Artist Andres Serrano, whose notorious work Piss Christ was removed from the Associated Press image archives after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, speaks out in Creative Time Reports this week, defending unconditional free expression in the arts and in contemporary political discourse.  “Unfortunately, times like these show us the true limits of people’s taste for debate, even in an ostensibly free society,” he writes.  “We have only to look to our shared human history to find that the artists and thinkers who have most advanced civilization in the direction of freedom and equality were often unpopular in their day. They questioned, they analyzed, they regularly offended. Without them we would surely be lost.” (more…)

In the run-up to this week’s Impressionist and Modern auctions in London, The Guardian looks at the current state of the market, and how works like Claude Monet’s Le Grand Canal (est. £20 milltion – £30 million), have come to be valued so highly in the growing market.  “There is such intense demand for the very best and the rarest,” says Jay Vincze, the international director and head of impressionist art at Christie’s, “This is the kind of painting that will appeal to a masterpiece buyer. Someone who wants the best of everything.” (more…)

A major ring of forgers focused on Old Masters works has been uncovered in Spain, with over 27 pieces priced to sell for over €1.2 million confiscated in the city of Castellón.  The works varied widely in quality, including a number of Goya etchings which were, in fact, photocopies of the artist’s work.   (more…)

The New York Times profiles Dick Polich, the foundry owner and metalworker who has worked closely with some of the world’s most ambitious contemporary artists, including Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, Louise Nevelson, and Frank Stella.  “He told me, ‘You’re trying to push the envelope, and I’ll go there with you,’” says sculptor Rona Pondick. “And then he said, ‘And while I’m going there with you, can I show you a few things I’m playing around with?’ ” (more…)

The U.S. Army is searching for a new group of cultural affairs officers to supervise the securing and preservation of important cultural monuments, property and locations in conflicted areas.  The Army had long taken a more lax, reactive approach to cultural preservation, but is looking to strengthen its methods.  “The civil affairs units have always had ‘functional specialists’, but the individuals were often not qualified in any meaningful way,”said Brigadier General Hugh Van Roosen, the director of the Institute for Military Support to Governance (IMSG) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  “At the same time, if you have one person who was just the right fit, you probably didn’t have two of them. It was just a broken system.” (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…)

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 Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris is focusing on expanding its collection of photography, the Art Newspaper reports, earmarking over â‚¬100,000 a year to increase the size of its holdings in the upcoming years.   (more…)

The Art Newspaper recaps the previous year of art auctions, citing Christie’s auction total at $6.8 billion, maintaining at $800 million lead over Sotheby’s, which wrapped the year with a $6 billion tally, both of which are records for the auction houses.  However, the article also notes that Christie’s is likely to appear much further ahead when the figures for private sales are announced for both houses.  “We’ve doubled our eCommerce sales, nearly 20% of our business was private sales. We are not an auction house anymore,” says Christie’s President Jussi Pylkkänen. (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 Corning Glass Museum in Upstate New York has reportedly acquired a number of contemporary art works heavily relying on glass as part of its new $64 million wing construction.  Works from Roni Horn, Klaus Moje, Ayala Serfaty, Jeroen Verhoeven and Fred Wilson will be included in the new space, among others. (more…)

Artist Jane Wilson, whose work frequently explored the rich colors and hues of the midwest skyline, has passed away at the age of 90 in New York City.  “The way she increasingly translated natural events — seasons of the year, times of day or night or conditions of weather — into barely representational, hovering substances of color and light is the miracle of the artist’s later work,” says Whitney Museum curator Elisabeth Sussman. (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…)

Musician PJ Harvey is embarking on a public art project, recording her next album in a see-through glass enclosure that allows the public an intimate look into the meticulous process of crafting an album.  “You have to go through dull moments to get to the goods,” Harvey says. (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…)

The popular Egon Schiele exhibition at the Neue Galerie has been extended through April 20th, the museum announced today, continuing the record breaking exhibition for an additional four months. (more…)

The lawsuit between Sotheby’s and collector Lancelot William Thwaytes has been decided in favor of the auction house. Sotheby’s sold a work for Thwaytes, attributed to a follower of Caravaggio, for £42,000 in 2006, only to have the work authenticated as a true Caravaggio weeks later.  Mrs Justice Rose ruled there had been no negligence in the case, stating that Sotheby’s is “entitled to rely on the connoisseurship and expertise of their specialists.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal looks at the current state of museum fundraising, with a number of museums competing for donations and gifts in what some call a crowded market.  “These big capital campaigns for the gold-plated arts and cultural institutions probably put the most pressure on the people who are on that party circuit,” says Michael Hamill Remaley, senior vice president for public policy and communications at Philanthropy New York. “But the 1% is not hurting.” (more…)

Sotheby’s February 3rd auction of Impressionist works in London will include a Claude Monet deaccessioned from the collection of MoMA, the New York Times reports.  The work, Les Peupliers à Giverny is anticipated to bring $13.8 million to $18.4 million. (more…)

Artist Sebastien Errazuriz has created a new project for Time Square’s ongoing “Midnight Moment” arts series, a digital video showing the artist yawning on the area’s countless digital video displays in an attempt to trigger yawns among viewers.  “I intuitively trust that at times it is the importance of leaving a pause or a blank space that allows us to highlight and be aware of everything else that is in that space.,” Errazuriz says.  “At times the simplest projects are the hardest to do. You cannot hide behind a simple project, the truth is exposed, distilled and present.” (more…)

Secretary of State John Kerry will award painter Kehinde Wiley with the U.S. State Department Medal of Arts next week, during a ceremony on January 21st.  The medal awards substantive commitment to the U.S. State Department’s cultural diplomacy outreach through the visual arts,” according to a release. (more…)

Artist Theaster Gates is interviewed in the most recent edition of BOMB Magazine, talking about his influences, his work at the University of Chicago, as well as its surrounding communities.  “One of the advantages that I have, being embedded in this Washington Park community and as an administrator at the University of Chicago, is that I come with a certain amount of cultural, intellectual, and political empathy,” Gates says. “This empathy allows me to feel more like an insider, and to experience a win for this community as a win for me too. It’s not just a political win, it’s also a “way-of-living” win.” (more…)

A new study released by the National Endowment for the Arts notes that attendance of art events has been on a steady decline over the past two decades, with only 33.4% of US adults attending some sort of cultural event during a calendar year. (more…)