January 25 | Grisha Bruskin, Sasha Pirogova, and the Recycle Group will represent Russia at 2017 Venice Biennale

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Russia announces an exciting selection of artists for the Venice Biennale, Blouin Media is having money troubles, and the Whitney welcomes two new assistant curators.

Venice Biennale

The Russian Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale will feature artists Grisha Bruskin, Sasha Pirogova, and the Recycle Group’s Georgy Kuznetsov and Andrei Blokhin.

The organizer of the pavilion, Semyon Mikhailovsky, originally wished to showcase only young, emerging artists, showing work by Pirogova and the Recycle Group, but decided to include Bruskin in order to give a fuller picture of Russia’s contemporary art scene. Bruskin’s paintings and prints look to Russia’s past, alluding to its icon painting tradition and to supremacism. Pirogova explores the role of movement in her work, while the Recycle Group — as its name suggest — looks at the excesses of modern society and the dangers they entail. Read more on ARTnews.

 

Absolut Art Award announces shortlisted artists and writers for its 2017 edition

The jury of the Absolut Art Award, led by Daniel Birnbaum, has revealed the names of the shortlisted artists for the two categories of the prize — “Art Work” and “Art Writing”.

The winners will be announced on May 12 on the occasion of the Venice Biennale, whilst the award ceremony, which is set to take place in Stockholm in September. The shortlisted artists, curators and authors will be asked to draw up plans for a new artwork, project, or publication before the announcement of the winners — who will receive the funds to support production. The winner of the Art Work category will receive a cash prize of €20,000 as well as €100,000 toward the production of their work, whilst the winner of the Art Writing award will receive a €25,000 production fund as well as a cash prize of €20,000. Read more on ARTnews.

Art Work

Simon Denny

Anne Imhof — who is representing Germany at the 2017 Venice Biennale

Shahryar Nashat

Cameron Rowland

Anicka Yi — winner of the 2016 edition of the Hugo Boss Prize

Samson Young — who is also representing Hong Kong at the 2017 Venice Biennale

Art Writing

Huey Copeland

Johanna Fateman

Orit Gat

Isabelle Graw

Shanay Jhaveri

 

Financial mess for Blouin Media

The art house publisher Louise Blouin Media appears to be experiencing yet another rough financial patch.

The editors of Art & Auction and Modern Painters — two magazines owned by Blouin Media — were made redundant two weeks ago in a significant corporate downsizing. Some remaining employees reported that their pay cheques, which they had been given on January 13 and instructed not to cash until January 16, had bounced. Referring to the company’s founder Louise Blouin, an insider commented: “The Queen is spending her time fixating on this delusional BlouinShop, which she says will save the company and make everyone (her) rich.” Blouin began running ads for the e-commerce site in its magazines late last year, however the site still hasn’t materialized. The New York Post has the full story.


Image of Louise Blouin via richestnetworth.org

 

The Whitney makes some additions

The Whitney Museum in New York has hired two assistant curators, Marcela Guerrero and Rujeko Hockley, who will start officially on April 25 and March 6 respectively.

Guerrero worked as a curatorial fellow at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, prior to which she was research coordinator for the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Hockley joins the Whitney from the Brooklyn Museum, where she was assistant curator of contemporary art and was involved with exhibitions of work by LaToya Ruby Frazier and Tom Sachs among others. Further details via ARTnews.

 

Invaluable goes from strength to strength

Invaluable, the world’s leading online marketplace for fine art, antiques and collectibles, announced today announced that the company delivered strong auction revenue results in 2016, and added more than 750 new auction houses and art galleries to its marketplace.

Fine Art continues to be the company’s strongest category, with sales increasing 32% year over year. Auction houses that Invaluable added to its online marketplace in 2016 included leading sellers such as Sotheby’s, Phillips, Coys, Vanderkindere and Worldwide Auctioneers. The company’s CEO Rob Weisberg said: “Invaluable is a unique and advantageous position to capitalize on the art market upswing and we feel very optimistic about 2017.” More information on artdaily.