A Raphael drawing and medieval manuscripts may set records when they are auctioned by Sotheby’s on December 5th. The Duke of Devonshire has decided to auction the Raphael with an estimated value of £10 million to £15 million in an attempt to raise money to preserve his home. The drawing, which was purchased 300 years ago, has been kept in the family collection at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, but the Duke has stated that “living at Chatsworth is a very expensive business.” He stated further, “It is the first time that any work of art has been sold from Chatsworth for a purpose other than paying taxes. I deeply regret it.”

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L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art has planned a special board meeting for this week after a summer of discontent and upheaval. This comes after Paul Schimmel, the museum’s long time chief curator was forced to resign in June due to tension between him and director, Jeffrey Deitch. Many board members, including prominent artists, have resigned or voiced their dissatisfaction in the wake of this decision, and thus the meeting is critical to unify the board and ensure financial support in the future.

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Ugo Rondinone – Nude (2012), Cycladic Art Museum

Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone has built a reputation for himself as an artist who doesn’t stay in one place very long.  Exploring a variety of themes through panting, installation, video, sculpture and drawing, Rondinone seems to use his art as a way to explore context, shaping his exhibitions and pieces to interact with their location on a metaphorical level.

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The Tate Modern is considering adding a 1.5 ton, 16.5 meter long wind turbine blade, carried to the gallery by Liberate Tate, to its permanent collection. The group, which opposes the Tate’s sponsorship by the oil company BP, renamed the blade “the gift” and installed it in the Tate’s turbine hall last month. The group then wrote to gallery director, Sir Nicholas Serota, “We think that it is a work that will fit elegantly in the Tate collection, a work that celebrates a future that gives rather than takes away, a monument to a world in transition.” Serota has responded that the offer will be discussed with trustees later this month, and until then the turbine will be housed in storage.

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The first half of 2012 has seen a marked drop in art sales, especially in Asia. Total profits in China’s “big four” auction houses were down 32% from the fall of 2011.This comes after the Asian art market had expanded drastically in 2011, causing many to wonder if China’s art bubble has been popped. William Ruprecht, Sotheby’s chief executive, credits the decline in results to economic weakness worldwide and fewer single-owner sales than in the spring of 2011, a record-breaking season.

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Nate Lowman discusses his views on fashion in an interview with AnOther Magazine. “Fashion is about order, good ideas always begin wild. But like we said, fashion has language. You can get structure to a wild idea, and that enables you to communicate. It works in art, but in fashion, that’s the rule.”

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Salon reports that interest in buying art has risen in Rio de Janeiro, as Brazil’s economy has been thriving. The middle class has taken to collecting art, an endeavor once thought to be relegated to the country’s elite, and has in turn put Rio on the international art map. The paradigm shift has changed such that larger dealers such as Larry Gagosian will participate in ArtRio this year, the second year of the city’s art fair. The fair’s debut last year was wildly successful, attracting 80 galleries from around the world and grossing $60 million.

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The Wall Street Journal writes on the subject of the market for Islamic art which has been growing in the past few years, coinciding with many museums around the globe opening new Islamic wings. Many experts believe that Islamic art has been undervalued, and that a collector could easily build a museum-level collection, way below its long term market value. Though sales are growing, totals have varied from year to year, the combined sales of Sotheby’s and Christie’s peaked at $78.9 million in 2011, but this past spring the auction houses only brought in $23.3 million. It is, however, an emotional market, states William Robinson, Christie’s international head of Islamic Art, “When things are going well, prices go way over the top estimate. Six months later, an identical object gets no response.”

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Alighiero Boetti, Mappa (1971-72).

On view at the Museum of Modern Art through October 1, “Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan,” is an ambitious retrospective that explores both the chronology and the conceptual development of an artist who was engaged in many of the most important currents of twentieth century artistic practice. Until this year, Boetti (1940-1994) had not had an exhibition of this scope outside of Italy. MoMA’s current show, organized in conjunction with the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Tate Modern in London and curated by Christian Rattemeyer, offers a fresh look at Boetti’s oeuvre and makes a convincing argument for his originality and continued importance.

Alighiero Boetti. Manifesto (1969)

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The New York Times reports on how, as fine art for sale has become increasingly available online in the past few years, a byproduct of so many reputable businesses selling via the internet is that it has become easier for frauds and forgeries to be passed off as well. Most commonly fakes are violations of artists’ copyrights and trademarks or claims that authorized reproductions are limited editions. Buyers as well, are more inclined to base their judgement off of whether an online seller packed and shipped on time or answer questions promptly, as they believe that they can spot the difference between a real work and a fake.

