China released the German art shipper who was arrested for art smuggling. “Nils Jennrich, the Beijing-based general manager of Integrated Fine Art Solutions, was arrested along with Lydia Chu, the firm’s operations manager in March 2012 after a raid on the freight company and detained in a jail outside Beijing. He was released on bail in August last year but barred from leaving the country. The arrests, which emerged during last year’s Art HK fair, shocked the art world and were part of a wider crackdown on tax evasion that deterred buyers of Chinese art in 2012.” [The Art Newspaper]

Brooklyn sculptor, Albert Prince, avoids a $2,000 ticket for picking up someone else’s trash. “After a two-year battle, a Brooklyn carpenter has beaten a $2,000 ticket for picking up a discarded TV antenna for an art project. In February 2011, Albert Prince, 56, spotted a rooftop antenna — which can sell brand new for less than $100 — on top of a pile of garbage bags outside a Canarsie home. Prince, a sculptor who belongs to a group called Art by Construction Workers, said in court papers he thought the antenna could be ‘a very good piece.’ When he pulled over at a nearby store, he was confronted by two sanitation cops. He said he was ‘kind of perplexed’ by their demeanor and they made him feel like he ‘murdered somebody.’” [NY Daily News]

Jerry Saltz and Justin Davidson visit Donald Judd’s SoHo loft together. “In 1968, Donald Judd — the artist known for his boxy, implacable sculptures and wall pieces — paid $68,000 for 101 Spring Street, a graceful but dilapidated five-story cast-iron building, and began his renovation by hauling out truckloads of trash. Over the years, he kept installing art and modifying the architecture in pursuit of an ideal balance. After his death in 1994, the building sat, stilled. Starting on June 3, after a three-year, $23 million restoration, the Judd Foundation will open 101 Spring to the public for guided tours in groups of eight by reservation. Art critic Jerry Saltz and architecture critic Justin Davidson walked through it together.” [NY Mag]

Check out Ai Weiwei’s ‘Dumbass’ music video. “The song, called Dumbass, was released today, and is the first single from his forthcoming album, The Divine Comedy, due out June 22. As we previously reported, the artist was inspired to compose an album, after being asked to sing a song to relieve the boredom of the guards, who watched over him throughout his imprisonment two years ago. Only able to recall the kind of revolutionary songs drummed into as a child, Ai resolved do write something else to sing upon his release.” [Phaidon]

Still from Ai Weiwei’s Dumbass video. Image via Phaidon.

China is building more museums than any other country, but that doesn’t mean that people are visiting them. “The frenzied construction of cultural infrastructure follows earlier building binges involving roads and bridges. But it’s harder to manage a museum than a highway. For one thing, you need to fill museums with worthwhile exhibits and visitors.” [NPR]

More Knoedler Gallery legal drama, the dealer at the center of the scandal is arrested. “Prosecutors charged that the dealer, Glafira Rosales, 56, of Sands Point, N.Y., failed to disclose $12.5 million that she had earned from the sale of the works and had never reported, as required, that she had Spanish bank accounts where she had hidden much of the proceeds.” [NYT]

The Duck is back! “Shortly after being left completely deflated at the victoria harbour in hong kong, the giant yellow rubber duck by dutch artist florentijn hofman re-emerged as a lifeless water pancake back into a vibrant six story floating sculpture. watch below as the giant water toy gets inflated back to life. the sculpture is planned to be on display june 9, 2013. [Designboom]

Creative Time released a behind-the-scenes look at Nick Cave’s HEARD•NY this week. A new video by Creative Time Video Fellow Jay Buim gives you an inside look at the process and it is pretty cool. [Creative Time]

Nick Cave with dancers from the Ailey School and one of his soundsuits from HEARD – NY. Image: Travis Magee/Creative Time via Bloomberg.

Images of Zaha Hadid’s new residential skyscraper in Miami have just been revealed. “Named One Thousand Museum, the building will be located on Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami. The 215-metre-high tower will have a concrete ‘exoskeleton’ structure. ‘I really love Miami, but I don’t think the architecture matches the city,’ Hadid told the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. ‘It’s a bit too commercial.’” [dezeen]

