A new survey from wealth management firm US Trust points to a deep generational divide between how younger and older art collectors think about their holdings. Among other findings, the “Insights on Wealth and Worth” study suggests that rich millennials might be in for a surprise about the future value of their collections.
‘Study Says Millennial Collectors Have Faulty Grasp of Art’s Value’
Artiste | May 23, 2016 | Brian Boucher
The 67-year-old artist Isa Genzken, who works and lives in Berlin, has spoken openly about her alcoholism in a candid interview with the Sunday edition of the German daily Der Tagesspiegel, claiming she had started drinking after the difficult divorce from artist Gerhard Richter.
“I begun to drink and drink—and behave very inappropriately—because of this disaster with my [ex] husband,” she told the paper.
‘Isa Genzken Says She Became an Alcoholic After Her Divorce From Gerhard Richter’
Artnet | May 23, 2016 | Hili Perlson
Members of a Virginia arts commission are calling a pair of Mark Ryden paintings blasphemous and threatening to slash funding for the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) for including them in a forthcoming show. The offending works are the pop-surrealist artist’s “Fountain” (2003) and “Rosie’s Tea Party” (2005), which both show young, doll-like girls in unsettling scenes: In the former, a figure cradles her own head as blood springs from her neck; in the latter, a girl is surrounded by an assortment of meats and slicing a hunk of ham inscribed with the papal encyclical “Mystici corporis Christi.” The paintings go on view starting this weekend as part of Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose, a retrospective celebrating the artworks that have appeared in the pages of the San Francisco–based contemporary art magazine. Besides Ryden, artists showcased include Kehinde Wiley, Olek, and Shepard Fairey.
‘Virginia Arts Commissioners Threaten to Defund Museum Over “Anti-Christian” Paintings’
Hyper Allergic | May 20, 2016 | Claire Voon
Though the Parisian artist JR’s work can be viewed as an update of the French Humanist tradition, his projects are multiplied by audience interaction, particularly on social media.
As he told us last year, this form of social interaction is, ultimately, the greater work. So, while his Louvre exhibition opens next Wednesday, 25 May, it has in a sense, already begun as Instagram is currently alive with shots of the show’s central work, his adaptation of the Louvre Pyramid. JR work being pasted up at the Louvre.
‘Watch JR disappear the Louvre’s pyramid’
Phaidon | May 18, 2016
A high-tech robot is spinning an insect-inspired installation in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s courtyard. The Elytra Filament Pavilion is a canopy of 40 tree-like hexagons made from transparent glass fibers and black carbon fibers woven by an industrual robotic arm. Inspired by the wings of the elytra beetle, a team from the University of Stuttgart developed a process for weaving fibers around a metal frame and curing them to get ultralight structures. Each piece in the 650 sq. ft. installation weighs just under 100 pounds.
‘Robots Weave a Carbon Fiber Forest in London’
The Creators Project | May 18, 2016 | Beckett Mufson
Tate Modern has announced that the new building of Tate Modern designed by Herzog & de Meuron will officially be opened on 17 June 2016. In the new Tate Modern building, Tate will display a greater variety of artworks and show more artists from around the world, presenting an increasingly international view of modern and contemporary art.
‘NEW BUILDING OF TATE MODERN WILL BE OPENED ON 17 JUNE 2016 DESIGNED BY HERZOG& DE MEURON’
World Architecture | May 16, 2016
A group of British pranksters is facing jail time for staging a fake art robbery in the National Portrait Gallery last July, proving the consequences of going to pointless lengths to attain internet virality. While previously thought to be a strange protest against museum sponsor BP, the event was, it turns out, simply a senseless stunt by members of Trollstation, a YouTube channel that posts videos of disruptive public antics.
‘YouTube Pranksters Sentenced to Jail for Faking Art Heists at Museums’
Hyper Allergic | May 16, 2016 | Claire Voon
New York’s barometric spring auctions took place last week, with $1.1 billion in art selling over five days. Records were set for a number of artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat ($57.3 million* for Untitled, 1982), Maurizio Cattelan ($17.2 million for the kneeling Hitler statue Him, 2001), Agnes Martin ($10.7 million for Orange Grove, 1965), and Frida Kahlo ($8 million for Dos desnudos en el bosque (La tierra misma), 1939).
