Opening in October, the Tate Modern will present a landmark exhibition of works by German-Swiss painter Paul Klee.  Exhibiting over 100 of the artist’s works, the show will aim to “redress the idea that he was a quirky artist, allowing his cat to paint, but rather show that he was extremely rigorous, with a clear sense of how his work was progressing … and it will give a sense of the extraordinary variety of his production.”  Says Tate curator Matthew Gale. (more…)

This coming fall, Sotheby’s will auction off a seminal work by pre-Raphaelite Dante Rosetti, a chalk drawing depicting Rosetti’s muse Janey Burden as the Greek Goddess Prosperine.  Described by the auction house as “one of the defining images of European art – instantly recognisable and representing the artist at the height of his originality,” the work will sell at auction this November in London, and is expected to command a sales price between £1.2 and £1.8 million. (more…)

The Design Musuem announced on Tuesday that it has sold its Thames-side home to Zaha Hadid architects. The revenue of the £10 million sale will be added to the £80 fund necessary to move the museum to the Commonwealth Institute on Kensington High Street. The former banana-ripening warehouse will now become the offices of the practice, as well as a space for architecture exhibtions.

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Bill Viola, Chapel of Frustrated Actions and Futile Gestures (Detail) (2013), via Blain Southern

Several new works by American video artist Bill Viola are currently being hosted by the Blain Southern gallery in London through July 27. Viola is considered a leading voice in the field of New Media, and is known for the existential and essentialist themes that surface in his work. Drawing from Buddhist, Zen, and mystical tradition, Viola approaches human mortality and spirit through video, sound and digital installation.  (more…)

Israeli Shipping mogul Eyal Ofer has made a £10 million donation to the Tate Modern, bringing the museum within reach of its £215 million fundraising drive to fund a major expansion program. “I am delighted that the Eyal Ofer Family Foundation has chosen to make such a major contribution towards Tate Modern’s future.” Says Sir Nicholas Serota, the Tate’s current director. “It is exciting to see such outstanding philanthropy continuing from one generation to the next. The generosity of Eyal Ofer and his family will help to make Tate Modern a truly 21st-century museum.”  (more…)

The Tate Modern has announced a selection of new exhibitions focusing on artists from the African continent.  Featuring retrospectives of work by Sudan’s Ibrahim El-Salahi, 82, and the Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda Choucair, as well as a large-scale installation by Meschac Gaba (where the artist created his own, fictional museum), the move underlines the museum’s more global view towards the contemporary landscape.  “These are all exhibitions that 20 or 30 years ago were quite impossible,” says Tate Modern director, Chris Dercon. “At some point it will be absolutely normal and absolutely necessary to have all these kinds of work, all these artists, together in one museum.” (more…)

The invasion of financiers in the art market, the introduction of art as investment, and the internet have altered the value system of works at auction, placing a new emphasis on the reassurance of well-known artists and established sales records. The new ethos can be see in in recent sales of Giacometti’s L’Homme qui march I,’ which sold for over £65 million at Sotheby’s, London in February 2010. The sculpture was an edition of six, with four additional ‘artist proofs.’ The existence of editions allows for direct price comparisons and understanding of the piece’s artistic standing.

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Painter John Constable’s 1821 canvas The Hay Wain, widely regarded as one of Britain’s most iconic paintings, has been a attacked by a protestor from the group Fathers4Justice.  The alleged protestor, 41 year old Tim Haries, was arrested on charges of attaching a small photograph of a young boy to the work while it was on view at The National Gallery.  “A member of the Gallery’s security team quickly intervened and called for assistance. The photograph was approximately 4 inches wide, and the back had been coated with glue.”  Said a Gallery spokesman. (more…)

Haroon Mirza, Pavilion for Optimisation (2013), via Lisson Gallery

In one of the pale, white rooms of Lisson Gallery’s current show of works by Haroon Mirza, a light continually goes on and off, accompanied by a bizarre whooshing noise.  The sound is that of an ant, walking across a small copper plate buried inside of an ant farm, and mixed together with the sounds of a shower head draining into a plastic bin.  At turns confusing, surreal and immersive, the viewer cannot help but linger in this minimal environment, seeking to understand the subtle links between action and reaction. (more…)