Artists in Pittsburgh are  taking a closer look at the city’s “percent-for-art funds” and making sure the money is actually being spent. “Since 1977 city of Pittsburgh has had a provision on the books that sets aside one percent of any municipal renovation or construction project with a budget of more than $50,000 for the commissioning of public art and in 2005 Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, passed a similar edict calling for 2 percent of projects’ budgets to go toward public art, but neither city nor county has been enforcing those provisions. [...] ‘Public art is a legacy for the ages,’ Carolyn Speranza, an artist who launched an online petition and was collecting signatures on Katz Plaza on Friday, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The city’s percent-for-art law means artists are “not dependent on foundations or the good graces of developers. It gives monetary backbone to art. The question is not how or why, the question is when.’” [Artinfo]

Only 10 full-time art critics in the U.S … this number seems shockingly low. “The most important question: what is a ‘full-time art critic?’ I’m thinking here of critics on staff at a general-interest outlet, regularly writing bylined articles only about visual art with few, if any, other editorial responsibilities—the model here being the four regular art critics of The New York Times, who generally limit their art criticism, with a few exceptions, to the pages of their newspaper, and whose work in essence serves as a record of art in the city. (It’s also a question of economics: how many outlets are there that respect art critics enough to pay them a wage—and yes, provide health insurance—that allows them to focus almost completely on that one job, without having to take on other positions and projects.) There are clearly many more than 10 critics who are making their living by writing criticism full-time, writing and editing for a variety of outlets. And if you’re including people who write or write and edit for specialized art publications, you’re dealing with a whole lot more.” [Gallerist NY]

Has Photoshop gone too far? Jonathan Jones from The Guardian thinks so. ”Photoshopping masterpieces may be fun, but ultimately digital art – serious or not – is just a spectral echo of the real thing. [...] Looking at paintings online is bizarrely unsatisfying. Paintings are real physical objects, with weight, texture, and yes, the eerie aura that comes from the knowledge that Vermeer himself, say, painted that pearl earring you are standing a couple of feet away from in an art gallery. Obviously messing about with pictures is a laugh. But all this dabbling suggests an underlying discontent. Putting great art online makes it available, but only as a digital ghost of itself. To really see it you have to visit a museum.” [Guardian]

Leonardo DiCaprio by Vincent Van Gogh. Photograph: Worth1000/ghimm. Image via Guardian.

New York Review of Books (NYRB) article raises question whether the authenticity of certain works attributed to Andy Warhol were based on financial gain or scholarship. “The article in the NYRB focuses on a chain of incidents involving Warhol’s former assistant Vincent Fremont, which suggest that the foundation and authentication board were not, in fact, operating independently, as is usually claimed. Vincent Fremont Enterprises (the only shareholder of which is Vincent Fremont) acted as a consultant to the authentication board. Until recently, Fremont also worked for the foundation as its chief sales agent for paintings, sculptures and drawings, reportedly taking a commission of 6% to 10%. Fremont was therefore in a position to help the authentication board ‘declare to be genuine a work that, as the foundation’s chief salesman, he could then offer for sale’, Dorment writes.” [The Art Newspaper]

Congratulations to the Barclays Center, winner of Architizer’s A+ Building of the Year award. “Having garnered the most Popular Choice votes among all of the Architizer A+ awards entries, SHoP Architects was presented the Building of the Year award by Barclays Center and Brooklyn Nets CEO Bret Yormak at Thursday evening’s Architizer A+ Awards Gala.” [Architizer]

Art crime – on the rise and an important target for the FBI. “Art theft, while impossible to pinpoint its scope, has been estimated by some groups as totaling as much as $6 billion a year globally. Though it has been investigated by the FBI for decades, the agency’s efforts got a boost in 2004 with the creation of the rapid-deployment Art Crime Team. The black market in art ‘is a very large enterprise,’ Magness-Gardiner said in an interview. ‘Stolen art, stolen antiquities move into a legitimate market very easily.’” [The Bulletin]

Make sure you read the fine print before purchasing a Frank Lloyd Wright home. “Buyers tempted by the idea of owning a piece of architectural history should remember that it’s rarely as straightforward as winning a bidding war. Many of the homes by Mr. Wright pose challenges. The architect favored small kitchens and closets—at odds with current tastes—and usually omitted basements. And some of these homes need the maintenance and repairs required for any home built decades or even a century ago. It’s often tricky to renovate an architectural treasure while preserving Wright’s innovations, such as radiant-floor heating, carports, built-in furniture and soaring clerestory windows. Meanwhile, permanent easements held by the Wright conservancy on 16 private Wright residences limit exterior alterations.”[WSJ]

Design by Frank Lloyd Wright. Image via WSJ.