‘5 Things We Know about the Art Market after New York’s Spring Auctions’
ARTSY | May 16, 2016 | ALEXANDER FORBES AND ISAAC KAPLAN
In 2014, Jehan Chu acquired an artwork by Vietnamese-born Danish artist Danh Vo via an internet platform based in the United States. It was the biggest online art purchase the art adviser had made since he began shopping for art online in 2011.
“They simply had the work I wanted when I wanted it,” Chu, director of Vermillion Art Collections, explains.
While he declines to reveal the details of the work by Vo, he says he has been acquiring a diverse range of artworks online – including “obscure” works by American artist Petra Cortright, a key figure of the recent “post-internet” art movement.
‘Click and collect: how the digital age is changing the global art market’
South China Morning Post | May 14, 2016 | Vivienne Chow
Over the last five years, Paddle8 has sought to shake up the world of online art auctions. In Europe, and for almost the same amount of time, Auctionata has tried to do the same in its own way.
Now the two online auction houses are planning to join forces.
Auctionata and Paddle8 are expected to announce on Thursday that they will merge, seeking to create a bigger specialist in selling art online with a broader international reach.
‘2 Online Art Auctioneers to Merge and Go Global’
NY Times | May 12, 2016 | MICHAEL J. de la MERCED
The New Museum — one of the smallest and in many ways still the scrappiest sibling in the bursting family of contemporary art museums in New York City — will expand into the building it owns next door to its Bowery home, doubling its space as it prepares for its 40th birthday next year.
‘New Museum Plans Expansion After Raising $43 Million’
NY Times | May 10, 2016 | Randy Kennedy
A controversial wax sculpture of the Nazi tyrant in the praying position has sold at a New York auction for a bundle. But the artist who created ‘the image of terrible pain’ admitted he wanted to see it destroyed. Dressed in a grey woolen suit, the sculpture shows a kneeling Adolf Hitler clasping his hands and looking up. The striking image, called Him, is the work of Maurizio Cattelan who finished the piece in 2001 and has sold it for a jaw-dropping $17.2m (£12m), a record for the Italian artist.
‘Kneeling Hitler statue sells for £12million at auction’
Metro | May 9, 2016 | Simon Robb
One Londoner could win the chance to have contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama transform their Airbnb into an immersive, livable work of art. In a collaboration with the Tate Modern, the project invites London-based Airbnb hosts to apply for one room in their listing to be customised by one of Japan’s most renowned artists.
‘Let Yayoi Kusama turn your bedroom into an immersive work of art’
It’s Nice That | May 5, 2016 | Jenny Brewer
AMSTERDAM — The Van Gogh Museum here has started a program to offer its professional services to private collectors, corporations and other institutions. It says the move could create a new revenue stream as a hedge against declining government financing and global events like terror attacks that could have an effect on visitor numbers.
‘Van Gogh Museum Wants to Share Its Expertise, for a Price’
The New York Times | May 4, 2016 | Nina Siegal
On May 3, Lisson Gallery New York will open beneath the High Line between 23rd and 24th Street. Designed by studioMDA and Studio Christian Wassmann, the 8,500 square foot space is split between a gallery, offices, viewing rooms, and storage. Although the main gallery is directly under the High Line – the steel columns in the photos are actually supports for the elevated railway – it will receive ample sun from dramatically angled skylights along the space’s edge, which also aid to extend the walls vertically. The gallery’s polished concrete floors, white walls, and natural light are typical of today’s contemporary art spaces, but also maintain the aesthetic of Lisson’s other galleries. The public will access the space via 24th Street, while the 23rd Street entrance will be reserved for staff purposes and private functions.
‘Lisson Gallery New York by studioMDA and Studio Christian Wassmann Opening Soon Beneath the High Line’
Arch Daily | April 27, 2016 | Vladimir Gintoff
Columbia College’s new street art festival, Wabash Arts Corridor Big Walls, is set to drastically change the look and feel of the South Loop. The initiative takes place May 1–13, when 18 artists from around the world and in Chicago will transform the Wabash Arts Corridor with huge murals. Once completed, the area will have one of the densest concentrations of public art in the U.S., according to a press release.
