Employees at The National Gallery in London have planned a five day strike in response to the museum’s privatization of their positions, which union general secretary Mark Serwotka claims “risks damaging the worldwide reputation of what is one of the U.K.’s greatest cultural assets.” (more…)
Hauser and Wirth has announced that it will serve globally as the representative for the Mike Kelley Foundation. Established by the artist in 2007, the organization issues grants to artists working on challenging projects among Kelley’s preferred mediums. (more…)
French filmmaker Pierre Bismuth is going in search of a long-forgotten sculpture by Ed Ruscha, a fake rock that was created and then abandoned in the Mojave desert. The work, titled Rocky II, does not have a confirmed location, but Bismuth is determined to locate it, and has launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund the completion of the film. “We will answer the questions ‘Where is this rock?’ ‘Why is it hidden?’ and ‘What is there to hide?'” says Bismuth. (more…)
As Sotheby’s prepares a new round of auctions in the upcoming weeks, the company has announced a series of increases in its sales percentages. Buyers at upcoming auctions will now pay 25 percent on the first $200,000 of a work’s hammer price, 20 percent on the value between $200,000 and $3 million, and 12 percent on any amount remaining above $3 million, up from the previous upper threshold of $2 million. “This will improve Sotheby’s revenue, strengthen the company’s profit margins,” says current CEO Bill Ruprecht. (more…)
The recent arrest of artist Tania Bruguera after her performance in Cuba has raised a number of questions regarding the freedom of artists in the country, the New York Times reports. “You never know how far you can go,” says well-known novelist Leonardo Padura. “Sometimes it seems as if spaces open and then close again.” (more…)
Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait Of A Young Man With A Book, via Christie’s
The auction calendar kicks off with its first major sales of 2015 this week, as collectors of Renaissance and Classic works flock to New York City for Sotheby’s and Christie’s Old Masters week sales. With a group of sales lined up for each auction house in the coming days, and a number of impressive works available, the auctions should mark a strong start to the auction season. (more…)
New information released by the Tate this month has revealed that the museum accepted between £150,000 and £330,000 in annual sponsorship funds from British Petroleum over the course of 17 years, totaling over £3.8 million in funds. The relatively minor amount of funding each year underscores claims by the activist group Platform, which accuses BP of using the donations to help “greenwash” its reputation. “The BP sponsorship figures are even lower than we had estimated,” says Anna Galkina of Platform. For nearly a decade, Tate provided a veneer of respectability to one of the world’s most controversial companies for just £150,000 a year.” (more…)
Famed Modigliani scholar Marc Restellini is preparing to open a new location for his Paris-based private museum, Pinacothèque, in Singapore this summer. The $24 million site will open with a show focusing on Cleopatra, and will include a free “heritage gallery.” “In Paris, a lot of our income comes from ticketing,” Restellini says. “We have more than one million visitors a year. In Singapore, we have to develop other processes of income.” (more…)
The New York Times notes the growing trends at major museums towards including experimental and contemporary choreography among its programming, noting both the cultural and practical benefits for an institution. “Live performance encourages audiences to be more frequent visitors to your building,” says Sam Miller, president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. “In terms of being responsive to what artists are doing today and bringing in a more diverse audience, it makes sense.” (more…)
The New York Times profiles artist Daniel Arsham, and his legion of high-profile fans and collectors, among them Usher and Jay-Z. “I couldn’t tell you how it happened,” Mr. Arsham says of his popularity. “I work with a lot of people who aren’t famous, too. And in some cases, it’s been the celebrities who gravitate towards me.” (more…)
In a recent discussion during the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos, noted economist and NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini has called for more rigid regulation of the art market. Roubini is known for predicting the explosion of the US subprime housing market, and noted the art world’s frequent anonymity among buyers as one contributor to the ongoing use of the market to launder money. “While art looks as if it is all about beauty, as a business it is full of shady stuff,” he said. “We should correct it or it will be undermined over time.” (more…)
The New York Times reports on the criminal case in Spain between the city of Barcelona and the daughters of wealthy industrialist Julio Muñoz Ramonet, who stand accused of stealing over 352 paintings and drawings, as well as tapestries and other works from the collector’s home when he donated them to the city. “We’re talking about a quantity and a quality of missing works of art that could probably fill a first-class museum,” says Marc Molins, a criminal lawyer representing the city. (more…)