The UK launches a joint task force to recover billions of dollars worth of items amassed by the Qaddafi family during their rule, art included. “The UK government has confirmed that art is likely to be among the items seized as part of a drive to recover billions of dollars worth of assets siphoned off by the Qaddafi family during four decades in power. A number of initiatives have recently been launched aimed at recovering stolen assets and returning them to Libya. Following a meeting in March between the Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan and Ronald Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, a joint task force has been established to track down Muammar Qaddafi’s fortune, which “could include money, gold or art”, says a spokeswoman for Interpol.” [The Art Newspaper]

The Hammer Museum gets a new curator. “The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles has appointed Connie Butler as chief curator. In her new role, Butler, who recently resigned from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, will be in charge of developing and organizing exhibitions, building the Hammer’s contemporary collection, and overseeing its artist residency program and artist council.” [Artinfo]

Just when we thought we get to rest, the art world gears up for the first Art Basel in Hong Kong. “With 245 galleries, including 48 who have never shown in Asia, the Hong Kong event rivals Miami in size but remains smaller than the Swiss fair, which hosts 300-plus exhibitors. It already looks set to trump both fairs in terms of attendance: Last year’s Art HK counted more than 67,000 visitors, a figure that exceeds Art Basel numbers and which organizers expect to match this year. The new fair will maintain Art HK’s focus on Asia: More than half of the galleries attending will be from the region, Mr. Renfrew said.” [WSJ]

Tracey Emin tells Vanity Fair she was “mortified” and “destroyed” by the British Press. “Citing her representation of the UK at the Biennale in 2007, she says: ‘I was actually really upset about the British press. I was mortified. I was destroyed by it, actually. The press was cruel, because they didn’t just dislike my work; they disliked me, personally—my voice, the way I dress, the way I look, my attitude. I’m sure they wouldn’t have carried on that way if I were a man. I’m absolutely convinced of that.’ ” [Phaidon]

Christie’s contemporary art auction reached $495m in sales with records established for Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and many others. “Last night, Basquiat’s ‘Dustheads’ estimated to bring $25 million to $35 million, went for $48.8 million to an unnamed client on the phone for whom Christie’s international specialist Loic Gouzer was bidding. Gouzer worked with Leonardo DiCaprio on Christie’s May 13 auction to benefit conservation. Minutes later, Pollock’s ‘Number 19,’ a 1948 drip painting, sold for $58.4 million. It was the evening’s top lot, with a high presale estimate of $35 million. Brett Gorvy, Christie’s chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art, bought it for a client.” [Bloomberg]

Meanwhile over at Sotheby’s a record was set for the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist. “A 1968 oil painting by German artist Gerhard Richter has set a new record in New York for the highest auction price achieved by a work by a living artist. Richter’s photo-painting Domplatz, Mailand (Cathedral Square, Milan) sold for $37.1 million (£24.4 million) at Tuesday’s sale. Tobias Meyer of Sotheby’s called the price “a major accomplishment”. Richter, 81, also held the previous record for the top price fetched at auction by a living artist.” [BBC]

For the moment, Germany’s VAT tax on original works of art will remain at 7%. “The European Commission has been trying to raise German VAT tax on original works of art from 7% to 19% to bring it in line with higher VAT rates in the rest of Europe. The move is widely opposed by the art world as well as the German minister of culture, Bernd Neumann. The BDGV, working with cultural and economic policy experts as well as institutions, has been campaigning against this and recently blocked the approval process, making it unlikely that there will be a rise in the VAT this year.” [The Art Newspaper]

The strangest looking hot air balloon you have ever seen will be flying around Australia this year. “Commissioned for the centenary of canberra, ‘the sky whale’ hot-air balloon by sierra leonean artist patricia piccinini will be flying at other locations around australia during 2013. in the place of wings, piccinini imagined huge udders that might contain the gas of the giant flying sculpture, as well as a huge bulbous body. Before commencing production, a three-dimension model was developed from a series drawings using a cad program. The prototype of the ‘skywhale’ was then sent to cameron balloons in bristol, where the colouring and patination of the creature was resolved in more detail. transferred the colours, patterns and textures of the design were then later transferred onto 3,535 metres of fabric – sewn together with approximately 3.3 million stitches.” [designboom]

‘the sky whale’ hot-air balloon is commissioned for the centenary of canberra (via designboom)

