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FIAC 2011 at the Grand Palais in Paris. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

FIAC 2011 (The Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) opens this weekend in Paris for its 38th year. The international art fair, which boasts an impressive array of 168 galleries from 21 countries, will show the work of some 2,800+ artists. Running October 20–23rd, the exposition comes at the tail end of Frieze Art Fair, drawing artists, collectors, gallerists, and enthusiasts eastward from London. While the focus of Frieze leans toward contemporary, FIAC includes both contemporary and modern, including works from Picasso, Calder, and Matisse. The fair has been building momentum since 2006; Jennifer Flay, appointed general director in 2010, credits this boost to the fair’s move to the Grand Palais, one of the city’s most cherished architectural gems. The fair also expands this year to the Jardin des Tuileries, the Jardin des Plantes, the Museum of Natural History, and other venues around the city. Another innovation, a mobile application (in French) is available through Windows Phone which enables visitors to book tickets directly from their phone, as well as receive realtime news updates from the fair, find exhibitors and artists, and access videos and photos of the show.

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Jay Jopling of White Cube, which is exhibiting Damien Hirst’s Where Will It End.

More on site coverage and images after the jump… (more…)

Suspect may have panicked and trashed 5 stolen masterworks following “one of the biggest art heists ever” in Paris last May. The works stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne were Dove with Green Peas by Pablo Picasso, Pastoral by Henri Matisse, Olive Tree near l’Estaque by Georges Braque, Still Life with Candlestick by Fernand Leger and Woman with Fan by Amedeo Modigliani. [AO Newslink]

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La Couleur en Avant at MAMAC, Nice. Martial Raysse, Nissa Bella (1964)  All pictures by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

The Museum of  Modern and Contemporary Art—MAMAC—in Nice, France is showing Arret sur image (which translates to ‘stop on image’) through October 23rd, and La Couleur en Avant (‘the color before’) through November 27th. Both exhibitions represent modern and contemporary artists, with an emphasis on the colors and fluidity within the contemporary. In Le Couleur en Avant, sculptures by Yves Klein and paintings by Henri Matisse, among others, are juxtaposed to show their influence on the pop art of Martial Raysse. Arret sur image, held in Ponchettes Gallery, displays work by living artists such as Gilbert and George, Robert Longo, and Barbara Kruger, expanding on the thematic influence of color in a contemporary context. The work in Ponchettes Gallery remains in MAMAC’s permanent collection.

Arret sur image by MAMAC at Galerie des Ponchettes, Nice.

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Gertrude Stein (1905-1906) by Pablo Picasso, via The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Currently on view at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art is “The Steins Collect” an exhibition devoted the collection of the Stein family, notable patrons of early modernism. The large show covers the entire fourth floor of the museum and contains a variety of pieces spanning the entire history of the family’s collections. The chronologically-arranged exhibition truly makes clear their influence and significance in the emerging world of Modern Art.

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Maurice de Vlaminck, Paysage de Banlieue, 1905 (est. $18-25 million, realized $22.5 million). All images via Christies.com.

The second and final Impressionist and Modern art evening sale in New York this spring was held Wednesday night at Christie’s. The auction realized $156 million, just below the low presale estimate of $162.3 million. Ten of the fifty-seven lots offered failed to find buyers, giving the sale a sell through rate of 82% by lot and 81% by value. The evening progressed much like the Sotheby’s sale last night. There was frenzied interest in a few lots, but otherwise buyers seemed unimpressed by the offerings and hence hesitant to bid. First place was shared by two works – Maurice de Vlaminck‘s Paysage de Banlieue and Monet‘s Les Peupliers both sold for $22.5 million. The Vlaminck was sold by billionaire collector Steven Cohen and just about doubled the artist’s previous auction record set in 1990 for $10.8 million.

