A collaboration between Robert Motherwell’s The Dedalaus Foundation, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Jamestown Charitable Foundation has resulted in Come Together, a selling exhibition benefitting artists and New York residents affected by Hurricane Sandy last year.  Including works by Alex Katz, Mark di Suvero and the Bruce High Quality Foundation, the show opens on October 20th.  “Hurricane Sandy affected the art community more directly than 9/11,” says Phong Bui, an artist and the publisher of the Brooklyn Rail, who is organising the show. (more…)

The Enchanted Pose, a Magritte painting long thought to have been lost or destroyed, has been discovered in segments below the surfaces of two other Magritte works.  Using X-Ray imaging, researchers discovered the painting while working on the Museum of Modern Art’s current exhibition The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938, focusing on the artist’s work.  “It’s very exciting. Here is this Magritte that’s been believed to be missing, that was clearly a large and important work for him at one point in time.”  says MoMA curator Anne Umland. (more…)

Experts have identified a work found in a private Swiss collection to be a portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, which has been considered lost for over 500 years. The portrait, depicting noblewoman Isabella D’Este, is believed to have been painted by Da Vinci and several of his assistants.  “There are no doubts that the portrait is Leonardo’s work,” said Carlo Pedretti, an emeritus professor of art history at the University of California. (more…)

Following the open letter written to Sotheby’s by Daniel Loeb, the auction house has responded to its shareholders, detailing a “poison pill” strategy to ward off any attempts at a hostile takeover of the company.  The plan, which initiates a dividend offer for any share of outstanding stock, is triggered if any shareholder takes over 10% of the company’s stock. “The board had to respond to the attack and it is unsurprising they took this type of stance. But observers will be much more concerned after the events of this week. They are not out of the woods yet,” said Michael Plummer, a principal at ArtVest Partners. (more…)

Robert Indiana, Red Gold Alphabet, (2011), via Woodward Gallery

On view at Woodward Gallery in New York is American pop artist Robert Indiana’s most recent series on paper and canvas entitled “A – Z,” serving as a fitting accompaniment to the artist’s current show at The Whitney Museum.  Born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana in 1928, Robert Indiana is best known for his iconic LOVE series. He has also created similar works in the same style with short words such as EAT, HUG, and more recently, HOPE, from which all proceeds were donated to Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. (more…)

A Chicago gallery owner has been sentenced to a 6 month prison sentence, with an additional 6 months of home confinement for the sale of fake artworks.  Alan Kass, 76, was also ordered to pay his buyers restitutions of up to $350,000.  “I misled people who, like me, enjoyed art,” Kass said in his court statement. “I disappointed my customers who put their trust in my knowledge. For this I am sincerely sorry.” (more…)

Following pressure from both Michigan art-lovers and the broader art world, an ArtPrize installation has been removed from the surface of Alexander Calder’s La Grande Vitesse.  Fleurs et Riviere, a magnetic work by David Dodde, had been attached to the surface of the sculpture, in an attempt to add “whimsy,” but instead received harsh criticism from the Alexander Calder Foundation in New York.  “The Calder Foundation wasn’t pleased, and the relationship with the foundation is important to us, so it’s a lesson learned,” said Grand Rapids city manager Greg Sundstrom. (more…)

The New York Times profiles artist Omer Fast during the final stages of the artist’s newest video project, set to premiere in two weeks at Frieze Art Fair in London.  Examining the impact of pornography on the psyche, Fast’s work will be included in the Arratia, Beer booth.  “I can show it as nasty as it gets, or I can pull back,” Fast says. “It would be totally hypocritical to clean it up.” (more…)

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York has received another $5 million allocation from the city to add to its fundraising target of $79 million for new renovations.  The project will expand the building and its surrounding gardens.  “The renovation will make design accessible to museumgoers with expanded gallery space, the restoration and preservation of historic rooms, innovative landscape design,” says cultural affairs commissioner Kate D. Levin. (more…)

Chris Burden, Shoot, (1971), Performance at F Space, Santa Ana, California November 19, 1971

The New Museum’s Extreme Measures, a career retrospective of the work of Chris Burden, begins modestly: an orange flatbed truck sits in the museum’s ground floor exhibition space, holding a 1 ton block of steel on its mounted crane.  Silent and imposing , the work hints at Burden’s preoccupation with scale and weight, his focus on material scale and industrial affect.

