– Museums Riding the Bike Trend: At institutions across the United States the new trend is special programs catering to art-loving cyclists. These range from "bike nights" at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and and the Hammer Museum, to entire exhibitions devoted to bicycles at the Portland Art Museum — which not only opened "Cyclepedia: Iconic Bicycle Design" but also hosted the city's chapter of the World Naked Bike Ride— and New York's Museum of Arts & Design, which unleashed "Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle" in 2010. "Art museums that have design departments can really tackle bicycles full-speed and frontally," Paola Antonelli, the Museum of Modern Art's senior curator of architecture and design, says. “It’s a phenomenon of social living that’s really exploding." [ARTnews]
– Turrell Uncovered in Malibu: James Turrell really is turning up everywhere this summer — even in the guesthouse of Malibu resident Tobey Cotsen. After visiting Turrell’s exhibition at LACMA, Cotsen felt the celebrated Light and Space artist's work looked similar to a green-colored recess in a home she purchased from neighbor and art collector Sydney Goldfarb. The Turrell studio confirmed that the recess, which Cotsen had been using for storage, was indeed a Turrell piece formerly purchased by Goldfarb. "I called the handyman and asked him to clean out the space," recounts Cotsen. [WSJ]
– Krugier Sale Promises to Be Blockbuster: On November 4 Christie's will hold a special sale of select works from the collection of late dealer Jan Krugier, as well as from the inventory of his famed Geneva gallery. The auction is expected to fetch over $160 million, with star lots including Picasso's study for a public sculpture in Chicago that has a $25-$35 million pre-sale estimate, and a 1911 Kandinsky landscape expected to go for between $20-$25 million. "This painting represents a world he loved, one that falls between the figurative into the abstract," said Christie's Imp-mod specialist Conor Jordan. [NYT]
– Vatican Sends Its Native-American Sculpture on Tour: The Vatican Museums own a large collection of works by German artist Ferdinand Pettrich, known for his life-like depictions of Native Americans, created as a protest against their treatment by the U.S. government in the mid-19th century. Now they are being touched up and sent on a world tour, billed as the world's "first monument against genocide":
– Art Seized From Former President: South Korean authorities have seized several paintings, including works by Cheon Kyoung-ja, Francis Bacon, and Mauro Staccioli, from former dictator and president Chun Doo-hwan and his family. Apparently he owes the state some $195 million. [Yonhap News]
– Art Crime Class Is in Session: For art crime fans, Southern Methodist University is the place to be this fall. Retired art crime specialists from the FBI and Scotland Yard will be teaching a class titled "The World of Art and the Fine Art of Crime." [Artdaily]
– Picasso Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné Planned: Picasso’s "determined" granddaughter Diana Widmaier-Picasso is working on a catalogue raisonné of his 2,000 sculptures, the first volume of which will coincide with a major show at the Grand Palais. [WSJ]
– Mega-Collectors Buy Mega-Condos: Both Aby Rosen and Alberto Mugrabi have purchased condos in the yet-to-be-completed Schumacher NYC in downtown Manhatten. In fact, Mugrabi bought two units, for $11 million and nearly $10 million, respectively. The WSJ takes a look at the spaces where they will be presumably hanging their famous art collections:
– The New York-based non-profit ArtTable, which is devoted to the advancement of professional women in the visual arts, has hired Ada Ciniglio as its new executive director. [Press Release]
– Photographer Gus Foster will gift his personal collection of 341 artworks — including pieces by Ken Price, Lynda Benglis, Vija Celmins, and more — to the University of New Mexico's Harwood Museum of Art. [The Taos News]
– MoMA is planning the first posthumous retrospective devoted to Sigmar Polke, "Alibis," which will feature some 300 works spanning 1963-2010 and run April 19-August 3, 2014, before traveling to Tate Modern and the Ludwig Museum. [Press Release]
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