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The Economist writes on how as the value of art continues to increase, art insurers worry about the increased risks their companies face, especially as works are placed in storage alongside other valuable objects. Warehouses called “free ports”, because of the tax free nature, hold collections of objects worth into the billions, making them very risky for art insurance companies.

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Although it has long been theorized that Van Gogh may have been colorblind, new evidence has come to light which may confirm this theory. Kazunori Asad, a Japanese scientist, has created an app that helps to simulate what images look like to people with colorblindness and used it to filter Van Gogh’s works, which he claims look better when seen with the filter.

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Curator Neville Wakefield has been retained by Playboy to work on special projects.

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Yoko Ono – To The Light (Installation View), Serpentine Gallery

As part of the London 2012 festival, The Serpentine Gallery has invited international art icon and activist Yoko Ono to exhibit a major retrospective of her work. Spanning the artist’s 50 year career, the exhibition covers both classic and newer works, including Smile, Ono’s large-scale participatory video project.

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Sophie Hastings of the Financial Times profiles Doug Aitken, “a champion of non-linear art.” His exhibition, “The Source,” will be opening at the Tate Liverpool on September 15th.

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Artforum’s current cover, with the work Cake as Pie Pending Resolve, was created by Lawrence Weiner in honor of Artforum’s 50th Anniversary Issue.

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Campbell’s Soup will unveil a special edition of Andy Warhol labels on their condensed tomato soup starting this Sunday. The 1.2 million cans, which will be sold at Target, will include famous quotes such as “In the future, everybody will be world-famous for 15 minutes” on each of the four color schemes. Surprisingly, the soup company initially considered taking legal action when Warhol began to use their likeness, but started to embrace his paintings when by 1964, it was clear that they had become a phenomenon.

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Although previously believed that Edvard Munch died childless, a possible granddaughter, Janet Weber, has now come forward, saying that she believes she is related to the famous Norwegian artist. Her grandmother, Eva Mudocci, was a violinist who Munch created a lithograph of in 1903, and, despite the fact that she was with her partner, Bella Edwards, for 50 years, she allegedly gave birth to twins in 1908 who did not know of their father.

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Barbara Kruger – Belief + Doubt (2012), Hirshorn Museum

Descending the stairs into the basement of the Hirshorn Museum in Washington, DC, visitors are greeted with a towering series of sharp, incisive phrases: “Belief + Doubt = Sanity,” “Forget Every Thing,” “Plenty Should Be Enough,” all spelled out on the walls and floors in red, black, and white.  These are the words of media artist and provocateur Barbara Kruger, who rose to prominence with her sharp critiques of consumer culture.

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Olafur Eliasson – Little Sun (2012), The Tate Modern

As part of the London 2012 Festival, the Tate Modern is hosting a special exhibition in collaboration with artist Olafur Eliasson and engineer Frederik Ottesen.  Spotlighting the duo’s new creation, Little Sun aims to bring solar-powered lighting to parts of the world with no electricity.

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John Chamberlain displayed in the Seagram Bulding’s Plaza, all photos by Maya Steward

In the mid-1970’s, John Chamberlain took a little-known detour from his practice of employing automobile scrap-metal in his large-scale sculptures. Though still working within the same medium, he did so on a domestic level, manipulating household aluminum foil to craft sculptures fractions the size of his well-known work. Thirty years later, Chamberlain recreated these diminutive pieces, vitalizing their erratic biomorphic forms on a magnificent scale in industrial aluminum.  Four of these totems are currently on view in the Seagram Building’s Park Avenue Plaza.

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Cecily Brown, Glenn Brown, and Luc Tuymans have been announced as featured speakers in the inaugural Frieze Masters Talks, an addition to the fair this year. The program will bring together artists, directors, and curators to discuss how contemporary artists engage with art past and present. Jasper Sharp, responsible for programming the talks said, “I look forward not only to learn how each artist in their own way approaches, draws on or rejects historical work, but also to discover and reconsider specific works from their chosen collections with a different eye.”

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Will Gompertz, writer, editor, and a director at the Tate, has created a new timeline for Modern Art, using the map of the London Tube as a guide. Gompertz focuses on how Duchamp’s Fountain changed the course of art history forever.

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