‘Chicago’s getting over 40,000 square feet of new street art in May’
Time Out | April 27, 2016 | Nick Kotecki
Next week, Londoners will go to the polls to vote for the city’s next mayor. Can either candidate make the ever-more-expensive city affordable for artists?
The building, in East London, is inauspicious, a 1960s industrial edifice with an anonymous entrance, bands of glazing, and drab brickwork. But for almost two decades, over 100 artists—painters, sculptors, ceramists—called it home. In March, Cremer Street Studios closed its doors for the last time to make way for a new residential development. Now, those artists’ futures are uncertain. Along with thousands of other artists, they are the latest examples of London’s property boom squeezing those reliant on affordable space out of the capital.
‘Can London’s Next Mayor Save the City for Artists?’
Artsy | April 26, 2016 | Rob Sharp
Sir Anish Kapoor, the Turner Prize-winning artist, has warned his Olympic Park sculpture must not become an “amusement park”, claiming plans to install a slide around it were “foisted” on him by the Mayor of London.
‘Anish Kapoor: Boris ‘foisted’ new slide on my sculpture’
The Telegraph | April 26, 2016 | Hannah Furness
Homelessness may be a problem in London, but the issue is not one that UK officials are ready to confront outside their doorstep. A proposed installation of Homeless Jesus, a cast bronze statue that depicts a destitute figure huddled under a blanket on a park bench, has been scuttled by the Westminster council, reports the Guardian.
‘Divisive ‘Homeless Jesus’ Statue Rejected by Westminster Council’
artnet | April 26, 2016 | Sarah Cascone
Great and not at all scary news, art world: A recent study published in the Personality and Individual Differences journal concluded that you may want to be wary of the artists, actors, and musicians in your life, seeing as they often share certain neuropsychological features with individuals exhibiting “psychopathic traits.”
‘Great News: Artists Might Share Common Traits With Psychopaths’
Huffington Post | April 26, 2016 | Priscilla Frank
A collection of works by elusive street artist Banksy goes on the block in Los Angeles this weekend, and pre-auction bids put a six-figure starting point on select pieces.
Julien’s Auctions, a Beverly Hills–based auction house, is holding its biannual Street & Contemporary Art Show, and the formally unidentified U.K.-based graffiti artist — or artists? — known for social commentary is among the headliners.
‘Sale of Banksy art in L.A. brings new cred to ‘street’ artists’
Marketwatch | April 26, 2016 | Rachel Koning Beals
The 47th edition of Art Basel, contemporary art world’s premier platform, will once again gather some of the most renowned galleries, curators, artist, dealers and collectors. As one of the most important art fair since 1970s held annually in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong, Art Basel showcases the world’s leading art shows for modern and contemporary works. Each edition in each city is unique and defined by host city and region, which reflecs on participating galleries, presented artworks and parallel programming which is always produced in collaboration with local institutions.
‘ART BASEL 2016 – THE 47TH EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ART FAIRS IN THE WORLD’
Widewalls | April 25, 2016 | Elena Martinique
It turns out artist Damien Hirst’s famous displays of dead animals preserved in formaldehyde may have been dangerous to more than just artistic sensibilities. A study published this month in Analytical Methods found Hirst’s pieces were leaking formaldehyde gas at levels 10 times higher than the legal limit during a show at London’s Tate Modern in 2012.
‘Study claims artist’s famed works were releasing poisonous gas’
Fox News | April 25, 2016 | Michael Harthorne
BOSTON, MASS.- Invaluable, the world’s leading online marketplace for buying fine art, antiques and collectibles, and Phillips, a leading global platform for buying and selling 20th and 21st century art and design, today announced the launch of a new partnership to offer Phillips catalogs for online bidding on the Invaluable marketplace.