Financial Times editor Simon Schama recently sat down with artist Grayson Perry for an interview covering the artist’s new exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.  Discussing his influences and practice, the artist goes on to discuss the broader context of British art in the global community. “We are all so desperate to hunt for Englishness, to try and connect to the European renaissance, that we are missing our own brilliant contribution to world culture, which is to say, “Oh come off it!” That’s what we do, hold complex ideas and manage to be ambiguous in a humane way, to celebrate humanity while at the same time satirising it, that’s what makes us English.” (more…)

Gursky Sells at Sotheby’s, via Sotheby’s

The final auction hammers have fallen for the first half of 2013, concluding June’s London auction weeks. While the results of this week’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s were solid, final sales events before the summer break showed a marked tapering off in both sales prices and quantities. With the bountiful auctions, events and fairs, including the $1.1 billion New York auctions, Frieze New York, Art Basel Hong Kong, and the Venice Biennale with its record 86,000 attendance count.

Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Isabel Rawsthorne (1966) via Sotheby’s (more…)

During a recent visit to London, David Zwirner spoke with Spear’s about the current state of the art market, offering his perspective and opinion on the current struggle that small and mid-size galleries are currently facing.  ” Those [mid-size] galleries have to be strong. That’s a little bit on the local communities to support them.”  He said.  “When I was a mid-size gallery and a small gallery, I really got my support from New York. It seems that the audience seems to gravitate towards the galleries that have a little glory attached to their name. That’s too bad.” (more…)

With the Syrian civil war raging around them, a group of artists have smuggled their works out of the country for a survey exhibition in London, risking life and limb to get their works abroad for a show at P21 Gallery in Euston, opening this week.  “I travelled to Lebanon and Jordan twice to take work smuggled over the border,” said Fadi Haddad of support group Mosaic Syria. “The artists are worried that they could be traced if the work is stopped at a checkpoint. Some haven’t signed their work. The security police wouldn’t understand their message but they’d still see it as a danger. One artist went to Lebanon to remake her work just to avoid trouble from the authorities.”   (more…)

Monet Sells at Sotheby’s, via Sotheby’s

With the closing of this week’s Impressionist and Modern Evening Sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, evidence of a strong art market is not hard to find.  Sotheby’s held a slight edge over its recently successful rival, managing an auction total of $165.9 million, with only 13 of the 71 pieces going unsold.  Two pieces passed the ten million dollar mark, and 29 were sold for more than one-million dollars. The auction also set auction records for Camille Claudel and FrantiÅ¡k Kupka. In contrast, Christie’s achieved a result of $100.4 million over the course of its 44 lot sale. The result lies in between the total pre-sale estimate for the auction house of $82.8 to $118.8 million. Only seven works remained unsold, and two lots were sold for over ten million dollars.

Wassily Kandinsky, Studie zu Improvisation 3 (1909), via Christie’s (more…)

South-African born artist Susanne du Toit has been awarded the prestigious BP Portrait Award at a ceremony in the National Portrait Gallery in London. The piece was part of a series of portraits of the artist’s family; where she allowed her son to find his own pose, as long it allowed her to depict his hands, as she considers them an essential element of character. This year’s panel of judges was comprised by the painter and assistant to the late Lucian Freud, David Dawson; Sarah Howgate, an NPG curator; Victoria Pomery, director of Turner Contemporary in Margate; the writer Ali Smith; and Des Violaris, BP’s director of UK arts and culture. (more…)

Claude Monet, Le Palais Contarini (1908), via Sotheby’s

With the conclusion of the 6-week long series of art fairs and events this spring, including Frieze New York, the first edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, and the 44^th edition of Art Basel in Switzerland, the final major series of auctions before the summer lull begin today in London. With impressive records set last month for a number of works on the auction block, this week’s Impressionist and Modern Evening Sales will look to continue these trends.