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Manet’s ‘Olympia’ and Titian’s ‘Venus of Urbino’ displayed side by side.  “Thanks to an alliance between the Musée d’Orsay, the Uffizi and the Venice Civic Museums Foundation, the ‘Venus of Urbino’, one of Titian’s most renowned paintings, and the masterpiece it inspired, ‘Olympia’ by Manet, are together for the first time in history. The setting for their rendezvous is Manet: Return to Venice, an exhibition that aims to reveal the influence of Italian Renaissance art on the father of French modernism. [Financial Times]

According to Artinfo, LACMA is taking the show on the road this summer. “On Monday the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that it will be sending a new mobile pavilion designed by artist Jorge Pardo to patrol the communities of Southern California, bringing them art and film programming over the course of a 16-month excursion that kicks off on with a one-month stint from June 7 to July 7 at the University of Redlands. Dubbed the LACMA9 Art + Film Lab, the bright orange pop-up cultural center (rendered above from the side, and below from a bird’s eye view) will visit sites in nine communities: Redlands, San Bernardino, Altadena, Monterey Park, Hacienda Heights, Montebello, Compton, Inglewood, and Torrance.” [Artinfo]

Let the battle for one of Miami’s most prestigious architecture jobs begin! “Miami Beach is heating up as two of the biggest international architecture firms compete for the masterplan of its convention center area. High-profile competitions between high-profile firms are nothing new; usually involving four out of the ten usual contenders, these matches happen on almost a weekly basis. What makes this instance more captivating, though, is the strong frisson of oedipal tension at play between contenders BIG and OMA: Bjarke Ingels, founder and head of BIG, used to work at OMA.” [Architizer]

We hope Florentijn Hofman’s big yellow duck gets fixed soon. “Some fingered too much love from the crowds as the culprit. ‘The duck got played with so much it broke,’ wrote one. Hundreds of thousands of fans have already visited the bird, according to the organizer behind the duck’s installation, Harbour City shopping mall.On Wednesday, Harbour City tried to assuage people’s grief. ‘We are just doing normal checking,’ said Sandy Lee of Harbour City. ‘Because it’s Victoria Harbor, the waves are strong,’ which had likely caused any leaking, she said. No vandalism was involved, the mall said.” [WSJ]

Image credit: REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

France is planning to tax smartphones and tablets to help fund French art, films and music. “In a trenchant defence of France’s ‘exception culturelle’ in the digital age, the report proposed imposing a tax of up to 4 per cent on the sale of all devices, including gaming consoles and e-readers, that allow access via the internet to ‘cultural content’.” [CNN]

Yaz Hernández, El Museo del Barrio’s board president, will be stepping down at the end of her term. Hernández was recently named in a discrimination claim by the former director, Margarita Aguilar, who accused Hernández of creating a hostile workplace. The museum has had a rough year with its funding and cutting a fifth of its staff. [Arts Beat]

The Venice Biennale has selected its International Jury to determine the recipients of the Golden and Silver Lion awards. “The jury, which will be led by Jessica Morgan, the Daskalopoulos Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, will also include Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, the chief curator of the 9a. Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre, Brazil and curator for contemporary art at the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in New York and Caracas, Francesco Manacorda, who was recently appointed artistic director of Tate Liverpool, Bisi Silva, founder and director of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria, and Ali Subotnick, curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.” [Gallerist NY]

On Saturday you can take advantage of free museum entry at nearly 180 museums. “… some 180 museums throughout the United States will mark … Art Museum Day — which coincides with International Museum Day — by offering free or reduced admission, along with all sorts of special programing. This year’s edition of the annual celebration, run by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), features the arithmetic thematic “museums (memory + creativity) = social change.” A comprehensive list of institutions marking Art Museum Day this year can be found on the AAMD website, but some notable museums offering free admission on Saturday include Los Angeles’s Getty Museum and the Hammer Museum, Washington, D.C.’s Phillips Collection, Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Jewish Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.” [Artinfo]

Performance art is now more popular than ever. “As museums have embraced more interactive work, contemporary art fairs have shrugged off their trade fair trappings and remarketed themselves as cultural ‘events’ able to hold their own in the visual arts calendar alongside the openings and biennials. Their aim is still to sell art, but their approach has shifted. Established in 2003, Frieze London has blazed the trail, with a full-time curator and an ambitious programme of non-selling installations and performances called Frieze Projects running alongside (and sometimes against) the commercial thrust.” [Financial Times]