The Wildenstein & Company art gallery is suing the nation of Qatar, after the nation reneged on its agreement to purchase the gallery’s Upper East Side location for the record price of $90 million. “The purchase of the property, and its record price, came under review in Doha, where there was a reluctance to be seen as profligate,” the lawsuit states. (more…)
Sara Raza has been appointed the new Guggenheim curator for the Middle East and North Africa, and will continue the museum’s UBS Map initiative, the museum announced this week. “Her work will complement and extend the research that the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi curatorial team is undertaking,” says Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong. (more…)
Egon Schiele, Death and Maiden (1915), via Kunsthaus Zurich
The Kunsthaus Zürich is currently presenting a historical study in portraiture and figuration over the course of a century, comparing the output of Austrian painter Egon Schiele with YBA-affiliated painter Jenny Saville, and tying together the pair’s varying approaches to powerful and, at times, visceral depictions of the human body. Culling works from across the expanse of both artist’s careers, the exhibition seems to function both as a pair of parallel historical studies in each artist’s inspirations and development, while allowing a certain degree of overlap and cross-referencing into the various techniques each artist employed. (more…)
Artist Loris Gréaud, who is represented by Pace Gallery and Yvon Lambert opened an exhibition at Dallas Contemporary this weekend, which was attacked by a group of vandals some speculate were sent by the artist himself. “About 90 minutes in, it was stormed by 25 individuals who proceeded to destroy the exhibition,” one witness told the New York Post. (more…)
The Still House Group will open a new space at 3 Howard Street this week, where the group will be presenting programming and gallery exhibitions for the next year, as announced by the collective earlier today. The space, fittingly titled Howard St, opens Saturday night with a show of new work by Brendan Lynch. (more…)
Peter Doig, 100 Years Ago (Carrera) (2005-2007), courtesy of Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne and Centre de création industrielle, Paris
Currently on view at Fondation Beyeler in Basel is a survey of important oil paintings by Peter Doig (1959), as well as a number of seminal works on paper and a monumental mural.
Richard Tuttle, I Don’t Know, or The Weave of Textile Language, (Installation View), all images courtesy Tate Modern
The largest work ever created by American sculptor Richard Tuttle (1941) is currently on view at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, which has been the host to some of the world’s most striking works of monumental contemporary art. I Don’t Know, or The Weave of Textile Language was a commissioned work, composed of vast cuts of fabrics designed by Tuttle himself from both manmade and natural fibers. Three vibrant colors are hung in a bold, majestic display, making use of its coiling form to generate a sense of movement within the massive hall.
Al Taylor, Full Gospel Neckless (Middelfart) (1997), via Art Observed
Al Taylor’s work sits at a unique intersection of material fascination and object politics. Combining the familiar materials of modern construction and design, Taylor’s work often investigated the pairings and interrelations of objects formed not only by the human’s aesthetic agenda, but equally by the complementary formal designs of the materials themselves. These intersections can be seen in quite stark execution currently at David Zwirner, where the gallery’s 20th Street location is currently presenting a body of work created 1989 and 1997. (more…)
The Art Newspaper has published a profile on Wolfgang Gurlitt this week, a cousin of the late Cornelius Gurlitt, and an avid art dealer who sold a sizable number of works to the Austrian city of Linz. Much of the collection’s provenance remains shady or undocumented, and investigations are still underway. (more…)
The Met has announced its next artist for the museum’s ongoing site-specific rooftop installation series, commissioning French conceptualist Pierre Huyghe to create a new piece looking out on Central Park. “Pierre loves the fact that the park is full of animals,” says associate curator Ian Alteveer. (more…)
The New York Times reports on Larry’s List, the Hong Kong-based agency that compiles comprehensive profiles on collectors around the world. Its first published report, has placed 8,000 to 10,000 collectors worldwide shopping at major fairs like Art Basel. “Collectors are much more influential than they were 20 years ago and that influence is increasing,” says founder Magnus Resch . “More collectors are opening their own spaces and taking a leading role in museums, influencing the direction they take. They’re also pushing up the auction prices of their favorite artists.” (more…)