Claude Monet, Les Peupliers, 1891 (est. $20-30 million, realized $22.5 million)

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Pablo Picasso, La Lecture, 1932 (est. £12–18 million), via Sothebys.com

February’s round of major art auctions begins in London next week with Impressionist & Modern sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.  On Tuesday evening Sotheby’s will offer forty-two lots estimated to bring between £55-79 million. Sotheby’s will also hold a 60-lot sale of Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary works titled “Looking Closely: A Private Collection” on Thursday, February 10th that is expected to fetch up to £54 million.  All the works in that sale are from the collection of George Kostalitz, a Geneva-based collector who died last year. Christie’s forty-six lot evening sale on Wednesday is estimated to bring £54-80 million and, as was the case last year, will be immediately followed by a thirty-one lot auction of Surrealist works estimated to fetch an additional £19-28 million. While it is uncertain whether these auctions will produce a buzz-worthy sale on par with last year’s £65 million paid for Giacometti’s L’Homme Qui Marche I, both houses are offering a number of strong works led by canvases by Picasso and Gauguin.

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Alberto Giacometti, Diego, 1958 (est. £3–5 million), via Sothebys.com

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Henri Matisse, Nu de dos, 4 état (Back IV), conceived c. 1930 and cast 1978 (est. $25-35 million, realized $48.8 million), via Christies.com

Wednesday evening’s Impressionist & Modern auction at Christie’s in New York featured 84 lots (not including lot 27, which was withdrawn) that were expected to fetch between $198-286.6 million. The sale realized a total of $231.4 million and had a sell through rate of 80% by lot and 88% by value. Like the Sotheby’s sale  on Tuesday night, a handful of the top lots found buyers after enthusiastic bidding while the majority of lots were sold within or below presale estimates, or were bought in.

Still, the aggressive bidding that set two artists’ records was largely unexpected. Perhaps garnering the most post auction attention,  the sale of Matisse’s Nu de dos, 4 état (Back IV), an impressively sized bronze sculpture of a woman’s back, went to Larry Gagosian–on behalf of an anonymous client–for $48.8 million. Similarly, Violon et guitare, a 1913 painting by Juan Gris, generously outperformed its $18-25 million estimate, fetching $28.6 million from a European collector. Though the top buyers identities remain unknown, sources such as the New York Times have speculated the involvement of hedge fund billionaire and collector Steven A. Cohen, who was present at the event and has bought through Larry Gagosian in the past.

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The room fills at Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Evening Sale in New York, via Art Observed

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Amedeo Modigliani, Nu Assis Sur un Divan (La Belle Romaine), 1917 (est. $40 million, realized $68.9 million), via Sothebys.com

The fall auction season in New York kicked off on Tuesday evening with Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern sale. The 61-lot auction carried a presale estimate of $195-266 million and realized $227,561,000. Just four lots accounted for more than half of the evening’s earnings, while 15 lots were bought in. Amedeo Modigliani‘s Nu Assis Sur un Divan (La Belle Romaine) was the top lot, bringing in a staggering $68.9 million and setting the record for a work by the artist at auction.

Aristide Maillol, Torse de L’Action Enchainée, 1861-1944, at auction (est. $500-$700 thousand, realized 2.9 million), via Art Observed

More results and images after the jump…

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Amedeo Modigliani, Nu Assis Sur un Divan (La Belle Romaine), 1917 (est. $40 million), via Sothebys.com

Sotheby’s and Christie’s will both hold Impressionist and Modern sales in New York during the first week of November. Sotheby’s will offer 61 lots during the Evening Sale on November 2nd, with Christie’s Evening Sale following on the 3rd. The latter is comprised of 85 lots, and is expected to bring at least $200 million.

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Henri Matisse The Moroccans, 1916. Image via MoMA.

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917, at the Museum of Modern Art, features almost 120 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures completed by Henri Matisse within the span of four years.  1913 marks a turning point in Matisse’s evolutionary career: in the twilight of WWI, the artist made a profound move toward conceptual distortion.  He worked in German-occupied France while his brother was in a prison camp and his mother was behind enemy lines–conditions he deemed the “methods of modern construction” that altered the course of his artistic and personal development.

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Tanguy/ Calder: Between Surrealism and Abstraction, Installation view. Image via L & M Arts.

