– Panel Confirms Market Doesn't Determine Quality: During Art Basel in Hong Kong a debate staged by Intelligence Squared solicited attendees' vote on the proposition "The market is the best judge of art's quality," with 60 percent disagreeing at the beginning of the event, and a whopping 73 voting disagreeing by the end. MOCA Los Angeles director Jeffrey Deitch did his best in the opening remarks for the pro-market camp: "It is a complex open system that encompasses a giant web of information and disinformation and informed and misinformed opinions that influence our perceptions of quality and value." [South China Morning Post]
– Rubens Sketch Found in School Cupboard: A drawing purchased in the 1950s by a Reading University fine-art professor for "about £5 and £10" has turned out to be an authentic Peter Paul Rubens drawing of French Queen Marie de' Medici. "It was very exciting indeed," said Anna Gruetzner Robins, a professor at the university. "A Rubens in the cupboard! It is not what you expect to find." [Guardian]
– Rijksmuseum Uploads Masterpieces: Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has recently posted 125,000 high-resolution images of works from their collection, which includes masterworks by artists such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Mondrian, and van Gogh, on an interactive website called Rijksstudio. The museum plans to add 40,000 images each year so that the one-million-work collection will eventually reside online in its entirety. "We’re a public institution, and so the art and objects we have are, in a way, everyone’s property," said Taco Dibbits, the director of collections at the Rijksmuseum. [NYT]
– Criticism Surrounds Closing of Panama Biennial: It would seem that nearly everything went wrong with the first-ever Panama Biennial, which ends tomorrow, including controversy over the name, friction between the curators, installation problems, and a participating artist’s deportation from the country. The organizers appear to have decided against a second showing with a note on their website yesterday: "The Bienal del Sur in Panama has not authorized any institution, museum, gallery, cultural or artistic entity to convene a second biennial, either in Panama or in another country. Similarly, our organisation is not associated with any similar event where artists are being invited to participate in a second version." [TAN]
– Deal Reached in Munch Museum Mess: After years of squabbling between city politicians, Oslo has settled on a new building for the Munch Museum in the city's center, alongside its recently opened opera house. The new building, dubbed "Lambda," boasting a façade of crooked glass panels, and expected to cost $278 million, will replace the small and relatively inaccessible building that has housed the museum for more than a half-century. The new Munch Museum is due to open in 2018. [AFP]
– Sir John Richardson on Gagosian Gig: A profile of 89-year-old Picasso art historian and consultant to Larry Gagosian, Sir John Richardson, reveals that working with Gagosian isn’t half bad: "Larry respects scholarship, pays nicely, makes it possible for you as an art historian to borrow any work you want. I don’t like half of what he shows but he’s heaven to work for." [FT]
– Park Shows Signs of Gentrification: The New York City artist Kenneth Pietrobono is installing over 30 mock-botanical signs in a small West Village park inscribed with terms from the real estate and gentrification lexicon familiar to so many Manhattanites, like
"(Re)Development," "Class Barrier," and "Displacement." "The attempt is really to try to give an accurate representation of the environment," the artist said of his Jackson Square intervention. "Aligning 'market growth' and 'comfort' with a tree or flower helps to present abstract notions in a neutral way." [DNAinfo]
– Polish Artists Disagree on Presidential Plane Crash: Since the 2010 plane crash that killed Poland's president and nearly 100 of the country's top politicians and military officials, the country's artists have responded differently to accounts of the tragedy. Some, like the filmmaker Antoni Krauze, suspect conspiracy and cover-up, while others, like the street artist Jacek Adamas, are adamant that it was an assassination. "Being an artist involves honesty, and in the current discourse in Polish arts, I’m not allowed to be honest," Adamas said. [NYT]
– Pussy Riot Member on Hunger Strike Hospitalized: Jailed Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina started a hunger strike last week after she was banned from attending a parole hearing. Reports now indicate that she has been moved to a hospital in the prison colony. [BBC]
– RIP Viennese Actionist Otto Muehl: The controversial Austrian artist Otto Muehl, whose visceral performances — or "actions" — typically involved sex, blood, other assorted bodily fluids, and multiple arrests, died on Sunday at age 87. He founded a pair of artists' communes in the 1970s, and was eventually arrested for activities conducted thereupon, including rape and indecency with minors, serving six years in jail. [Austrian Independent]
ALSO ON ARTINFO
Dallas-Based Heritage Auctions Expands in NYC
Anselm Reyle on Curating Students at Takashi Murakami's Berlin Space
PLANET ART: 7 Great Shows From Around the World, May 2013
Frieze London Slims Down, Focuses on an Audience of "Professionals"
For breaking news throughout the day, check our blog IN THE AIR.