Chris Burden, Ghost Ship (2005), Courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery (more…)

The sense of alarm surrounding the Detroit Institute of Arts is taking its toll on the museum, the New York Times reports.  Concerned about the future of the museum’s collection, some wealthy patrons are less likely to donate works to the institution, and museum staff are dealing with consistently low morale.  “We can take the threat. It’s the uncertainty we can’t stand. It’s the uncertainty that is clouding everything we do.”  Says Director Graham W.J. Beal. (more…)

A new project aimed at British schools is bringing major art works to the classroom.  Masterpieces in Schools, as it is called, will lend a series of masterworks to schools across Great Britain, in an attempt to attract children who would not normally attend a gallery or museum exhibition.  The project began this week, when a classic Monet landscape was sent to a school in Northern England.  “We hope all the children will be left with the lasting memory of the day a Monet, Turner or Gainsborough came to their school,” says Andrew Ellis, director of the Public Catalogue Foundation. (more…)

A Tale of Two Cities, one of the most impressive works on view at Chris Burden’s current New Museum retrospective, was almost destroyed by the artist before the show.  Fearing the requirements of rehabilitating the long unexhibited piece, Burden had planned to destroy the piece as a last conceptual gesture, but museum authorities stepped in to convince him to try saving the work with a small restored section of the original piece.  “Once he saw the first mock-up, it was like a problem had been solved, and he was on to asking about specific toys,” says Donna Williams, the curator of the Orange County Museum (which owns the work). (more…)

The 2014 edition of the Armory Show has announced its commissioned artist for the fair, welcoming Chinese “chameleon of concept” Xu Zhen to exhibit work throughout the fair’s grounds.  The announcement comes as part of the fair’s Focus: China section.  “I am very honored to be named the The Armory Show 2014 Commissioned Artist. The fair offers an strong platform for exchange, and for dialogue around art, the market and its many interrelated institutions and ideas,” the artist says. (more…)

Further extending its commitment to live performance work and new media, the Tate Modern has announced plans for additional performance space inside its museum spaces, as well as a website for the broadcasting of performance works live around the world.  “It’s a completely new thing.” Says Dutch artist Nicoline van Harskamp. (more…)

American actor Willem Dafoe has been named to the role of Andy Warhol in the French film Saint Laurent, a biopic about the famous French designer.  The film is already in production for a May 14^th, 2014 release. (more…)

Artist Ai Weiwei, whose scale model recreations of his 2011 incarceration at this year’s Venice Biennale won him critical accolades, has spoken on his ordeal in a recent interview with Salon.  Recounting his experiences with his interrogators, Weiwei recounts conversations in which he began to teach his captors about conceptual art, Dadaism and protest.   “I explained art to them and then many times they said to me, ‘Weiwei, why whenever we talk about art and concepts do you get so excited that you keep talking? And why when we talk about facts, you say, ‘I don’t know’?’ But I say, ‘You know, I like to talk about art, and it makes me joyful and when I get to talk about art and explain I get very high spirits.’”  He says.

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Youssef Abdelke, a notable Syrian painter who has repeatedly spoken out against the Assad regime in his home country, has been released from a two month-long imprisonment by government authorities.  The 62 year old artist and former Syrian Communist Party Member had previously posted on his Facebook page that he “is healthy and in anticipation of leaving the palace of justice, free as [he] has always been.” (more…)

An all-night sculpture park has opened in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, filled with works from the collection of collector Christian Ringnes.  Overlooking the city, the newly appointed Ekeberg Park includes pieces from Marina Abramovic, James Turrell, Jenny Holzer and Louise Bourgeois, among others, and saw attendance at its opening event reach into the thousands.

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Frank Auerbach was recently interviewed in The Daily Telegraph, discussing his long career as a painter, the solitary life of painting, and his simple, unadorned opinions towards working on his canvases.  “People who turn out pictures and think, ‘How nice,’ and then go to the next picture seem terribly boring to me. You might as well work in a factory. The whole thing is about the struggle and the struggle makes it a fun activity.” (more…)

In an emailed press release today, the Saatchi Gallery in London has announced a broad collaborative partnership with the Tsukanova Family Foundation, a London-based charity organization.  The announcement comes after the highly successfully Breaking The Ice: Moscow Art 1960-80s exhibition at Saatchi earlier this year.  “We look forward to using the Gallery’s vast experience to further expand upon this through a series of shows over the course of the next 5 years,” says Igor Tsukanov, Co-Founder of TFF. (more…)

Dealer Virginia Dwan, who earned a reputation for her ongoing support and collection of a number of pioneering “Land Art” works during the 1960’s and 70’s, has pledged the donation of 250 works from her collection to The National Gallery in Washington.  Among the works donated are Marcel Duchamp’s iconic recreation of the Mona Lisa with a mustache drawn on, and Michael Heizer’s Double Negative, a monumental piece in the Nevada desert.  “I want the collection to have the largest audience of people possible, not just art world types who have a to-do list.”  Dwan commented. (more…)

A pre-war bank building in Shanghai has become the home of Bank, an arts exhibition space owned by cultural promoters Mabsociety.  “In the past, we were curating for other institutions and doing some pop-up exhibitions,” founder Mathieu Borysevicz says. “We think of ourselves as ‘post-gallery’.” (more…)

Current New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been named the next chairman of the Serpentine Gallery in London, assuming the post once his mayoral term ends this year.  Bloomberg previously served on the board for the London gallery, which is open to the public, and will assume the post at the start of 2014. (more…)