In 1942, Peggy Guggenheim wore one earring by Yves Tanguy and one by Alexander Calder to the opening of Art of This Century; a year later, Pierre Matisse presented the artists in adjacent rooms of his gallery.  In the 1940s, critics began to notice the aesthetic likeness of the artists’ work, including mutual biomorphic designs in paintings and sculptures.  The colloquy and stimulus inspired by the pair’s mutual Connecticut community is explored in this extensive, two-floor exhibition.  Tanguy/ Calder: Between Surrealism and Abstraction at L & M Arts celebrates the creative relationship between these two artists, presenting their works from the 1930s-1950s alongside photographs and previously unpublished documents that testify to the collaborative aspect of their rapport and seamlessly harmonizing abstraction and Surrealism.
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Self-Portrait with a Palette, Edouard Manet sold for a record £22,441,250 (est. £20-30 million) Image via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern sale last night marked a sluggish start to the summer auction season in London as sixteen of the 51 lots offered failed to find buyers. In percentage terms, 31 percent went unsold by lot and 16 percent by value. The sale totaled £112,101,350 ($165,282,230) – surpassing the low end of the pre-sale estimate of £101 million ($150 million), but far off the £148 million ($220 million) high estimate. The total is the third-highest ever achieved for an Impressionist and Modern evening sale at Sotheby’s in London and stands in stark contrast to the £33.5 million realized in June 2009. In another encouraging sign of a surging market, nineteen lots fetched over a million pounds, and of those, three made over ten million pounds. In all, four artist records were set. The sale was topped by the cover-lot Edouard Manet‘s Self-Portrait with a Palette, which reportedly sold to the New York based dealer Frank Giraud for a record £22,441,250 ($33,087,379). The previous Manet record was set at Christie’s when La Rue Mosnier Aux Drapeaux sold for $26.4 million in 1989. The work, consigned by hedge-fund billionaire Steven A Cohen, had been estimated to fetch between £20 million and £30 million.

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Nymphéas, Claude Monet (est. £30 – 40million)

The June sales in London are packed with potentially record-breaking Impressionist and modern works that are expected to fetch a combined total of £300-450 million. If the pre-sale estimates are realized, these the most lucrative series of auctions ever held in London, easily surpassing the £298 million realized in June 2008 before the global economic meltdown during which the June sales achieved just £96 million. Giovanna Bertazzoni, Director and Head of Impressionist and Modern art at Christie’s, London has noted the recent confidence renewed in vendors in light of the the strong results witnessed at auction over the last year, “we are witnessing a great willingness from clients to consign works of art of the highest quality. There is a fierce international demand in the art market, particularly for the rarest and the best, and the market itself is now truly global as illustrated at our auction in New York in May where we saw bidding from Russia, China and the Middle East, as well as from Europe and the Americas.”

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Portrait of Ángel Fernández de Soto, Pablo Picasso (est. £30-40million)

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Quilt by Alexandre da Cunha, and Six Billboards by Angus Fairhust, Art Basel.  Image via Art Daily, AP Photo/Keystone/Georgios Kefalas.

Yesterday marked the end of the most highly-attended Art Basel to date. The 41st annual contemporary art fair boasted 306 galleries from 36 countries, and AO was on site to peruse the work of some 2,5000 artists.  62,500 dealers, collectors, curators, high-profile shoppers, artists, and art appreciators navigated installations, browsed gallery booths, mingled, and enjoyed the city of Basel.  Artists, established and newcomers both, showcased works ranging from Polaroids to performance pieces, paintings to videos, sculptures to large-scale installations.  A social and teeming affair with an obvious commercial edge, Basel’s sales were optimistic.  Picasso, Warhol, Prince, Hirst, de Kooning, Pollock, and other similarly established artists reigned supreme as the focus of this year’s event.  Franck Giraud, a New York dealer, spoke to the New York Times about the lack of prominently featured up-and-comers: “Is it because that’s what the market wants, or is it because dealers didn’t want to take risks? I think it was a bit of both.” Nonetheless, certain galleries used Basel as a platform to introduce new artists and show off their latest signings.

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Tobias Meyer, International Head of Sotheby’s contemporary art department. leads the Impressionist and Modern evening sale last night.

