Art News From Art Basel Miami Beach and Around the World

With the art world converging on Miami for a week full of (largely successful) fairs, it's easy to forget everything else that was going on. Though South Florida may been the center of the art universe for the past few days, there was other important news from all over the world that broke this past week, including a number of announced award recipients, and major galleries making new additions. To keep you up to date, we've put together a roundup of those and other important stories from Miami and beyond.

— QUOTE OF THE WEEK —

"I have to say normally I look around the fair a good deal, but I haven't been able to because it's so lively." — dealer Paul Kasmin on the activity at Art Basel Miami Beach.

— ART MARKET —

Kasmin Adds Another — Turkish painter Taner Ceylan is the newest addition to Paul Kasmin Gallery’s stable of artists. Along with bringing one of Ceylan’s provocative, hyperrealist works from his “Lost Paintings” series to Art Basel Miami Beach, the Manhattan gallery will also be presenting a show of the entire series in the fall of 2013. (The Art Newspaper)

From Larry to David — In perhaps some of the most stunning news of the weekend, art world superstar Jeff Koons will reportedly be swapping sponsorship at one blue-chip gallery for another, jumping ship from his longtime gallery rep Gagosian to have a show with David Zwirner in 2013. At the moment, however, his partnership with Larry Gagosian is still going strong; a large wooden sculpture by Koons of Buster Keaton, which was on view at Gagosian's Art Basel Miami Beach booth, was allegedly purchased for over $5 million by collector Eli Broad. (NY Post)

Raphael Sets New Record — The Renaissance painter's Head of a Young Apostle sold for £29.7 million ($47.8 million) last week, doubling its £10-15m pre-sale estimate and setting a new auction record for the artist. (The Art Newspaper)
 

— IN & OUT —

MBA and MBR for ABMB —Collector Maria Baibakova stops by artist Matthew Brannon’s studio to talk with him (in the rare interviewer/interviwee identical-initials situation) about cultural consumption, how he wants his art to go down, and the role of anxiety in contemporary society. (Art Basel Miami Beach Magazine)

Knight to the Rescue —Following a recent $19 million investment in the Detroit arts scene, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has announced that it will be providing $23 million in new funding for the cultural community in South Florida, over half of which will go to cultural institutions, including the Miami City Ballet and the Wolfsonian-FIU museum. (GalleristNY)

The Art Show Turns 25 —Celebrating its quarter-centennial as one of the country’s leading fine art fairs, the Art Show will be holding its annual event at the Park Avenue Armory from March 6–10th, featuring 72 of the nation’s leading galleries. There will also be a ticketed gala preview to benefit the Henry Street Settlement on March 5th, hosted by the Art Dealers Association of America, which will also be celebrating its 50th anniversary. (GalleristNY)

New Curator in Tuscany — Monteverdi Tuscany gallery, owned by Michael Cioff, has appointed Sarah McCrory, the artistic director of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts and the former curator of the Frieze Foundation, to be in charge of its gallery programming and artist-in-residence program. (Press Release)

Prehistoric Painters Had a Leg Up — According to a study released by the Department of Biological Physics at Eotvos Univserity in Budapest, based on the observation of over 1,000 prehistoric and modern artworks, our ancestor cave painters were better at accurately depicting the movement of four-legged animals than present day artists. (Artinfo)

Bienniale Bulks Up — Adding to its already impressive list of exhibiting artists, the Venice Biennale announced that installation artist Alfredo Jaar will represent the country of Chile next year at the fair’s 55th iteration. (Gallerist NY)

New Curator for Pompidou — Completing its search for a new adjunct curator, the Pompidou Center in Paris has hired Sylvia Chivaratanond, who has worked on curatorial projects at the Tate and the Walker Art Center, to keep its Paris curators updated on the contemporary art scene in New York. (NY Times)

Street Artist Adds Wall to Holiday Card — The renowned British street artist Bansky recently released his newest Christmas card, which features the Biblical figures of Joseph and Mary blocked in their journey by the Israeli West Bank barrier. Banksy is no stranger to the Middle Eastern conflict; during a 2005 trip to Palestine, the street artist painted nine murals directly onto the controversial barrier, though none of those works appear in the current Christmas card. (Artinfo)

Lee Wins Artadia Prize — New York-based nonprofit Artadia announced Margaret Lee as the first ever winner of its NADA award, bestowing her with a $4,000 unrestricted grant. Ms. Lee’s work is currently featured in the group show “New Pictures of Common Objects,” on view at MoMA PS1 through the end of the year. (Artinfo)

Aspen Art Awards Brooklyn Artist — Sculptor Teresita Fernández was announced as the winner of the Aspen Art Museum’s 2013 Aspen Award for Art. Represented by Lehmann Maupin, Fernández was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation“Genius Fellowship” in 2005, and a recent member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. (Gallerist NY)

Magazine Launches Own Fair — The Italian magazine Flash Art will be heading up its own art fair, which will feature 80 different dealers each presenting their own solo show or curatorial project. It will run in Milan from February 7-10 and, according to the fair’s organizers, will be an opportunity “to discover an emerging artist or rediscover an artist of the past.” (The Financial Times)

Rudin Prize Finds First Winner — Los Angeles-based photographer Analia Saban was announced by the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach last Tuesday as the recipient of the inaugural Rudin Prize for emerging photography. (Gallerist NY)

Games Gaining Ground — Video games have been making serious inroads into the discussion as serious art recently, with the Museum of Modern Art acquiring 14 classic video games for its permanent collection, among them old favorites like Tetris and Pac-Man. Now an 11,000-square-foot video game research and design lab, LA Game Space, has opened in the heart of Los Angeles arts district. (Hyperallergic)

Hope Diamond Has Competition — All that glitters was not solely confined to Miami last week, as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., unveiled a 10,363-carat aquamarine obelisk on Thursday, which is said to rival its neighbor, the Hope Diamond, in both rarity and purity. The gem, named the Dom Pedro, is ten times larger than the world’s next largest aquamarine. (Artinfo)

Hand-Folled Art Initiative — The Basel-based cigar manufacturing Oettinger Davidoff Group recently partnered with the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York and the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin to create the Davidoff Art Initiative, which will bring five international artists to start residencies in the Dominican Republic, where the Davidoff cigars are hand-rolled, and send five Dominican artists to art capitals across the world. (Artinfo)