‘Phillips and Invaluable announce partnership for online bidding on the Invaluable marketplace’
Art Daily | April 23, 2016
On Tuesday, art insurance company Hiscox released its fourth annual report detailing the state of the online art trade. Their findings, which examine data gathered by art market research firm ArtTactic, confirm indications in last month’s TEFAF report that the cooling of the global art market has not yet affected online sales—on the contrary, they are at an all-time high. Below are five takeaways from the 2016 report.
‘The Online Art Market Is Booming—Here’s What You Need to Know’
Artsy | April 22, 2016 | Abigail Cain and Isaac Kaplan
With the V&A museum’s new exhibition Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear came a photography ban, eliminating visitors’ opportunity to catch the collection of 18th century lingerie on camera.
‘V&A museum bans sketching in select temporary exhibitions’
Independent | April 22, 2016 | Jacob Stolworthy
Damien Hirst has a knack for arresting attention, as he did by encrusting the platinum cast of a human skull in 2007, by pulling off a $200 million all-Hirst auction at Sotheby’s in 2008 and by leaving the Gagosian Gallery in 2012, after he had been represented there for 17 years.
Now Mr. Hirst has done it again, announcing that he is returning to Larry Gagosian, who is welcoming him back.
‘Damien Hirst Returns to Gagosian Gallery’
NY Times | April 21, 2016 | Robin Pogre bin
Unlike professional athletes, actors (Gene Hackman) and some novelists (Philip Roth), visual artists don’t usually retire. Or if they do, they don’t announce it.
But in 2011, Maurizio Cattelan — one of the most expensive living artists, then at the peak of his career and the subject of an uproarious retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum — told the world that he was finished, fatigued both creatively and by the velocity of the money-fueled art world. During the last couple of years, though, Mr. Cattelan found himself itching to make things in three dimensions again.
NY Times | April 19, 2016 | RANDY KENNEDY
With spring suddenly in full bloom in New York, it seems timely for The Met to be making the most out of their rooftop space with a site-specific installation by the British artist Cornelia Parker.
When initially confronted with the space, Parker was taken aback by the daunting skyline and decided to create something architecturally incongruous, arriving on the concept of a large, red barn. ‘But then I realised – quite quickly – that red barns are way too big to put on the roof,’ Parker says.
‘House proud: Cornelia Parker places a 1920s-inspired house on The Met’s rooftop’
Wallpaper | April 19 | Carly Ayres
Company of super agent Ari Emanuel has invested in London-based publisher and art fair.
The US sports and entertainment conglomerate WME-IMG, which is run by the Hollywood super agent Ari Emanuel and his business partner Patrick Whitesell, has invested in Frieze, the London-based publisher and art fair. The sum invested and the size of WME-ING’s shareholding have not yet been revealed.
‘Frieze gets the Hollywood treatment’
The Art Newspaper | April 15, 2016 | ERMANNO RIVETTI
Public art, whether the public knows it or not, is becoming more of a private enterprise.
A number of countries have slashed funding for cultural projects since the financial crisis of 2008. In London, for example, spending by local councils on arts and culture fell 19 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to a report published on Wednesday by Arts Council England.
‘Getting the Art Out on the Streets’
The New York Times | April 15, 2016 | Scott Reyburn
Geneva prosecutors opened a criminal probe into the ownership of an Amedeo Modigliani painting believed to have been taken by the Nazis in World War II as part of a New York legal dispute over the $20 million art work.
As part of the case, investigators on Friday searched facilities at the Geneva Free Ports, and confiscated the painting, “Seated Man with a Cane”, the Geneva Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement Monday. Aaron Golub, a lawyer for David Nahmad and International Art Center, said the painting was still at the site in Geneva.
‘Modigliani With Nazi Links Sparks Geneva Criminal Probe’
Bloomberg | April 11, 2016 | By Hugo Miller, Edvard Pettersson, Katya Kazakina
At a time when the art of trading art is thriving on a growing international and online marketplace, it’s hard to be sure of an artwork’s authenticity.
‘AN ARTIST CAN NOW EASILY CREATE A CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY – A TALK ON VERISART APP WITH ROBERT NORTON’
Widewalls | April 11, 2016 | Angie Kordic