As with Christie’s historic sale of Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust for a record $106.5 million on Tuesday evening, Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern evening sale last night struck another strong note for the recovering art market.  The sale achieved $195,697,000, nearly reaching the high end of the pre-sale estimate ($141 – 204 million).  Fifty of the 57 lots offered sold.  Forty-three works achieved prices over $1 million, ten works exceeded $5 million, four works brought prices over $10 million, and two works sold for over $15 million; two artist records were broken. That compares very favorably to the 36-lot sale that generated $61,370,500 at Sotheby’s last May. Despite a packed salesroom, absent bidders on telephones dominated the evening’s sales – while a constant feature of this secretive market where anonymity is key, the many languages spoken by Sotheby’s representatives on the telephones last night acted as a strong indicator of the global demand for these top-quality works. Most notably, Asian buyers dominated the phones – pushing-up the prices of many of the night’s big sales and eventually winning four of the top ten lots.

Bouquet de fleurs pour le Quatorze Juillet, Henri Matisse Estimate: $18 – 25 million. Price Realized: $28,642,500.

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Untitled, Ellsworth Kelly (1959) via Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Currently showing at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, England are a selection of early, unseen drawings by one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century – Ellsworth Kelly. Executed by Kelly between 1954 and 1962, the drawings have traveled to Middlesbrough directly from the artist’s New York studio where they have been hidden for more than 50 years. The 23 works are all studies for larger pieces and have been presented now, for the first time ever, to illustrate an important period in the artist’s career during which he pioneered his much-admired abstract style that has been integral to the evolution post-war American art.

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Tête de femme (Jacqueline), Pablo Picasso. Estimate $4,845,000 – $6,460,000 Price Realized:$12,887,348. Image via Christie’s

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale and the auction of Art of the Surreal took place last night in London and fetched $122,167,093, over a pre-sale estimate of $87 – $124million.  The sale illustrated a buoyant market in reflection of last year’s equivalent sale that raised $101 million as buyers and sellers held back in the financial crisis. Another observation is the continuing appetite for important works of art – most specifically large, colorful works fresh to the market from long-established private collections. Competitive bidding for 4 works by important artists Picasso, Kees van Dongen and Natalia Gontcharova pushed prices over £5 million – in total 21 lots realize over £1 million, compared to 26 at both last year’s major London sales combined. Despite recent musings on buyers in China’s ascendant economy who are displaying a new appetite for 20th Century Art, Thomas Seydoux, Christie’s international head of Impressionist and modern art, was most surprised by the amount of bidding from Russian and former Eastern Bloc buyers who dominated the action on the telephone – only 2% of lots were sold to Asian buyers in relation to 25% UK, 48% Europe and 25% Americas.

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Kirche in Cassone (Church in Cassone), Gustav Klimt via Sotheby’s

Masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Gustav Klimt and Henri Matisse that have been unseen for decades will go under the hammer this week at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in London at the first major European auctions of 2010. The appearance of many top-quality, ‘lost’ works marks a distinct change in the attitude of sellers who have been encouraged to put their prized works on the market by the recent success of Impressionist and Modern Art sales – most notable is Sotheby’s November Impressionist and Modern sale in New York that exceeded all expectations when it realized $182m over a high-end estimate of $163m. The sales kick-off with Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale on February 2 that will offer 86 lots with a total pre-sale value of £56,505,000 to £80,805,000. The sale is led by works by Kees van Dongen, Natalia Goncharova, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on Wednesday, February 3 is smaller with only 39 lots but the target of £102million is considerably higher. This high estimate is excelled by three works from Gustave Klimt, Alberto Giacometti and Paul Cézanne that are individually estimated to realize more than £10 million – the auction house sold three works for that price across all categories all last year.

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Performa 09 party via Artinfo

-To benefit Performa 09, party designer Jennifer Rubell invites 600 guests to “Creation” held at X Initiative in Chelsea in New York, where 3,600 drinking glasses, a pyramid of unshelled peanuts and 2,000 pound hillock of honey-soaked ribs were among the excess of food being served (Performa 09/ Food for Thought) [The Moment]

-In related, To mark the start of Performa 09 MoMA invited Fischerspooner to stage a show (Performance Art Enters the Museum) [Artinfo]

-In related, At Haunch of Venison in New York Marina Abramovich, Leandro Erlich, Mickalene and Rob Wynn pair with NYC pastry chefs to create performances; cakes were served by topless models (Kreemart or Cream Art Performance at Haunch of Venison) [NY Art Beat]

-Bikes used by Lance Armstrong and with frames designed by contemporary artists fetch $1.3 million at auction in Sotheby’s, among them Damien Hirst’s sold for $500,000 (Armstrong’s Tour de France Bikes Fetch $1.3 Million at Auction) [Bloomberg]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)

