– NYC Mayoral Candidate Flip-Flops on Anti-Art Record: When Joe Lhota was Rudy Giuliani's deputy mayor he led a public crusade against the Brooklyn Museum for exhibiting "The Holy Virgin Mary," a Chris Ofili painting whose materials include elephant dung and collage elements from pornographic magazines, as part of its 1999 exhibition "Sensation," a conflict that later resulted in a lawsuit between Giuliani and the museum. But the Republican candidate for mayor now regrets that dispute — despite maintaining that he did not regret it just over a month ago. "Do I regret doing it? Yeah, I regret doing it. And I regret how embarrassing it was at the time," he said at a forum for mayoral candidates yesterday. "I still in my heart of hearts, I hate that people's religions are desecrated." [Daily News]
– Dealers Embroiled in Could-Be Caravaggio Feud: After the Upper East Side gallerist Jack Tanzer died in 1983, his friend and fellow art dealer Warren Adelson carried on his two-decade quest to prove that a painting he'd bought on the cheap was in fact a long-lost Caravaggio, but eight years and $500,000 later Tanzer's son Edward Tanzer says the authentication quest has got to stop. "The efforts and finances expended by Adelson to authenticate the painting have not been reasonable and have caused the continuing postponement of the distribution of the estate," Tanzer wrote in a court filing. "[Adelson] believes that achieving such attribution of ownership will produce such a substantial benefit to all persons interested that the expense will be more than justified." [DNAinfo]
– Restoration of Freud's Couch Crowd-Funded: The Freud Museum in London apparently can't afford the £5,000 it needs to restore the therapy couch of legendary psychoanalyst — and Surrealist muse — Sigmund Freud, which was given to him by one of his patients, Mrs. Benvenisti, around 1890 in Vienna, so it has launched a public campaign to raise funds for the repairs. The couch, which hosted many of his most famous patients — including Isa Bauer, Ernst Lanzer, and Sergueï Pankejeff— "is probably the best-known piece of furniture in the world," according to Freud Museum director Dawn Kemp. [Le Figaro]
– Dutch Dismiss Nazi Loot Claim: The Netherlands' Dutch Restitutions Committee, which processes requests pertaining to the repatriation of artworks with dubious provenance, has turned down the claims filed by the grandchildren of a close friend of Jewish industrialist Richard Semmel on a pair of Old Master paintings they say were sold under duress in 1933 after the Berlin-based businessman fled the Nazis. The committee said the claimants' attachment to the works "carries less weight" than that of the museums where they now hang. "These grandchildren are not related to Richard Semmel, never knew him and have no recollections of the paintings," the committee said in a statement. [Bloomberg]
– Munich Museum Opens Norman Foster Pavilion: The Lenbachhaus Museum in Munich reopened today after being closed since 2009, when it began a $77.7-million renovation of its Tuscan villa-style home, which was formerly the residence of artist Franz von Lenbach. The renovation's major addition, a new entrance pavilion designed by Norman Foster, will greet the institution's near half-million annual visitors, who come to see the Lenbachhaus's prized collection of works by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and fellow members of the pioneering Expressionist faction known as the Blue Rider group. [Bloomberg]
– Collector Unveils Major Museum Plan in the Rockies: The Canadian collector Michael Audain has revealed architectural plans for a museum to exhibit his holdings in Whistler — Canada's Aspen — a 55,000-square-foot, low, L-shaped, $30-million building designed by John Patkau that both the patron and designer promise will blend into its majestic natural surroundings, despite having nearly doubled in size since the initial proposal was approved. "Our architect showed us where he would eventually build or design an addition for us and I thought, well, it probably makes sense to build the addition right away because it would be so expensive to do it later, so we may as well do it now," Audain said. "I think it’s still a pretty nice building that fits right into the lovely spruce forest." [Globe and Mail]
– Sotheby's Selling Artists' Letters: Today Sotheby's New York will auction off a set of blue-chip artists' less well-known works: their letters, whose margins, backs, and paragraphs are dotted with drawings, ranging from a trio of prunes Edouard Manet drew on a postcard in 1880 to a grim sketch of a black cat from a letter Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo four days before he committed suicide. In a piece of Paul Gauguin's correspondence from 1984 included in the sale, which was addressed to one of his patrons, the artist apologizes for his compulsive doodling: "Excuse the barbarism of this little picture. Certain dispositions of my spirit are probably the cause." [Telegraph]
– Katarina Burin Takes Boston ICA's Prize: The conceptual artist and Harvard faculty member Katarina Burin has won the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston's 2013 James and Audrey Foster Prize, a $25,000 biennial award given to a local artist. Burin's winning installation features architectural sketches, models, and furniture designs by a fictional Czech architect. "Her ambition was incredible, to create this atmosphere of these fictitious characters," said MIT List Visual Arts Center director and Foster Prize jury member Paul Ha. "And just as an exhibition, it really shined. I think there is that moment where the viewer discovers, ‘Oh my goodness, this is a fictional character’ and you go beyond that and end up looking at the objects just like any other exhibition." [Boston Globe]
– Will Field Museum Be Put Out to Pasture?: Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, regarded by many as one of the foremost research museums in the country, is facing millions of dollars in bond debt after issuing bonds in 2002 to help fund an underground expansion and renovation and then seeing its endowment shrink dramatically during the financial crisis. "If you think you've got to cross the street to get to the restaurant on the other side, and you get run over by a car you think — why did I ever want to go to that restaurant?" said Field Museum CEO Richard Lariviere. "And we've been hit by a car like every other institution… At the time that those bonds were issued, all the smart people were doing that and no one could have anticipated what would happen in 2002 and then again in 2008." [NPR]
– China's First Climate Change Art Show: Cape Farewell, an arts organization with an eye towards raising awareness about climate change through art by sending artists on expeditions to at-risk regions, is making its debut in China with "U-n-f-o-l-d," a show of works by 25 artists who participated in excursions to the High Arctic and the Andes. The exhibition, including works by Francesca Galeazzi, Nathan Gallagher, Clare Twoney, Adriane Colburn, and more, will be on view at Beijing's CAFA Art Museum and then at Nanjing University of the Arts. [Press Release]
ALSO ON ARTINFO
Madonna Sells, LL Cool J Looks On at Sotheby's $230-Million Imp-Mod Sale
Operatic Art Happening Revs Up Continued Sandy Recovery Efforts in Red Hook
Georg Baselitz's Villa Raided in German Tax Evasion Investigation
Postmasters Is Moving to Tribeca, Ceding 19th Street Space to Leo Koenig
The Great, the Good, the OK, the Bad: A Met Gala Red Carpet Rundown [VIDEO]
Will Travolta Forge a Meaningful Relationship With Renoir's "Woman at the Piano"?
For breaking news throughout the day, check our blog IN THE AIR.