death of his assistant, 23-year old Dominic Elliott.  Elliott’s death, the causes of which remain somewhat of a mystery, sidelined the painter, forcing him to take a break from his prolific work.   “The spring didn’t start until late April this year. I wasn’t doing anything much, had nearly given up, and was still thinking about going to LA when my assistant, Jean-Pierre, said I didn’t really have an option. I had to continue with the work. And he was right. I’m not going to retire. I just keep working and that’s what I think I should do.” (more…)

In the run-up to this year’s Venice Biennale, curator Massimiliano Gioni spoke with the New York Times, discussing the event, his approach to curating, and his perspective on the event’s long history.  “Klimt showed there in 1905,” he says. “That is mind-blowing to me. Since then there has been Morandi and Picasso, Rauschenberg, Johns and so on. Maybe I’m romanticizing, but the past is still very present.” (more…)

Former MOCA chief curator Paul Schimmel has joined gallery Hauser and Wirth to help develop a space in Los Angeles.  Schimmel, who has never worked at a commercial gallery, will bring his experience to what is initially described as a museum-like exhibition strategy.  “I think it’s going to be quite different in the respect that it will be done on a larger scale, have fewer exhibitions and a combination of selling and non-selling exhibitions,” he said. (more…)

The Getty Museum, in response to critiques over its painting collection, has acquired Édouard Manet’s “Portrait of Madame Brunet.”  The purchase is the first major acquisition under new president and CEO James Cuno, and was made through New York gallery Luhring Augustine.  “This is a significant addition to what I would call the greater museum of Los Angeles, which is how I present any picture to the board,” said curator Scott Schaefer.  (more…)

A new article in the Guardian is questioning the lack of gender parity in the contemporary art world, noting the lack of any females on the list of top 100 auction sales, and a small percentage of female artists in public collections.  “People are saying: ‘I find I can’t even have this conversation about equality in the art world’,” says curator Gemma Rolls-Bentley, “because so many people think it’s already been achieved. Because figures like Tracey Emin have defied the statistics, their rare success misleads people into thinking women get an equal shot.” (more…)

Tracey Emin recently sat down with The New York Times for a brief interview, discussing aging, her current show at Lehmann Maupin, and the valuation of her work as a woman.  “My work rarely comes up in secondary market, so it means that my prices stay low. But I’ll tell you about my contemporaries — if I sold every single thing in my whole show, it is still not as much as one painting of my male contemporaries.” (more…)

Jeff Koons (Installation view), © Jeff Koons. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever

This past week, Jeff Koons opened a show of recent work at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, continuing the artist’s exploration of new forms in printed works, sculpture and assemblage.  Facing off against David Zwirner’s show of new Koons pieces several blocks away, the show was seemed to make its show-stopping intentions explicit, showcasing a number of Koons’ stainless steel balloon animals, and a series of hyper-kinetic prints alongside recent inflatable sculptures and takes on classical art works. (more…)