Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto’s budding practice as an architect is profiled in a recent article by The Wall Street Journal, noting the artist’s published guide to museum architecture, his work renovating and constructing spaces, and his newly conceived Odawara Art Foundation museum, part of which juts out from a cliff to view the Pacific Ocean, and tactfully incorporates its surroundings into its design.  “This is related to memories of ancient culture of the human civilization,” says Sugimoto. (more…)

The Delfina Foundation has reopened its doors after a ten-month. £1.4 million renovation, making it London’s largest artist residency program.  The foundation’s gallery space opens today with an exhibition titled The Politics of Food.  “It’s great to be in a place that takes food as seriously as I do,” joked UK Culture Minister Ed Vaizey. “I expect hundreds of MPs will be beating a path to the door, especially when they hear how tidy it’s kept and that there is food here.”  (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…)

Dia Fall Gala, atmosphere (during Matmos commission). All images courtesy Dia Art Foundation.

Last Monday’s Dia Art Foundation Fall Gala was a striking affair. Video projections, sound, light-play, chatter, and music gave the cavernous venue its mystical feel, all accompanied by a commission by experimental electronic music duo Matmos, whose performance was reminiscent of a spiritual journey. Even so, the full series of events and installations fell in line with the framework of minimal and progressive art that the Dia Art Foundation specializes in bringing to the public through an array of different channels.

Dinner, atmosphere. (more…)

Julian Schnabel with May Andersen and Peter Brant, via Art Observed Staff

Painter, sculptor, filmmaker, Julian Schnabel is larger than life, and so are his artworks, some towering to two to three times the height of an average person.  The artist’s monumental works are currently being shown at The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, on view through March.  The exhibition captures the diversity of Schnabel’s work, from the many facets of his “plate paintings” to the table he designed for Francisco Clemente. By bringing Schnabel’s emblematic works together, the Brant Foundation offers a comprehensive look at how Schnabel has impacted the art world in a way that has not been attempted since the Whitney Museum’s retrospective show 26 years ago.

Julian Schnabel, The Walk Home (1985), via Art Observed Staff (more…)

The family of sculptor Alexander Calder have filed a complaint that Klaus G. Perls, the artist’s longtime dealer and friend, held onto tens of millions of dollars of the artist’s art after his death, and sold forgeries of the artist’s work.  The Perls family has asked that the claims be dismissed.  “It gives me no pleasure to talk about this,” said Calder’s grandson, Alexander S. C. Rower, but “there is just example after example after example after example of misdeeds.”   (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…)

A major legal battle over the estate of copper heiress Huguette Clark has reached a settlement, with the Corcoran Gallery of Art receiving a large share of Clark’s fortune, including $10 million in cash, half the proceeds from the sale of Monet’s Water Lillies, and a seat on the board of a new national arts foundation.  “We’re going to be very guarded with these funds,” said Corcoran President Peggy Loar. “This will help our operating situation, but very carefully.” (more…)

From Cy Twombly to Robert Rauschenberg, artist foundations have been seeing a high number of internal turmoil, as trustees and advisors lob claims of unpaid compensation, outlandish salaries, and nepotism that place the foundations’ ostensibly noble missions into question.  “The private foundation world is a wild, wild west,” said Trent Stamp, founding president of Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits. “There’s an opportunity for great abuse.” (more…)

Following two costly lawsuits against the Foundation by collectors Joe Simon and Susan Shaer in 2007 after their Warhol works were deemed “fake” by the Foundation’s Authentication Board, its insurance firm, Philadelphia Indemnity, refused to pay its share of legal fees. “Philadelphia Indemnity said it was not liable to pay for the Warhol Foundation’s defence because the organisation had “failed to notify them—as [its] insurance policy required—of ‘any specific wrongful act’ committed by one of the foundation’s members, including the publication of material ‘with knowledge of its falsity’”, according to a 20 June article in the New York Review of Books.” This derived in an over two year-long legal dispute between the two organizations, which was finally settled last week, in favor of the Foundation, which has already processed the insurance company’s payment. (more…)

