May 12, 2015: Picasso Goes for $179.4 Million & Turner Prize Nominees Announced

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“Li Hui: Ksana” opens at Sandra Gering Inc; “Chris Succo: Drive” opens at The Journal Gallery; “Pierre Paulin: L’homme moderne” opens at Demisch Danant.

Today’s Notable News

Tate Britain has announced the nominees for the 2015 Turner Prize: Bonnie Camplin, for her “study room installation” titled The Military Industrial Complex; Janice Kerbel, for DOUG, a nine-part musical comedy; Nicole Wermers, for “Infrastruktur,” an exhibition at London’s Herald Street Gallery where she covered chairs in fur coats as a critique on consumerism; and the 18-person collective Assemble, for its ongoing Granby Four Streets refurbishment project. The prize exhibition, held in Scotland for the first time, will be on view at Tramway in Glasgow from October 1st, 2015 to January 17th, 2016. The winner will be named on December 7th of this year. (via The Art Newspaper)

Last night at Christie’s “Looking Forward to the Past” sale, Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’) (1955) became the most expensive painting ever sold at auction after shattering its $140 million estimate and bringing in some $179.4 million. The auction was the first ever to offer two works estimated at more than $120 million each. The other work in that equation, Alberto Giacometti’s L’homme au doigt (1947), fetched $141.3 million, also making it the most expensive sculpture sold at auction. (via the New York Times)

This year’s Istanbul Biennale curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has been selected to direct Turin’s Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art and the GAM, as the two institutions merge into one “superfondazione.” She had formerly served as chief curator and interim director of the Castello di Rivoli between 2002 and 2009. (via artnet News)

Two works from Cornelius Gurlitt’s art trove will soon become the first to be handed back to the descendants of their rightful owners, after a Munich court ruled in favor of their return today. The paintings to be returned are Seated Woman/Woman Sitting in Armchair (1921) by Henri Matisse and Max Liebermann’s Two Riders on the Beach (1901). (via the New York Times)

Picasso’s stepdaughter has filed charges against Parisian dealer Olivier Thomas, after he allegedly stole artworks that she had entrusted him with transporting and storing. Thomas—who was arrested just hours following news of Les femmes d’Alger’s record-breaking success (see above)—is a business partner of former Luxembourg Freeport director Yves Bouvier, who recently stepped down following charges of fraud. (via The Telegraph)

Following the March announcement of the recognition, Kanye West received his honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago yesterday, along with 900 other graduates. At the ceremony, West gave a speech in which he praised George W. Bush’s self-portraits, countering negative comments he had once made about the former president. (via the Chicago Tribune)

German artist Imi Knoebel has gifted three new stained glass windows to Reims Cathedral, which was damaged by German bombs some 100 years ago. The project, funded by the German Foreign Ministry, cost nearly €1 million, yet Knoebel refused to receive monetary compensation for his involvement. (via artnet News)

Storefront for Art and Architecture has awarded its 2015 Street Architecture Prize to SecondMedia for Foamspace, a participatory “virtual arena” that allows visitors to fund projects related to the IDEAS CITY Festival. (via Artforum)

Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum has added five new members to its board: Anita Hill, a leading attorney and Brandeis faculty member; Cynthia Reed, MIT Humanities Visiting Committee member; Lazar Fruchter, board member of the Tel Aviv Art Museum; Carey Schwartz, a collector and editor; and Rivka Saker, the founder of the nonprofit Artis. (via ARTnews)

Performance artist Rachel Rosenthal (b. 1926) has passed away. During her lifetime, she was friends with artists such as Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg, and founded a performing arts space that played host to Allan Kaprow and Eleanor Antin. Her own work appeared at the Whitney, Centre Pompidou, and the ICA London. (via Artforum)

Artist-dealer Dorothee Fischer (b. 1937) has passed away. She ran Düsseldorf gallery Konrad Fischer with her husband (the gallery’s namesake), where the pair worked with Joseph Beuys, Blinky Palermo, and Carl Andre, championing Minimalism, Conceptualism, and Arte Povera as well as then-emerging artists like Bruce Nauman. (via Artforum)

Best of Instagram

Via @nicoleeboni: “Installation view of Urs Fischer’s monumental sculpture Big Clay #4, this work is the result of an intimate gesture enlarged to epic proportions. The curving, towering stack derives from a scrap of clay that has been squeezed; scanned and enlarged digitally then cast in aluminum as a 42 1/2-foot-tall sculpture.”

Via @diaartfoundation: “‘Size determines an object, but scale determines art.’ —Robert Smithson. For more information about “Spiral Jetty” and other Dia sites visit www.diaart.org. RG @tominelli #robertsmithson #spiraljetty #diaartfoundation”

Via @artobserved: “Artist #PierreHuyghe premieres his installation for the @MetMuseum rooftop garden today. #MetRoof”

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