Alice Workman, the newly appointed director of Hauser and Wirth’s Somerset Gallery location, is profiled in The Guardian this week, discussing her views on the unique countryside space it occupies, and how the space will operate once fully operational.  It’s really a combination of all the things the Wirths are passionate about,”  she says. “We want different audiences to engage in different ways – some might come for the garden, the restaurant or the exhibitions, but will hopefully discover other things while they’re here.” (more…)

The London Underground has released a new brochure and map for the Tube, featuring design by artist Rachel Whiteread.  The new map design features a series of holes on the front cover, offering snapshots of the routes listed inside.  “As a sculptor I cast empty spaces,”  Whiteread explained. “It therefore seemed appropriate to make some holes in London which theoretically could be filled up.” (more…)

A trio of sculptures by Jake and Dinos Chapman are set to be installed at Hampstead Heath in London.  The rudimentary sculptures of a group of dinosaurs, titled The good the bad and the ugly, were previously installed at the Gherkin building.  Installed next month, they will constitute the largest piece of public art the park has seen since 2005, when Giancario Neri’s The Writer was placed on view.   (more…)

This spring, three shows of work by artist Ai Weiwei are opening in London, Berlin and New York, with a major retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, an exhibition at Lisson Gallery in London, and the largest exhibition of the artist’s work to date at the Martin-Gropius Bau in Berlin.  The exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum includes the artist’s S.A.C.R.E.D. works, half-sized dioramas depicting his 81-day imprisonment that commanded major critical attention at the Venice Biennale last year.  The exhibitions come with a hope that Chinese tourists may be exposed to Ai’s work outside his own country.   “Because my work is banned from being shown inside China, the only way they can become aware of it is from the outside,” he said. (more…)

Mayor of London Boris Johnson is actively courting the Guggenheim Foundation to open a location on the grounds of the 2012 London Olympics, the Art Newspaper reports.  The area, which has already been earmarked as a new cultural quarter called E20, will be home to a new location for the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Johnson wants the Guggenheim to set up shop as well.  “We are in talks with other global cultural brands, as we will need at least one more cultural institution to achieve the critical mass and very high visitor numbers the site deserves,” Johnson says. (more…)

An article in The Art Newspaper analyzes the potential vote on Scottish Independence this year, and the potential impacts an independent Scotland may have on the nation’s art collection.  If Scotland changes its tax structure to more heavily impact the wealthy, some are worried that lending collectors are likely to remove their works from Scottish museums, moving them south.  The National Galleries of Scotland board chair Ben Thomson, however, is more optimistic. “We are extremely confident that we will continue to enjoy very positive support from the Scottish government for our ongoing collaborations with private collectors,” he says. (more…)

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Mr. Briggs (2008), via David Zwirner

“People thought they could have anything.  And then it just blew up in their faces.”  So says photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia in the press release for his show of works from the East of Eden series at David Zwirner, an ongoing series of photographs documenting what the artist calls the “collapse of everything.”

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, East of Eden (Installation View), via David Zwirner (more…)

Gallerist Marian Goodman will open her new London space in the fall of 2014, and spoke with Art Info about the size and scope of her third gallery.  “The London gallery was inspired by our artists, many of whom are eager to show there but do not already have working relationships with other London galleries,” Goodman said.  “The London scene is so dynamic that I have been thinking about opening there for a very long time, it was just a question of finding a wonderful space.” (more…)

Elmgreen and Dragset’s long-awaited installation, Tomorrow, which creates the fictional home of a disillusioned, homosexual architect, has opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  Featuring works by the artists alongside objects from the museum and a nearby antiques market, the show will seek to alter the perception of the museum and its collection.  “There are lots of clever art shows at the moment where you go and look and it’s almost as [predictable as] mathematics,” Says Michael  Elmgreen.  “We do something where even we ask ourselves: ‘What is it about?'” (more…)

The Serpentine Sackler, via The Guardian

The newly completed redesign of the Serpentine Sackler Gallery is set to open this Sunday in London’s Kensington Gardens neighborhood, featuring a sloping new design extension by architect Zaha Hadid, which complements a freshly renovated gunpowder store initially constructed in 1805.

