January 12 | Frieze announces 2017 exhibitor list

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Frieze announces its 2017 exhibitors, New York’s High Line gets a permanent public art fixture and businessman Guy Wildenstein escapes criminal conviction.

Fairs

Frieze New York has revealed its exhibitor list for 2017.

More than 190 galleries will participate in this year’s edition of the fair, which will open on May 5 on Randall’s Island. Some of the first-time exhibitors include Proyectos Ultravioleta from Guatemala City and New York galleries Bridget Donahue and On Stellar Rays. Frieze’s Spotlight section — which runstyy alongside the main exhibitor section and focuses on art historical movements after 1960 — will return to the fair this year. It will be curated by Toby Kamps, the Menil Collection’s curator of modern and contemporary art. Jacob Proctor and Fabian Schöneich will lead the Frame section, which hosts work by emerging artists. More information via ARTnews. See the full list of exhibitors below.


 

New business move for Artnet

The fine art trading and information platform Artnet has acquired Artlist.

Founded by French trio Maxime Germain, Astrid de Maismont, and Kenneth Schlenker, Artlist is an online sales company that organized private and public sales via its website. Activity on the site, which had about 9,000 users, has stopped for several months now. Artnet’s CEO Jacob Pabst said of the decision: “It was a natural choice to acquire ArtList as part of our ever-evolving trajectory to push these boundaries and expand the possibilities in the international art market.” Schlenker and de Maismont will both join Artnet’s staff full-time, while Germain will run his own newly-created company, Stellar Base, which help startups to expand. More on the Observer.

 

Sale of Lichtenstein’s Masterpiece

It has been rumoured in the Baer Faxt that Roy Lichtenstein’s 1962 painting Masterpiece — one of the most famous works of American pop art — has been sold for $150 million from the collection of Agnes Gund. Gund has declined to comment, but the buyer in question is suspected to be legendary billionaire investor Steven Cohen. The sale may be part of Gund’s lifetime philanthropy strategy.

 


 

Permanent plinth for the High Line

Aping the highly successful initiative in London’s Trafalgar Square, the High Line in New York will now have its own permanent plinth for contemporary art.

Located above 30th Street and 10th Avenue on one of the final sections of the High Line — which is increasingly becoming known for its displays of public art — the plinth will welcome new international sculpture commissions. The plinth is expected to open sometime in 2018 and is likely to change in size according to the artwork on display. The plinth will be installed so as to create a surrounding plaza planted with trees. Cecilia Alemani, the director and chief curator of High Line Art, said: “It’s almost like a jungle. It’s like you leave the city for a while and go somewhere else.” The New York Times has the full story.
 

 

Wildenstein gets away scot-free

The businessman and art dealer Guy Wildenstein, who on May 15 2015 was suspected of “deliberately and fraudulently evading” taxes on his father’s estate, has now been cleared of all tax fraud charges by the French court.

The judge, Olivier Géron, said there was a “clear attempt” by Wildenstein and several co-defendants to conceal art treasures worth hundreds of millions of euros from tax authorities. Shortcomings in the investigation and loopholes in French tax law, however, made it impossible to return a guilty verdict. Further details on Art Market Monitor.