— In her three-part series on patronage in the Los Angeles art world, Yasmine Mohseni investigated the city’s nascent culture of philanthropic giving, the increasingly glamorous role of the museum directors like LACMA’s Michael Govan, and Hollywood’s ambivalent support of the arts.
— Julia Halperin visisted the Dallas Art Museum, which hopes to attract new visitors with free admission, interactive scanning cards, and a free-wheeling new ethos.
— Rozalia Jovanovic previewed the supersized offerings to be shown in Art Basel’s Unlimited Sector, the section of the fair devoted to monumental artworks.
— Juddy Tully investigated the provenance of Leonard Lauder’s billion dollar collection of Cubist art, which was gifted to the Metropolitan Museum last week.
— Playwright Howard Brenton spoke to Samantha Tse about his new play on the arrest and detention of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei.
— It's gala season, and ARTINFO surveyed the swanky scenes at the Whitney American Art Awards and the Art Production Fund Gala.
— Teamsters gathered at City Hall to protest Frieze New York's use of non-union carpenters and art-handlers. The fair is slated to return to New York in May.
— William Hamilton spotted a trend for 20th-century Italian design.
—Second-tier auction houses are capitalizing on the hot market for gems. Ettagale Blauer investigated how upsurge of jewelry offerings is transforming jewelry auctions.
—At the recent Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, Janelle Zaraspoke to Elena Baturina, the billionaire founder Be Open, a design-oriented think tank that seeks to unlock the sixth sense through interdisciplinary research.