White Cube will represent Bram Bogart’s estate in collaboration with rodolphe janssen in Brussels, opening a solo exhibition in White Cube Mason’s Yard on January 29. Hauser & Wirth announced worldwide representation of contemporary artist Avery Singer, alongside with Berlin’s Gallery Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler.
Sri Lanka’s first museum dedicated to 20th and 21st century art opened in Colombo on December 12. The museum, temporarily housed on Innovation Tower’s 17th floor, will be inaugurated with the exhibition "One Hundred Thousand Small Tales", detailing art production in Sri Lanka since it gained independence in 1948.
Three months after the third edition of the Modern and contemporary art fair took place in the disused hangars of Tempelhof airport, its discontinuation has been announced. Koelnmesse, the organisers of Art Berlin and Art Cologne, input the decision down to lack of profits and uncertainties around the venue.
Philanthropist Jane Shallat, professor, novelist and artist Sabiha Al Khemir, and former district attorney Joanne Siegmund were elected to the New York museum’s board alongside KAWS. The contemporary artist’s personal collection has long placed a spotlight on Outsider art, one of the museum’s main focuses.
The paintings, discovered in 2017, depict humanoid figures with animalistic features approaching wild animals; uranium-series dating on the animals led scientists to label it the world’s “earliest figurative artwork”, predating what was thought to be the oldest depiction of this kind of hybrid creature by 4,000 years.
The museum’s 20th-century American art department has benefitted richly from the gift by J. and S. Horseman, who are members of its Board of Commissioners and Friends Board respectively. The 16 paintings include works by several artists previously unrepresented in the museum, such as Walt Kuhn and Helen Lundeberg.
A successful day for modern art with the sales of a Marc Chagall gouache for €510,400, a Kees Van Dongen oil painting for €226,060, and three Germaine Richier bronzes from the Creuzevault collection: La Mante (€228,600), Le Cheval à six têtes (€114,300) and La Chauve-Souris (€190,500).
The warrior helmets eventually reached British collector Christian Levett, who bought them legally over a decade ago for an estimated total of £250,000; Levett first heard of the theft last year when two people were convicted, at which point he signed an act of voluntary surrender with Spain’s ambassador to UNESCO.
Korek is currently the executive director of Frieze Los Angeles, and will help organise the fair’s second edition in February before taking up the role at the London gallery in March. She succeeds Yana Peel, who stepped down in June following reports of connections to Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO.
The 3,900-bottle collection, consisting mainly of single malt Scotch, belonged to the late American businessman Richard Gooding and contains many rare whiskies including The Macallan 1926. Scottish online specialists Whisky Auctioneer will sell the collection online from February 7-17 and from April 10-20.
London-based printmaker and painter Rebecca Salter will become the first woman to take the helm of the institution in its 251-year history. First elected to the RA in the Printmaking category in 2014, Salter’s work is often inspired by her studies in Japanese woodblock painting at Kyoto City University of the Arts.
Christie’s Asia Pacific will open a new sale of 20th century and contemporary art on 19 March 2020, coinciding with the eighth edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. The announcement comes in spite of ongoing pro-democracy protests, which do not appear to have deterred participation in the art fair.
The Munich auction house experienced its best results in its 65-year history this year, with sales grossing over €30.7 million. The final auctions on December 6-8 of Modern and Post War/Contemporary Art boasted five results over €1 million, including top lot Weisses Feld by Günther Uecker which achieved €1,687,500.
The solid gold cup, made for the royal family in 1610, has been in a German private collection since 1881 and was doubted to ever enter public collection. The cup was last year offered to the Rijksmuseum, for whom the Wessels family bought it; now on a long-term loan at the museum, it will go on display on December 11.
Viliani, who previously worked at the Italian contemporary art museum as assistant curator from 1999-2005, will take up the task of managing the Research Institute’s library and multimedia archive on January 7, leaving his position as director of Napoli’s Madre Museum which he has held since 2013.
303 will represent the American artist in New York, staging a solo show at their Chelsea space in April 2020. Graham, whose conceptual art has appeared in the MoMA and London’s Tate Gallery among others, will still be represented by Greene Naftali Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, and Lisson Gallery.
A week of Asian art sales got off to a good start at Drouot today on December 9, with Oger Blanchet offering a round red-lacquered box, delicately sculpted with camellia flowers and bearing the prestigious needle mark of Emperor Yongle, sold for the princely sum of €2,060,800.
Farando experienced success at Drouot today, bringing the hammer down on an allegory of taste by the Brabant painter for €519,520. This follows the €663,520 November 15 sale of another Sweerts work by Mirabaud-Mercier: a French auction record.
Marron, a key investment banking figure since the 1950s, died of a heart attack on December 7. A champion of the arts, he established an impressive collection of contemporary art in the firm Paine Webber, which he led for 20 years; he was a lifetime trustee at MoMA, where he also held a board position from 1985-1991.
The archaeologist is heading an expert team demanding the permanent return of the bust of Nefertiti, the Rosetta Stone, and the Zodiac ceiling from the respective collections of the Berlin State Museums, the British Museum and the Musée du Louvre. Loan requests for the treasures were previously denied by the museums.