The Serpentine Sackler, via The Guardian (more…)

An investigation into the death of David Hockney’s studio assistant, Dominic Elliott, has revealed that the young artist died as the result of drinking acid.  Elliott, whose autopsy revealed the presence of several drugs in his system, had been drinking with Hockney’s former partner, John Fitzherbert.  “I cannot comment on any of the lifestyle habits he has,” Mr Hockney said in a statement. (more…)

The value of art exports exported from the United Kingdom has reached the highest level since the 2008 financial crash, the BBC reports.  In a report by Sweet and Maxwell, exports were charted at £2 billion in 2012, an impressive number that defied a new law entitling artists and their heirs 4% of the resale price on any work.  “Art experts and dealers were concerned that London’s position in the art world could suffer compared to New York or Hong Kong, which haven’t introduced any such levy on the resale of modern and contemporary art,” said editor Massimo Sterpi of Sweet & Maxwell. (more…)

The final selection of 57 works for the United Kingdom’s ambitious Art Everywhere project have been announced, covering a broad spectrum of British art that includes works by Peter Blake, Edward Burra, Francis Bacon, Peter Doig and John Constable.  The Guardian has published a photo gallery of the works, allowing interested parties a sneak peak at the works before they appear on billboards across the country. (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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

British Pavilion (Installation view) 2013

With the impressively well-stocked selection of pavilions at this year’s Biennale, the United Kingdom has turned to Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller to represent the country, presenting a complexly layered thematic exhibition titled English Magic.  Best known for his restaging of the miners’ strike battle of Orgreave in 2001, his 2009 road trip though America with a car wrecked by a bomb in Iraq, and his 2012 touring bounce house version of Stonehenge, Deller has brought his controversial, political resumé to bear on the largest stage for his country’s creative reputation, creating a visually aggressive criticism of modern wealth.

Jeremy Deller, St. Helier on Fire 2017, British Pavilion 2013

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With the opening of the Chelsea Flower Show in London, British artist Marc Quinn has unveiled his large-scale bronze orchid sculpture, commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society.  The flower work took Quinn six months to complete, and is painted with 18 layers of color.  “Hopefully, the flowers and the sculpture blend. There is a sense of real nature and artificial nature, although having seen the transformation of this place from a muddy field it is not so clear what is real nature.”  Quinn said. (more…)

Despite widespread austerity measures across the Eurozone, many European nations are still heavily investing in national pavilions at this year’s prestigious Venice Biennale.  Countries like Greece, the UK and Germany have earmarked comparable funds to their respective 2011 pavilions, despite budgetary constraints.  “The participating countries will always put resources towards the realisation of their exhibitions in the national pavilions, or find other sources to cover the costs.”  Says Jewish Museum deputy director Jens Hoffmann. (more…)

Capitalizing on the growing market of private art sales, Sotheby’s Auction House will open a private sales gallery in London, Bloomberg reports.  The move follows the increasing trend of discreet art purchases for blue chip works, avoiding the high-profile spotlight of the auction room.  “It’s very smart. I would do the same,” said the New York-based dealer Christophe van de Weghe. “Sotheby’s will have the same clientele for both their auctions and their gallery sales.” (more…)

The Royal Academy of the Arts is preparing for a major exhibition of works from the Australian continent, opening in September.  Featuring some of the country’s most iconic works, the show is already generating a great deal of interest in both the UK and Australia.  “I think it’s true to say that there has never been an exhibition like this before,” said Kathleen Soriano, the show’s curator. “This survey is long, long overdue. We should know more of these important figures as part of our broader art historical canon, not least because so much of it relates directly back to this country but even more so because there are some tremendous artists we really should be aware of and should be able to enjoy.” (more…)

The British Museum’s current expansion efforts, projected to cost £135 Million, are currently running on schedule, and on budget, museum curators said in a progress report this past Monday.  The project will add much needed operations space to the institution, as well as a 1,100 square foot exhibition space designed for major exhibitions.  “Almost in every decade, there’s had to be some kind of amendment, adjustment or extension to the building to make it fit for purpose.” says the museum director, Neil MacGregor. (more…)