Thomas Messer, the legendary former director of the Guggenheim Foundation, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 93.  Messer, who came to the gallery in 1961, just two years after it moved into its signature building on Fifth Avenue, was instrumental in shaping the Guggenheim into the global institution it is today, developing its collection and tirelessly working to expand its mission.  “Here we are, three decades later, with Guggenheims in Bilbao, Berlin, Venice, and soon to be Abu Dhabi. The foundation for all this was laid by Tom Messer. And I can tell you, he laid that foundation under budget.”  said former Guggenheim President Peter Lawson-Johnston. (more…)

Storming back from its brush with financial insolvency earlier this year, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has announced that it has raised over $50 Million in the past month, bringing its total endowment past $75 Million.  The new contributions come from a number of prominent names, including new board member Bruce Karatz, Jeffrey Soros, and Eli Broad.  “The level of support we have received is fantastic. There is a new energy and excitement about MOCA’s future and its leadership role in the art world,” says Eugenio Lopez, co-chair of  the endowment campaign. (more…)

A major dispute between board members of the Hilma af Klint Foundation is casting a pall on the first major retrospective of the artist in her home country of Sweden.  The dispute arises over several board members’ desires to  sell of works to fund a museum to “anthroposophy,” a school of thought originated by Rudolf Steiner. Ulf  Wagner, one of the accused board members has responded, saying “Legally we would not be allowed to sell her works,” before continuing that this would only apply to major works.  (more…)

The Guggenheim Museum has received a $10 million grant from the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation in Hong Kong to comission new works from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.  The move comes as the museum continues to expand its global view of contemporary art.  “This is all part of our global narrative,” says Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. “For years people have asked what we are doing about China. This is a crucial next step.” (more…)

More conflicts have come to light in the recent dispute between the board members of the Cy Twombly Foundation.  A lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Delaware state court, accuses director Thomas Saliba and lawyer Ralph Lerner of taking an unauthorized $300,000 in investment fees from the organization.  “Lerner and Saliba have refused to provide a copy of the trust or disclose their trustee commissions, which makes it impossible to confirm the extent of their wrongdoing, but the facts currently known raise very serious questions about Lerner’s and Saliba’s conduct,” the lawsuit said. (more…)

In the face of a $40 Million cut as a result of Congress’s budget stalemate, the Smithsonian Museums are prepared to maintain their normal hours, vowing to find their way around the cuts in more creative ways.  The museums will absorb the cuts through delays in maintenance and construction, as well as other internal adjustments.  “We think we have a plan that allows us to squeak through to the end of this fiscal year. But we can’t sustain this,” Said Dennis Kelly, Director of the National Zoo. “At the end of the fiscal year, if we’re still in this mode, the entire Smithsonian is going to have to rethink all of our priorities.” (more…)

Aspasia Zaimis, niece of Greek Shipping Magnate Basil Goulandris, is pursuing a lawsuit to recover a selection of paintings from her uncle’s estate, including works by Van Gogh, Renoir, and Monet.  Her current investigation has already turned up a long paper trail of documents that have raised suspicions about the ownership of the works, and has also resulted in a criminal investigation of her late aunt Elise Goulandris’s philanthropic organization.  “I am determined to find the paintings which were in the Gstaad home before my aunt’s death,” Zaimis said. “I believe with all my heart that the paintings were part of my inheritance.” (more…)

A Delaware judge has been asked to step in on a dispute between the board members of a foundation established by late American painter Cy Twombly.  The complaint, filed by Twombly’s lawyer Ralph Lerner, seeks to reinstate Twombly’s son Alessandro to the board in order to break a deadlock between the current members over the forced removal of treasurer Thomas Saliba.  Lerner claims that the dispute has left the foundation unable to manage its $1.5 billion in assets. (more…)