Danseuses, Edgar Degas (1896) all images via Christie’s

Last night, November 3, the fall auction season in New York kicked-off at Christie’s with their Impressionist and Modern evening sale – the smallest since May 2004. While vigorous bidding wars ensued for the finer pieces in the sale, there was no escaping the deathly silence that occurred when auctioneer, Christopher Burge, called for bids on a number of the auction highlights which included works by Camille Pissaro, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, that eventually went unsold. Of the 40 lots on sale, 28 sold – making the overall total of $65,674,000, under the low-end estimate of $68,650,000.

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TeÌ‚te de femme, Pablo Picasso (1943) estimated to sell for between $7,000,000 and $10,000,000 at Christie’s Modern and Impressionist evening sale tonight. via Christie’s

Christie’s Modern and Impressionist sale this evening, November 3, marks the beginning of the fall auction season in New York. Headlining tonight’s sale are works by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse. Tomorrow Sotheby’s will follow with their Modern and Impressionist evening sale which is highlighted by Alberto Giacometti’s bronze Falling Man, estimated to sell for $8 million – $12 million along with works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Giacometti’s fellow modern masters Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. The combined total of the evening and day sales from both auction houses is estimated at as much as $607 million, down from $1.7 billion just two years ago.

ArtObserved will be on site to cover the proceedings on twitter at the show and in a review tomorrow. We are set to continue our auction season coverage next week when the Contemporary sales kick-off on Tuesday, November 10, at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Company.

L’Homme Qui Chavire (Falling Man), Alberto Giacometti (1951) via Sotheby’s

Related Links:
Christie’s Homepage
Sotheby’s Homepage
Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Evening Sale – Tuesday, November 3, 2009 – E-Catalogue
Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Day Sale – Wednesday, November 4, 2009 – E-Catalogue
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale – Wednesday, November 4, 2009- E-Catalogue
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale -Thursday, November 5, 2009 – E-Catalogue
On The Block: Traditional Offerings, Bargain Prices [NYTimes]
New House, Taschen Risking Low Prices for Art at Fall Auctions [Bloomberg]
New York Sales Preview [ArtInfo]
Up For Auction [NYTimes]
The Art World Goes Local [WallStreetJournal]
Art World Watching Sales Starting Next Week for Hints of Market Recovery [Financial Post]
As Art Auctions Shrink, Big Houses Look to the Future [Reuters]
The Art Market: Distress Sales, Iron Curtain Art and France’s Turner Prize [Financial Times]

Arshile Gorky’s “Waterfall” (1942-43). Image courtesy of the museum. © 2009 Estate of Arshile Gorky / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is currently showing a retrospective of Arshile Gorky’s work. Closing in January, the exhibition includes “creative chambers” which explore thirty years of Gorky’s artistic evolution in still-life, from Cubism to Surrealism. After it closes in Philadelphia, the show will travel to Tate Modern and LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Gorky’s “Water of the Mill,” courtesy of PMA. © 2009 Estate of Arshile Gorky / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

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The show is comprised of works by 63 artists, with some pieces showing publicly for the first time. The sweeping comprehensiveness of the exhibition allows for a juxtaposition of artists rarely seen. Paintings by Claude Monet accompany those by Cy Twombly and Paul Signac. Cubist Georges Braque brings the cartoons of Jean Dubufett into sharper relief. Included are Paul Cézanne and Abstract Expressionists Mark Rothko and Sam Francis, in an exhibition that shows even the pop art of Andy Warhol and the Surrealist paintings of Salvador Dalí.

Ferdinand Hodler, “le Grammont,” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

Yves Klein, “ANT 20,” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

Initially founded in 1984 with the Bugnion Family collection, Fondation l’Hermitage now boasts over 600 works, shown in rotation along with its temporary exhibitions. The Fondation is also home to a collection of 12th-19th century Chinese porcelain, donated by the Vergottis Foundation and on permanent display in its underground space.