Pablo Picasso, Le Peintre (1967), via Sotheby’s (more…)

With growing confidence among Chinese contemporary art buyers, Sotheby’s will heavily feature work from the Asian state in its June 26th and 27th contemporary sales in London.  Works by Zhang Xiaogang, Shi Xinning, Yue Minjun, and Zhang Huan will feature prominently in the sales, with a series of works expected to sell anywhere between £120,000 and £450,000. (more…)

A 41-year old man has been arrested in London under suspicion of defacing a portrait of the Queen at Westminster Abbey.  The work, done by artist Ralph Heimans, went on view in May, and was commissioned to celebrate her diamond jubilee last year.  “In an incident at lunchtime today, a visitor to the abbey sprayed paint on the Ralph Heimans portrait of the Queen presently on display in the Chapter House. Until work can be done to remedy the damage it will, very regrettably, not be possible to have the painting on public view.”  The abbey said in a statement. (more…)

Damien Hirst’s spot paintings are once again the subject of analysis and discussion, this time in the New York Times, which looks forward to the publication of his catalogue raisonné for the series this fall.  Released by Other Criteria, the book will catalog the full series of spot paintings, 1,365 in all, and is speculated by some as a way to lend authenticity to the work of an artist whose auction prices have fallen in recent years.  “He needs to regain the trust of the marketplace,” said Jeff B. Rabin, an advisor and co-founder at Artvest Partners. “It seems the catalog is one measure he could perhaps take to start to rectify some of the ill feeling out in the marketplace.” (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans, young man, Jeddah, b, (2012), via Andrea Rosen

Continuing their ongoing relationship, Andrea Rosen Gallery is currently exhibiting its 11th solo exhibition of work by German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, on view through June 22nd.  From Neue Welt is the result of a four-year project that Tillmans began in 2008, and completed in 2012, a vigorous photographic cataloguing of the dawn of the 21st century. 25 works have been selected from the hundreds of photographs that were a part of the original work, which culminated at the Kunsthalle Zurich in the fall of 2012.

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Outside View, Art Basel 2013, Photograph Courtesy of Art Basel

The city of Basel, situated at the border between Switzerland, France and Germany, will be transformed into a contemporary arts hub this week for the 44th annual Art Basel. Anticipating record attendence, the fair will look to top its record of over 65,000 visitors at the marathon art event this year.  With over 300 top galleries from all over the world flocking to the city to display over 4,000 artists’ work, the fair is commonly referred to as the “Olympics of the art world.”  and features a similarly brimming schedule of events and claustrophobic crowds of eager spectators. Each day boasts its own full agenda, including film screenings, artist talks, and performances, and joined by the vast number of peripheral art exhibitions and events hosted by cultural institutions of Basel throughout the entire region, held in obscure and romantic venues amidst the Swiss lakes and mountains.

Olafur Eliasson, Untitled (2003), Courtesy of Art Basel

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Gert&Uwe Tobias, Untitled (2012), © photo Alistair Overbruck, Cologne/Gert & Uwe Tobias/VG. Bildkunst, Bonn via Whitechapel Gallery

Whitechapel Gallery is currently hosting a major exhibition of work by Romanian-born twins Gert and Uwe Tobias, showcasing the brothers’ work and its abilities to challenge the distinctions between fine art and craft with their collaboratively created woodcuts, sculptures, collages and typewriter drawings.  Their multi-genre works from 2008 to the present are organized into a site-specific installation for the gallery, and showcase their broad, nuanced skill set in a global context.

Gert & Uwe Tobias (Installation View), via Whitechapel Gallery

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Sou Fujimoto’s Serpentine Pavilion, via The Serpentine

The Serpentine Gallery’s annual summer pavilion opened late last week in London’s Hyde Park, with a presentation by designer Sou Fujimoto and Serpentine Directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Fujimoto, Peyton-Jones, and Obrist, via Bloomberg (more…)

The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns, (Installation View) © Felix Clay 2013. Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery

Taking a diverse look at Marcel Duchamp’s influence on artists around the globe, the Barbican in London is currently presenting The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns, following the artist’s influence on several modern masters in the fields of composition, choreography and the visual arts. Featuring around 90 works by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, as well as choreographic work by Merce Cunningham and works by John Cage, the show takes great pleasure in crossing the disciplines of art, dance and music to reflect the multi-faceted work of these artists.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain (1950 replica of 1917 original) Photo Felix Clay 2013, Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery. (more…)