Three steel dinosaurs known as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly by artists Jake and Dinos Chapman will be featured in City of London’s outdoor exhibition beginning June 20th. “John Scott, chairman of the City of London Corporation’s arts advisory board said: ‘We’re delighted to bring such fantastic sculptures to the streets and people of the City with the help of our partners from the worlds of both business and art. Art is an essential part of vitality of the City of London, a draw for workers and visitors alike, a major contributing factor in our economic vibrancy and the kernel of the cultural brio of the Square Mile.’” [BBC]

The art market is the perfect place for criminals to launder illegal money. “It is hard to imagine a business more custom-made for money laundering, with million-dollar sales conducted in secrecy and with virtually no oversight. What this means in practical terms is that you can have a transaction where the seller is listed as ‘private collection’ and the buyer is listed as ‘private collection.’” [NY Times]

The controversial Banksy mural that was previously withdrawn from a Miami auction has now reappeared at an auction in London’s Covent Garden. “Slave Labour, a spray-painted artwork depicting a child making union flag bunting and seen as a critical social commentary on last year’s diamond jubilee, disappeared from the wall of a Poundland store in Wood Green, north London, in mysterious circumstances in February. It appeared later that same month for auction in Miami, and was expected to sell for about $700,000 (£460,000). But the work was withdrawn moments before it was due to go under the hammer after protests from Haringey council.” [Guardian]

The 620 chair programme designed by Dieter Rams will be reissued by Vitsoe. “Like Rams’ 606 Universal Shelving System, which the designer also created for Vitsœ, the chair is a highly flexible piece of furniture – one that in this case can be joined with others to become a multi-seat sofa when more chairs are added. Meanwhile, a chair on castors can be transformed into a swivelling chair. We think you’ll agree that these key elements mean that that use of the word ‘programme’ is not quite as pretentious as it may seem on a first uninitiated encounter.” [Phaidon]

620 Chair Programme- designed by Dieter Rams for Vitsoe in 1962. Image via Phaidon.

The New York Times reports that MoMA is rethinking its plans to take down the Folk Art Museum. “AFTER impassioned protests from prominent architects, preservationists and design critics, the Museum of Modern Art said on Thursday that it would reconsider its decision to demolish its next-door neighbor, the former home of the American Folk Art Museum, to make room for an expansion… “We’re going to try to create the best building we can create,” Jerry I. Speyer, the real estate developer and MoMA chairman, said in an interview. “Whether we include Folk Art or not, as is, is an open question.” That question, MoMA said, will be guided by the extension’s architects. “The principals of Diller Scofidio & Renfro have asked that they be given the time and latitude to carefully consider the entirety of the site, including the former American Folk Art Museum building, in devising an architectural solution to the inherent challenges of the project,” said Glenn D. Lowry, MoMA’s director, in a memo sent on Thursday to his trustees and staff. “We readily agreed to consider a range of options, and look forward to seeing their results.” [The New York Times]

A growing number of artists are becoming increasingly upset by the borrowing of their images and ideas, two Houston-based artists have decided to do something about it. “Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, the artists behind the famous 2005 Houston art piece “Inversion” have filed a copyright infringement suit against the Honda Motor Company and commercial directors for using their iconic inverted sculpture in a TV ad for their relaunch of the Honda CR-V.” [Houston Chronicle]

More trouble for the already deeply troubled Knoedler Gallery as news breaks of yet another law suit. “The once-celebrated Knoedler & Company gallery has been closed for more than a year and a half but the lawsuits keep coming. Last week, the philanthropist and former ambassador to Romania, Nicholas F. Taubman, became the sixth former client to sue the gallery in federal court in Manhattan, charging that Knoedler’s former director Ann Freedman duped him into buying a fake painting by Clyfford Still for $4.3 million in 2005.” [The New York Times Arts Beat]

Rain Room opens at MoMA PS1 on Sunday! “Random International’s immersive environment Rain Room (2012), a major component of the MoMA PS1 exhibition EXPO 1: New York, is presented in the lot directly adjacent to The Museum of Modern Art. A field of falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected, Rain Room offers visitors the experience of controlling the rain. Known for their distinctive approach to contemporary digital practice, Random International’s experimental projects come alive through audience interaction—and Rain Room is their largest and most ambitious to date.” [MoMA]

Whether you are excited to see Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby remake or not, there is no denying that the roaring twenties provided us with some beautiful feats or architecture and design. In honor of the film which opens this weekend, Architizer looks at Great Gatsby Architecture! 15 Rip-Roaring Examples Of Art Deco. [Architizer]

Niagara Mohawk Building (1932)
Designed by Melvin L. King and Bley & Lyman
Syracuse, New York
Photo: Fine Art America
via Architizer