René Magritte, “La Ruse Symétrique,” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

Paul Klee, “Felsenlandschaft,” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

Edgar Degas, “Danseuses (Danseuses au repos),” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

– R. Fogel

A glimpse of the Sol LeWitt mural, ‘Swirls and Whirls,’ being constructed in the Columbus Circle subway station, via NY Times

A mural designed for the Columbus Circle subway station in New York by Sol LeWitt in 2007, just before his death, is nearly complete [NY Times]

In related, Turner Prize winner Richard Long designs the cover for the London Tube Map [FAD]
The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid has seen visitor numbers quadruple since the opening of its Henri Matisse exhibit [Art Daily]
Following the success of earlier Beyond Limits exhibitions, Sotheby’s announces its fourth contemporary sculpture exhibit at Chatsworth including works by Henry Moore, Marc Quinn, Zhan Wang, among others [Auction Publicity]

Jeff Koons via the Telegraph UK

Jeff Koons sits for lunch with the Financial Times and discusses his love of inflatables and how the custody battle for his son has affected his work [Financial Times]
MoMA’s PS1 in Queens will soon reprise its Greater New York exhibit, which will be its 3rd [LindsayPollack]
On Miuccia Prada and her still to be built €25 million, 20,500 square meter Prada Foundation in a south Milan industrial complex [ArtNewspaper]
Sotheby’s CEO William Ruprecht sells 5% of his equity holdings; he retains a 1% stake in the company [Barron’s via Art Market Monitor]

The Starns Brothers’ cover for the fifth anniversary of T Magazine, via NY Times

T Magazine celebrates its fifth anniversary with specially designed covers by Mike and Doug Starns, Jeff Koons, Francesco Vezzoli, Jenny Holzer, and Frank Gehry [NYTimes T Magazine]
Christie’s abandons its plan to establish an art-investment fund and a lending division [Bloomberg]
In related, Leibovitz creditor Goldman Sachs has stepped in to help negotiate the photographer’s financial troubles with Art Capital Group [Artforum]
The recession in the art world has not stopped bartering of valuable works between contemporaries [TimesUK]

Creative Time’s short shorts for sale at Creative Time

Creative Time is selling limited edition short shorts, and the campy video is here [CreativeTime via Artnet on Twitter]
On collecting phenomenon Herb and Dorthy Vogel’s gift of 50 works to 50 US States [Wall Street Journal]
Interpol allows online access to its 34,000 work database of stolen art [ArtDaily]
In related, roughly 1,000 Alberto Giacometti counterfeit sculptures seized in Germany [GlobeandMail]

Dasha Zhukova via Style.com

Dasha Zhukova, rumored pregnant with 2008 top collector Roman Abramovich’s child, as new editor of Pop magazine has a Damien Hirst work on the cover [NYMag]
Russian oligarchs invest enough money in the Constructivist and Suprematist art of the beginning of 20th century to provoke forgeries, more than half of items bought of these movements are reported to be inauthentic [The Independent]
In related, as Princeton Architectural Press claims to have discovered Frida Kahlo’s lost archive, scholars involved with the artist’s work refute the possibility of it being authentic [GuardianUK]
A new high intensity x-ray developed by Cornell University has already revealed a lost NC Wyeth illustration [ArtInfo]

Stephen Power’s Hold My Own Iverson’s Arm

2007 Fulbright Scholar Stephen Powers, known as ESPO, is completing his Love Letter project, comprised of murals by multiple artists stretching across his home town of Philadelphia that can be seen from one train [A Love Letter For You]
Shepard Fairey calls his decision to graffiti-proof the brick walls of his studio personal preference and rebutts claims of hypocrisy [Street Level] and separately he is to unveil a large scale mural produced by the gallery Country Club at Art Basel Miami Beach [ArtDaily]
Are Museums crossing the line by granting curatorship to corporations? [The New York Times]

Terence Koh’s window display at Opening Ceremony which reads “The Whole Family” via this hearts on fire

Terence Koh sends a very Terence Koh letter regarding his latest project with Opening Ceremony, a window installation [Hint]
On the relatively accessible yet potentially financially rewarding decision to invest in the works of MA students [The Guardian]
The Bortolami Gallery building is up for sale at $6.1 million by collector Adam Lindemann as Stefania Bortolami prepares to move to another location in Chelsea [Lindsay Pollack]
Matthew Barney and Bjork buy a four bedroom townhouse in Brooklyn Heights listed for $4.2 million [NYMag]